In the wake of a racist mass shooting that left ten dead in Buffalo, New York, the US House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday night to add federal resources to the fight against domestic terrorism.
The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security agree that “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” are the top domestic threat facing the United States, and Wednesday’s vote to address it seemed like the kind of thing that would have significant bipartisan support.
However, 203 Republicans voted against it. Among the “no” votes was Pennsylvania Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), but what makes his vote remarkable is that he is also a co-sponsor of the bill. He put his name on it, and then he voted it down.
Fitzpatrick’s opponent, US Army Veteran and Apache helicopter pilot Ashley Ehasz is accusing him of “playing DC parlor tricks.”
Fitzpatrick is a former FBI agent who labels himself as a “fiercely independent voice,” but he has a long history of changing stances based on political expediency.
“He’s two-timing us,” Ehasz claims, and her claims appear to have some merit.
In Fitzpatrick’s three terms, he has reversed himself on the January 6 insurrection, first calling it “nothing short of a coup attempt” but then, under pressure from party leadership, voting against Trump’s second impeachment.
He also stood silent when Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania in which he called the FBI – Fitzpatrick’s former colleagues – “spies” and “scum” while they were investigating numerous connections between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence.
And now that Fitzpatrick has turned his back on a domestic terrorism bill that he sponsored, in the wake of yet another attack by an assault rifle-toting white supremacist, the whole “independent voice” facade appears to be cracking.
Brett Pransky Brett Pransky is a Pennsylvania born writer, political analyst, and media producer with graduate degrees in Rhetoric and Business and a sharp disdain for deception or spin.
