President Donald Trump’s Federal Commission on School Safety, headed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is facing questions from at least one lawmaker over whether the National Rifle Association influenced the commission's work to confront how to adequately protect schools from violence and mass shootings.
Sen. Patty Murray, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, in a letter to DeVos Monday, expressed her concerns about the commission’s "failure to act" and asked whether the NRA had influenced the process.
"I expressed concern that the Commission would be used to shift the national conversation about our gun violence epidemic away from meaningful gun safety reforms, which the vast majority of people across the country support," she wrote.
"I also expressed concern that in our private meeting, you could not assure me that the National Rifle Association (NRA) would not influence the Commission's process," Murray added.
Murray, D-Wash., wrote that she has yet to receive a response to a previous letter sent in March expressing the same sentiments.