Colorado lawmaker, who pushed for Epstein files release, points to bill’s unanimous passage through US House and Senate

Republican representative Lauren Boebert has fired back at Donald Trump for vetoing a bill that would have funded a drinking water project in her Colorado district, implying the president was playing at political retaliation.

The bill was aimed at funding a decades-long project to bring safe drinking water to 39 communities in Colorado’s eastern plains, where the groundwater is high in salt and wells sometimes unleash radioactivity into the water supply.

Trump vetoed the bill on Tuesday, writing in his veto letter to Congress that his administration is “committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies” and that “ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the Nation”.

Boebert criticized the move, calling the bill “completely non-controversial” and pointed out that it passed the House and Senate unanimously earlier this year.