参议员罗伊·布朗特。周日承认，前总统唐纳德·特朗普应该回来政府称他带回家的敏感和机密文件这导致联邦调查局在本月早些时候突袭了Mar-a-Lago。
在美国广播公司(ABC)的“本周”(This Week)采访中，布伦特在回答一个关于他对司法部称特朗普所做的事情有何看法的问题之前，多次受到主持人乔治·斯特凡诺普洛斯(George Stephanopoulos)的压力。
起初，在回答斯特凡诺普洛斯的问题时，布朗特将希拉里和前联邦调查局局长詹姆斯·科米与他们过去的记录行为相提并论。
但是斯特凡诺普洛斯反驳说，这是不一样的。
“你还是没有回答这个问题。你对克林顿国务卿持批评态度，她实际上交出了她所拥有的……我们现在的情况是，总统没有交出这些文件，”斯特凡诺普洛斯说。"你能说这是对还是错吗?"
“他应该交出文件，”布朗特说。“我能接触到这样的文件已经很久了。我非常小心，”他说。
但是他对调查的时间提出异议。
“我想知道的是，为什么这种情况会持续近两年，而且离大选还有不到100天，而我们突然开始谈论这个问题，而不是我们今天要谈论的经济、通货膨胀甚至学生贷款计划?”他说。
“嗯，事情继续下去是因为总统没有交出文件，对吗?他被问了好几次，”斯特凡诺普洛斯说。“他没有把它们翻过来。他收到了传票，但他没有回应传票。”
“我知道他交出了很多文件，”布朗特在谈到特朗普时说道，他似乎指的是在联邦调查局搜查前几个月，经过漫长的来回折腾后，归还给政府的机密文件。
Sen. Roy Blunt listens during a news conference on Aug.2, 2022 in Washington, D.C.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images，文件
“他应该把它们都交出来，”布朗特说。"我想他现在很清楚这一点了。"
但这位密苏里州议员还表示，他所在的参议院情报委员会有一些问题需要联邦调查人员的回答，比如为什么他们不知道这个案件。
“如果存在国家安全问题，为什么我们没有听说过这件事?”布伦特说，并补充说，“监督委员会应该被告知。”他说，委员会希望很快收到国家情报总监的消息。
布朗特也被问及反应乔·拜登总统的联邦学生贷款免除计划适用于2020年或2021年年收入低于12.5万美元的借款人。白宫官员上周告诉记者，他们认为“4300万联邦学生贷款借款人将受益，其中2000万人的债务将被完全取消。”
“我只是觉得这非常不公平，”布朗特说。“对那些因为认为自己负担不起而没有上大学的人不公平，对那些已经还了贷款的人不公平。”
“这只是糟糕的经济学，对学生贷款计划有着长期的破坏性影响，”他补充道。
白宫的贷款豁免计划遭到了共和党议员的强烈反对，他们认为，在一定程度上，这将加剧历史高位的通货膨胀。
但是“大多数经济学家说这不会增加通货膨胀，”Stephanopoulos说。一高盛上周的分析得出了这样的结论，发现其他贷款支付的重新开始可能会抵消被免除的钱。
“大多数经济学家都错了，”布朗特回应道。“我们必须尽一切努力减缓经济增长。你不能通过免除债务和给人们额外的240亿美元来减缓经济增长，这些钱他们本可以用来偿还学生债务。”
Trump should have returned documents, but Congress has questions for investigators: Sen. Blunt
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., conceded on Sunday that former President Donald Trump should have returnedthe sensitive and classified documents that the government says he took homewith him after leaving office, which led the FBI to raid Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.
In an interview on ABC's "This Week," Blunt was repeatedly pressed by anchor George Stephanopoulos before he answered a question about how he felt about what the Department of Justice said Trump did.
Initially responding to Stephanopoulos’ question, Blunt drew comparisons to Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey for their past conduct related to records.
But Stephanopoulos pushed back, noting that it wasn't the same.
“You’re still not answering the question. You are critical of Secretary Clinton, who actually turned over what she had … what we have here is a situation where the president did not turn over these documents,” Stephanopoulos said. “Can you say whether this was right or wrong?”
“He should have turned the documents over,” said Blunt. "I’ve had access to documents like that for a long time. I’m incredibly careful," he said.
But he took issue with the timing of the probe.
"What I wonder about is why this could go on for almost two years and less than 100 days before the election [and] suddenly we're talking about this rather than the economy or inflation or even the student loan program you and I were going to talk about today?" he said.
"Well, it went on because the president didn't turn over the documents, correct? He was asked several times," Stephanopoulos said. "He didn't turn them over. He was subpoenaed, he didn’t respond to the subpoena."
“I understand he turned over a lot of documents,” Blunt claimed of Trump, seemingly referring to classified papers that were returned to the government in the months before the FBI search, after a protracted back-and-forth.
“He should have turned over all of them," Blunt said. "I imagine he knows that very well now.”
But the Missouri lawmaker also said that the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which he sits, had questions that needed answers from federal investigators -- such as why they weren't aware of this case.
"Why haven't we heard anything about this if there was a national security problem?" Blunt said, adding, "The oversight committee should have been told." He said that the committee expects to soon hear from the director of national intelligence.
Blunt was also asked to reactto President Joe Biden's federal student loan forgiveness planfor borrowers earning less than $125,000 per year in 2020 or 2021. White House officials told reporters last week that they believe “43 million federal student loan borrowers will benefit, and of those, 20 million will have their debt completely canceled.”
“I just thought it was monumentally unfair,” Blunt said. “Unfair to people who didn’t go to college because they didn't think they could afford it, unfair to people who have paid their loans back.”
“It’s just bad economics, with long-term devastating effects on the student loan program,” he added.
The White House's loan forgiveness program has faced vocal opposition from Republican lawmakers who argue, in part, that it will exacerbate historically high inflation.
But “most economists said it's not going to increase inflation,'' Stephanopoulos said. Ananalysis last week by Goldman Sachsreached such a conclusion, finding that the restart of other loan payments would likely offset the money forgiven.
“Most economists are wrong,” Blunt responded. “We’ve got to do everything we can to slow the economy down. You don’t slow the economy down by forgiving debt and giving people another $24 billion to spend that they would have spent paying off the student debt.”
