The Washington Post reports:

Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Colorado congresswoman long associated with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, on Wednesday criticized President Donald Trump for vetoing bipartisan legislation to support a major drinking-water project in her district, saying she hopes the rejection “has nothing to do with political retaliation.”

The legislation Trump vetoed, known as the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, would have helped complete the final component of the decades-old Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. Colorado lawmakers supporting the bill have said the project’s cost estimate has nearly doubled in recent years because of inflation and increased labor costs.

Trump said in a statement Monday that his action was intended to save taxpayer money.

Boebert countered that the veto of the “noncontroversial, bipartisan bill,” which both the House and Senate passed unanimously this year, will deny “clean drinking water to 50,000 people in Southeast Colorado, many of whom enthusiastically voted for him in all three elections.” In a statement, she continued, “I sincerely hope this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calling out corruption and demanding accountability.”

The three-term representative was one of four House Republicans to sign onto a discharge petition in November to force a vote to compel the Justice Department to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump and the White House pressured Boebert and the other Republicans to remove their names, but they didn’t and the petition passed. The president, who has decried the files as a “hoax,” subsequently signed the bill directing the Justice Department to release the files.

Trump has publicly retaliated against two of those other Republicans. He disowned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — a onetime MAGA loyalist — and called her a “traitor,” saying he would endorse a primary challenger in her race. Greene subsequently said she would resign from Congress. The president publicly taunted Rep. Thomas Massie (Kentucky), who led the petition, for getting remarried after the death of his longtime wife last year. [Continue reading…]