Democrats in the House of Representatives could not make their motivations any more apparent and obvious. They made a mockery not only of congressional oversight on Thursday, but of their own party. They can only take delight in the fact that very few Americans actually watch C-SPAN, because otherwise this shameful display of obstructionism would turn off independents, moderate Democrats, and patriots from sea to shining sea. In case we’re not being clear enough, every Democrat member of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees should be ASHAMED of themselves for the way they behaved on this day.
The occasion, of course, was the highly anticipated public testimony of disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok. Now, to give Strzok a bean’s worth of credit, he – unlike his partner in crime (and other things) Lisa Page – at least didn’t try to weasel out of his obligations here. He appeared before the committees and, considering the evidence against him, actually did pretty well under the intense lights. If it weren’t for the fact that he already convicted himself in his own words, we might have actually come away from this thing thinking that maybe the case against him is unfair. Unfortunately, there’s no explanation he can give that rightly acquits him from the anti-Trump biases he so clearly displayed in those many, many text messages.
But far more shameful than Strzok (on Thursday, at least) were the Democrats on the panel. Instead of trying in good faith to get to the bottom of an important question – whether or not Strzok allowed his biases to color his FBI work – they spent the day grandstanding and battling Republicans, who actually WERE trying to get answers. And it started from the very beginning, as Rep. Bob Goodlatte attempted in vain to get Strzok to answer a simple question.
After passing on a question from Rep. Trey Gowdy, Strzok said that there were certain questions about the Russia investigation that he was not going to answer under instruction from FBI lawyers. At that point, Goodlatte jumped in to remind Strzok of his obligations: “Mr. Strzok, you are under subpoena and are required to answer the question.”
That’s when Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) jumped in to protect the witness, calling a point of order and telling the chairman that Strzok was entitled to refuse the question. Goodlatte told him that his point of order was not well received and this led to period of all-out mayhem as Democrats – Nadler, Sheila Jackson-Lee, and David Cicilline among them – kept interrupting the hearing in defense of Strzok.
“Mr. Chairman is it not appropriate to also interject the attorney client privilege which cannot be overridden?” Jackson Lee said at one point.
This was a circus in the very worst sense of the word. If Strzok is claiming some form of privilege, let him do it. And let him accept the consequences if that privilege is invalid. It’s not up to the Democrats to jump in and “save” him from the meanie-face Republicans, just because they’re afraid that the FARCE that is the Russia investigation will suddenly be exposed for the world to see.
