Longtime U.S. Rep., Chair of Oversight Committee Elijah Cummings dies at 68

Image courtesy: Getty Images

Image Courtesy: Getty Images

(CNN) —-Elijah Cummings has passed away: Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, Chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has died at the age of 68.

Health challenges: Cummings passed away at Johns Hopkins Hospital due to “complications concerning longstanding health challenges,” according to a statement released by his office.
Trump impeachment probe: The Maryland Congressman was a key figure in investigating President Donald Trump.
6:58 a.m. ET, October 17, 2019

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle honor Cummings’ memory

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have already begun to issue statements reacting to the news that the chairman of the powerful House Oversight committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, passed away at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore overnight.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris wrote:

“We lost a giant today. Congressman Elijah Cummings was a fearless leader, a protector of democracy, and a fighter for the people of Maryland. Our world is dimmer without him in it.”

“May God grant his family strength & peace i these difficult moments & his soul eternal rest,”  said Republican Senator Marco Rubio said via tweet.

Fellow Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, praised Cummings’ saying,

“May his memory be for a blessing,” she wrote on Twitter.

Cummings oversaw range of investigations into Trump administration

Photo:CNN/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

As chairman of the Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings oversaw a range of investigations into the Trump administration.

From issues relating to the treatment of migrants at the southern border, to the use of personal email for official use by White House officials, to how the citizenship question was considered for the US census.

And, most recently, the impeachment inquiry.

Cummings was one of three chairs overseeing the investigation into President Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s leader, which is at the center of the probe.

Cummings, alongside House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, expressed their regret earlier this month over the position the President had placed them and the country in by refusing to cooperate in the ongoing inquiry.

“The White House has refused to engage with—or even respond to—multiple requests for documents from our Committees on a voluntary basis.  After nearly a month of stonewalling, it appears clear that the President has chosen the path of defiance, obstruction, and cover-up,” the statement said.

Cummings served as the top Democrat on the committee for several years before Democrats won the majority in 2018. He was well-respected among Democrats and even forged friendships across the aisle, including his high-profile relationship with Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, one of the President’s closest allies.

Over the course of his career, he earned a reputation for being an impassioned speaker who often made headlines with his questioning from the dais during hearings.

6:41 a.m. ET, October 17, 2019

When Trump insulted his hometown of Baltimore — Cummings hit back

Elijah Cummings was born and raised in Baltimore — the city that is home to his district.
So when President Donald Trump called the majority black district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” Cummings hit back.

Responding to some of the President’s tweets — in which Trump suggested the congressman needed to spend more time fixing his district — Cummings said on Twitter: “Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbors. It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.”

In a White House meeting with Trump following the spat, Cummings said he urged the President to rethink his language on African American communities.

“I want you to realize that all African American communities are not places of depression and where people are being harmed,”

Cummings told reporters, recalling his conversation with Trump.

“When we hear those words about carnage and we are living in depressed situations, I told him it was very hurtful.”

Cummings has spent decades fighting for Baltimore — and it’s a fundamental part of his story. The son of former sharecroppers, Cummings was born in 1951 and graduated from Baltimore City College High School in 1969.

He practiced law and served for 14 years in the Maryland House of Delegates, where, according to his congressional website, he became the first African American in Maryland history to be named Speaker Pro tem.

In 1996, he was first elected to the US Congress. Cummings was reelected last year in the 7th Congressional District with 76% of the vote.

Cummings grew up in the Civil Rights era and recently discussed how, even at a young age, he was part of that movement to integrate parts of his neighborhood.

We were trying to integrate an Olympic-size pool near my house, and we had been constrained to a wading pool in the black community,” Cummings told ABC’s “This Week” earlier this month. “
The Maryland Democrat said Trump’s racist remarks regarding four other members of Congress echoed the same insults he heard as a 12-year-old boy in 1962, which he said were “very painful.”

“The interesting thing is that I heard the same chants. ‘Go home. You don’t belong here,’ ” he told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “And they called us the N-word over and over again.”

Ashley Killough contributed to this post.
Categories: National News, Politics