By: Kayla Pasacreta

When Donald Trump was elected on November 9th, 2016, I believe most people predicted his administration would be tumultuous. But I do not think anyone was prepared for the amount of scandals and lack of accountability within the Trump administration. And unfortunately, despite the number of lies (aka alternative facts), incompetence, and inappropriateness, there is simply no one to hold Trump or his administration accountable for his wrongdoings.

We’ve seen as Kellyane Conway, Donald Trump’s spokeswoman, causes many to be alarmed and raise questions about the integrity and honesty of the Trump Administration. When confronted about press secretary Sean Spicer backing up Trump’s lies regarding crowd size at his inauguration, Conway created a media frenzy by deeming these “alternative facts”.  Just a couple of weeks later, Conway went on MSNBC to speak about terrorism and cited two terrorists as the masterminds behind the “Bowling Green Massacre” – a massacre that never took place. Kellyane Conway has also violated government ethics by using her platform to promote Ivanka Trump's fashion line when she went on live television and boasted, “Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would tell you…I’m going to give a free commercial here.” Conway faced zero consequences for any of these actions.

Just hours after the reporting of the shooting targeted at Congressional staffers, Conway retweeted and quoted a tweet reading, “SC Rep. Jeff Duncan says he believes he talked to shooter in Alexandria. Man asked, "Is this a team of republicans or democrats practicing?” Not only does this tweet politicize the incident, it is widely inaccurate. The shooter was described as having on jeans, while the person who made this statement was said to have running clothes. These comments were likely the ones of a stranger – not the shooter. Why is Kellyane Conway spreading #fakenews by sharing unconfirmed reports? Conway is a direct spokeswoman for the President, meaning the President is spreading fake news, too. This is serious.

There are countless times in which the Trump Administration has been caught lying, whether it is about a small statistic or government matters in general. This should not be normalized.  These constant lies destroy the chance of any credibility that the Trump Administration could have, and quite frankly is alarming for the state of the country. And the GOP should not accept it. When the video of Trump boasting about grabbing women "by the pussy" surfaced, Marco Rubio described the comments as "vulgar, egregious and impossible to justify" - but he still supported Trump's candidacy for president. More recently, Senator John McCain stated just two days ago that “as far as American leadership is concerned”, Obama is better than Trump. GOP leaders may have a critique of Trump from time to time, but none of them are doing anything about it.

By standing by idly as Trump sits on possible obstruction of justice, the Republican Party as a whole is self-destructing. When Paul Ryan was asked about Trump’s inappropriate request to let the Flynn investigation go, Ryan explained, “He’s just new to this.” This is just yet another excuse from the GOP to brush aside the incompetence of the Trump Administration. Anyone with intelligence can see that Trump’s presidency casts a dark cloud over the credibility of the United States as a whole. If the GOP wants to have any chance of a future, they must start to hold the Administration accountable for their lies and wrongdoing. Its time for GOP leaders to put country over party, and put an end to the daily circus caused by Trump and his team.