:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/LI7HDFQ245FJDKX4HMKNNEMWMI.jpg?ssl=1 "Alaska’s congressional delegation split on President Trump’s executive orders, Jan. 6 and his nominees")
Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation welcomed President Donald Trump’s executive orders that were intended to boost resource development in Alaska. But the delegation has been divided on other actions Trump has taken since returning to the White House.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski spoke to the Daily News on Thursday from Washington, D.C., about Trump’s executive orders, Jan. 6 and his Cabinet picks.
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III responded to several questions through prepared statements.
Jan. 6
Murkowski was alone among Alaska’s three-member congressional delegation in stridently opposing Trump’s blanket pardons of hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, including some who assaulted law enforcement officers.
“When someone attacks, assaults, beats, violates a police officer, it shouldn’t make any difference what day of the year that took place,” she said in a phone interview. “It is a criminal act, and it should be charged and prosecuted as such.”
Over 100 Capitol police officers were injured in the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol after Trump lost the 2020 election.
Murkowski said that she recently spoke to a Capitol police officer who quietly thanked her for her recent statement of support on social media.
Sullivan said through a statement that Trump had promised “many times” on the campaign trail that he would pardon the Jan. 6 defendants.
He said that stood in contrast to former President Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons for his family members, and his commutations for murderers on death row.
Sullivan, a former Alaska attorney general, said he didn’t know the details of the roughly 1,600 cases related to the attack on the Capitol, and he declined to comment on “the specifics.”
”In general, however, as I have said since January 6 — and as Vice President Vance said as recently as last week — if someone committed acts of violence against law enforcement officers, they should be held accountable,” he said.
In an emailed statement, U.S. Rep. Nick Begich said on Thursday that Trump acted within his constitutional authority to issue the Jan. 6 pardons.
He also criticized Biden’s actions to pardon family members, but did not directly respond to a question on the appropriateness of erasing sentences for people who assaulted police officers.
”During the years of enduring Democrat calls to defund the police, Republicans stood firm with law enforcement and ‘backed the blue.’ My strong support for law enforcement will not change,” he said.
Executive orders
Since his inauguration on Monday, Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders, including one entitled, “Unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential.”
The sweeping Alaska-focused order is intended to boost energy production on the North Slope, reverse logging restrictions in the Tongass National Forest, and to support building a long-sought road between King Cove and Cold Bay — among other impacts.
”I think it’s exciting in many, many, many ways,” Murkowski said.
She said that the executive order would be “enormously helpful” as the state worked to access more of its mineral and timber resources.
Fellow Republican political leaders — Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Sullivan and Begich — were similarly enthusiastic about Trump’s plans to boost mining and oil and gas development in Alaska.
Trump on Monday ordered for North America’s highest peak — Denali — to be renamed McKinley. Murkowski was strongly opposed to that name change, but Sullivan, Begich and Dunleavy were more ambivalent.
She said Alaskans were “buzzing“ about the mountain’s name-change back to McKinley.
But on Trump’s other executive orders, Murkowski was more cautious.
She said the orders were “broad and far reaching” — related to a wide array of subjects like energy, the environment, and border security.
People would initially be very excited and concerned about those actions, Murkowski said, but it would take some time for her to evaluate their impacts.
“It’s a lot to take in. So, we are very, very, very busy,” she said.
As an example, she pointed to a planned pause of Biden-era infrastructure spending that Politico reports could imperil billions of dollars in projects already under construction. That spending came partly from a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that Murkowski, herself, helped author in 2021.
“I don’t fault an incoming administration for wanting to do a close and a critical review of programs,” she said.
Nominees
Murkowski on Friday voted against confirming Pete Hegseth to lead the U.S. Department of Defense.
In a lengthy statement, she said on Thursday that her opposition came partly from sexual assault allegations leveled against Hegseth, and his past opposition to women serving in combat.
Murkowski was one of three Republican senators — along with Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and Maine Sen. Susan Collins — to oppose Hegseth’s nomination. She became the first Republican to publicly announce she would vote against a Trump cabinet pick.
Sullivan voted in favor of Hegseth’s nomination. He felt confident Hegseth would “refocus our military on lethality, warfighting and peace through strength,” he said in a statement Thursday.
Other Trump cabinet nominees have proven contentious.
A national healthcare group is urging Murkowski to block Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from leading the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including a concerted effort in Alaska.
Kennedy has been opposed for threatening a “war on public health,“ and his long history as an anti-vaccine activist and an opponent of fluoride in drinking water.
Similarly, former Hawaii Democratic U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard — Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence — has drawn concerns over her meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her questionable statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Murkowski, though, declined to say how she would vote on either Trump nominee — or dozens of others still to be confirmed.
“I’m doing what I do best, which is my homework, and I anticipate that I’m going to be doing that, not only with those two, but we have a good handful,” she said.
Last month, Sullivan posted statements on social media indicating that he would support Kennedy and Gabbard’s nominations.
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