House Republicans last week held a sham impeachment hearing relating to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. If you missed this hearing in the chambers of Congress, that’s because it wasn’t held there at all, but rather at an off-site conference room belonging to the right-wing Heritage Foundation organization.
Just to give you a taste of the seriousness of this pretend hearing, it was led by Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz, and Ronny Jackson, the troubled congressman who when serving as White House doctor claimed that the insurrectionist president could live to be 200 years old. Andy Biggs, the Republican congressman who infamously described Jan. 6 as a “normal tourist visit” and later defied a related subpoena, touted the pretend-hearing as a “forum” where four “expert witnesses” were set to provide testimony.
The witnesses certainly were notable. But that wasn’t because of any valuable testimony they might’ve provided (they didn’t), but rather because of who they were and the kind of views they’ve promoted. Spoiler: They’re hateful views.
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Three of the four “experts” touted by Biggs in his press release have ties to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigrant hate group founded by white nationalist John Tanton, tweeted America’s Voice political director Zachary Mueller.
First: Mark Morgan, a former government official who in 2021 joined FAIR as a “senior fellow.” Morgan infamously claimed to white supremacist sympathizer Tucker Carlson that he could look deep into the eyes of an asylum-seeking child in U.S. custody and tell if they’d become a gang member. Meanwhile, Thomas Homan is another former official who, like Morgan, served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration. He’s also another hater cosplaying as a “senior fellow” (it’s always amusing when the hate groups try to seem legitimate) with the Immigration Reform Law Institute, described by FAIR as the group’s “affiliated legal organization.”
Then there’s Robert Law, an America First Policy Institute staffer who before the Trump administration worked as FAIR’s government relations director. While the two other officials at the pretend hearing definitely give off more, uh, dopey villain vibes, Law has been more strategic, authoring a 2017 FAIR report that made numerous anti-immigrant policy suggestions to the incoming Trump administration. One suggestion was a repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which that administration did do, until it was blocked by the courts.
“But why should you care about what is happening in a dusty conference room filled with cranks espousing conspiracy theories?” Mueller continued. “Because these people have real power & massive megaphones. And there are deadly downstream consequences to their rhetoric.”
Last week’s pretend impeachment hearing came as House Republicans held numerous official hearings where several Republican members pushed racist conspiracy theory. During the House Oversight hearing, for example, Colorado’s Lauren Boebert pushed “invasion” rhetoric even as the self-characterized white nationalist mass shooter who in 2019 targeted an El Paso Walmart over a supposed “Hispanic invasion” pleaded guilty to 90 federal hate crimes and firearm violations.
Arizona’s Paul Gosar, meanwhile, pushed the false belief that the Biden administration “may be trying to flood the United States with ‘illegal aliens’ as part of a deliberate effort to change the makeup of the nation,” Rolling Stone reported. Gosar is a troll with confirmed white supremacist ties, who, like Greene, had been booted from committee assignments due in the last Congress. But both were restored by Speaker-For-Now Kevin McCarthy.
While this pretend hearing consisting of the Heritage Foundation and a couple of right-wing cranks comes as the actual impeachment effort itself seems to be teetering due to some so-called moderate Republicans, CNN reports that DHS is taking the campaign seriously, hiring a private law firm to defend Mayorkas against the effort.
It may be a sham impeachment effort, but it nonetheless means that the department has to focus some of its resources on some bullshit while right-wing domestic terrorism remains the actual threat facing the nation. It was just this past New Year’s Eve that a nativist gunman calling himself “eyes for America” pointed his weapon at migrants who were gathered outside an El Paso church. Of course, Biggs would rather point fingers at migrants, at Mayorkas, at anybody, rather than cooperate with the investigation into an attempted coup against our nation.
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