CNN rolls tape of Trump energy secretary appearing to lie to Congress

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright may have lied to Congress about the role politics played in cancelling energy grants to Democratic states, according to a CNN supercut that aired Friday.

CNN’s Victor Blackwell rolled the tape after lawyers for the Trump administration admitted in a July 15 court filing that “the inclusion of grants in the October notice was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient state, i.e., whether the recipients location was in a blue state or a non blue state.”

“But that is not what the energy secretary said to Congress a few months ago,” Blackwell noted.

The host then played a clip of Wright speaking with the House Appropriations Committee. In that April 15 meeting, Wright insisted “our project review process did not take into account any politics in the evaluation of these projects.”

Rep. Rosa Delauro (D-CT) took immediate issue with Wright’s claim during that hearing, telling the energy secretary “the district court this January found that this violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law.”

Republican strategist Melik Abdul was quick to condemn the Trump administration for politicizing aid.

“This is just unacceptable,” Abdul said. “And I think the White House knows this. I was actually surprised that it's something that they owned up to. I guess maybe they didn't have a choice since it was in court, they really didn't have a choice. But this is something that no one should support at all.”

Abdul went on to shame the administration for “doing it for political reasons and admitting you're doing it for political reasons.”

“I just don't know how you can defend it,” Abdul added.

Former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams agreed, noting that while the Trump administration “had no choice” but to admit to the political nature of their grant decisions “because they were in court … they are [also] shameless about their behavior.”

“And I think you've seen the president in the White House just acting with impunity on things like this, thinking that it's politically popular with their base and that they can string things out in the courts long enough and just to make it go away,” Williams added.

The former federal prosecutor noted if Democrats take the House of Representatives in the fall, “this is precisely the kind of thing that would get congressional oversight in the form of hearings or letters or investigations or whatever else.”

“I also think just the big one that dogs the Trump administration and so many things is process,” Williams added. "Did they properly follow the process that the law lays out in canceling grants? And they can be sued over that as well. And so we have not seen the end of this story in the courts. But like so many other things, the political question, as much as it's a legal one.”