America got another chance to watch Rep. Jim Jordan’s circus act that he calls a House hearing on Thursday as he wasted the universe’s time on the “weaponization” of the FBI.
To make their case, Republicans invited three former agents and “self-described FBI whistleblowers” to testify, as well as a lawyer who worked in the Office of the Special Counsel under former president Donald Trump. The three agents have had their security clearances suspended by the FBI because of Jan. 6 conspiracy-mongering. Only one of them, former agent Stephen Friend, had his previous testimony available to Democratic lawmakers. Jordan refused to allow Democratic members of the committee to see any of these tales of whistleblowing.
Ranking Democratic committee member Rep. Stacey Plaskett, along with Reps. Dan Goldman, Gerry Connolly, Linda Sanchez, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz proved that brains and not brawn can win the day, successfully exposing what all Jordan-chaired hearings are: attacks on our democracy and attempts to justify MAGA-world’s crimes and grievances.
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The hearing began with Democratic lawmakers pointing out the rules of House committees and how Jordan has not been able to follow even one of them. Plaskett explained in her opening statement that Democratic members only found out which “witnesses” were going to be at the hearing by way of “British tabloids.”
She pointedly wondered aloud: “Are Republicans scared of giving us the information so that we can do our own due diligence on these conspiracy theories, these ideas they want to put forward?”
Plaskett and Goldman pressed Jordan on whether they would have any access to the information the committee is supposedly “investigating.” Jordan’s dismissiveness came across as particularly cowardly and unreasonable, which it was.
Sanchez used her time to remind the public that “this committee is a vehicle to legitimize the events of Jan. 6 and the people who perpetrated it.”
Then came Wasserman Schultz and Goldman, both hitting Jordan again for refusing to follow any committee rules and for brazen stonewalling.
Connolly, whose district staff was recently attacked by a man wielding a baseball bat, focused on Republican hypocrisy, wondering where this “concern for protecting whistleblowers was in the Ukraine episode, in that ‘perfect’ phone call Donald Trump had with President Zelenskyy—when Col. [Alexander] Vindman, was in fact subsequently punished for reporting on that phone call which led to the impeachment of the president of the United States.”
Connolly dismissed the so-called whistleblowers’ testimony as nothing more than “employee grievances.” He concluded, “I'm not quite sure why we had this hearing.” Maybe it was because Kash Patel, the former Trump administration official and insurrection adviser, was financing two of them, as Goldman got them to admit.
Finally, Plaskett summed up exactly what we are seeing from Jordan’s circus sideshow: a misinformation campaign against the truth and, therefore, our democracy.
