Republicans Go Full Swamp-Creature During Hearing Circus Act

0
1721

The impeachment hearing was scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. The hearing kicked off with the Republicans geared up to interrupt at an astounding rate. One GOP representative had not finished his complaint before another Republican jumped in. They were acting like fifth-grade boys harassing a substitute teacher.

They accused the Democrats’ counsel, who had been giving evidence of Donald Trump’s guilt, of challenging the president’s motives. The House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) struggled to manage the Republicans’ scatter approach of making points of order. The errant representative insisted on a minority hearing, according to CBS News’ live coverage of the impeachment hearing:

A little more than an hour into the hearing, Republicans expressed outrage at Democratic counsel Barry Berke’s evidence, as Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) accused him of impugning Trump.

The Republican men claimed they were basically shocked, just shocked at the Democrat’s counsel Barry Berke’s evidence. Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA) interrupted the chair. Nadler was trying to recognize Stephen Castor, who was the Republican’s counsel. Johnson kept interrupting Nadler claiming that Berke had violated Rule 17 of the House of Representatives. Ironically, that rule dealt with “decorum and debate.”

Screen-Shot-2019-12-09-at-1.09.29-PM Republicans Go Full Swamp-Creature During Hearing Circus Act Corruption Featured Impeachment Investigation Top Stories

The Louisiana representative interrupted the Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) by saying:

‘The witness has used language which impugns the motives of the president and suggests that he’s disloyal to his country, and those words should be stricken from the record and taken down.’

Screen-Shot-2019-12-09-at-1.10.56-PM Republicans Go Full Swamp-Creature During Hearing Circus Act Corruption Featured Impeachment Investigation Top Stories

Nadler ignored Johnson’s so-called point of order about Berke. Instead, the committee chair told him:

‘[T]he topic of the hearing is the president’s misconduct, so none of us should find it surprising that we are hearing testimony that is critical of the president.’

Johnson hit Nadler, again and again, saying that Nadler should have recognized his own motion. Nadler responded over and over again:

‘[T]he rules of decorum apply to members of the House, not to witnesses.’

Then, a knot of Republican panel members requested a recorded vote on the motion to table Berke’s request. The division of the committee mean a party-line vote (24-15).

After the first vote, the Republicans tried to take over the committee forcing a vote on the Democrats’ counsel Berke’s comments. Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ) continued to argue that the committee chair had considered his counsel’s as a staffer versus witness. That would fall under the rules of decorum, he claimed.

Nadler took another committee vote to table the motion. The committee once again voted to table the motion along a party-line vote. Then, Republicans went after Berke a third time. They requested that Chairman Nadler schedule a “minority day of hearings.”

A protester planted in the public seating interrupter the chairman’s opening statement as the hearing began. He stood and acted out, yelling at Nadler and the Democrats sitting on the committee:

‘Americans are sick of your impeachment sham, they’re sick of the Democrat treason.’

Republicans have worked to move the televised audience’s attention from what the president actually did to the actual impeachment process itself. They claimed that the Democrats were only trying to impeach the president since they lost the 2016 presidential election.

Minority Leader Doug Collins (R-GA) attacked the Democrats’ counsel Daniel Goldman without allowing him to answer the questions, battering him again and again and again. The strategy came across as angry and ill-tempered. Collins’ showed the American public how the rotted center of politics emitted decay. Of course, the voters would want to replace the rotting swamp with fresh hope.

The Republicans did not deal with the commander-in-chief abusing his power by trying to force a foreign government to go after Trump’s top opponent in the 2020 presidential election, former vice president Joe Biden. No. Instead, they went after the details of the investigation.

Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.

The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.