Jamie Raskin Roasts Jim Jordan’s Phony Investigation During Hearing

0
755

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) was a witness at a Thursday hearing of the subcommittee that Republicans established under the House Judiciary panel to investigate the purported weaponization of the federal government, which is essentially just Republican-speak for investigations into Donald Trump or his allies that the GOP doesn’t like.

As could be expected, Raskin provided a succinct rebuttal to the committee’s guiding purpose, or at least that which could be expected of it with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) at the helm. Jordan also leads the judiciary panel itself in this Congress. Trump himself has certainly established his own long history of the kind of rhetoric seemingly outlining the panel’s work in targeting federal investigators and even figures in the media. “By establishing a select subcommittee on weaponization, they’re telling us that Donald Trump’s followers, who obviously control the subcommittee, will continue weaponizing any part of the government they can get their hands on to attack their enemies, defined as anyone who stands in the way of their quest for power,” Raskin said.

Raskin has some personal experience in dealing with the kinds of threats posed by Trump and his allies, including serving on the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot. Raskin also noted that the efforts of Trump’s allies weren’t just confined to targeting Democrats. Republicans, like Bill Barr and Liz Cheney, are also threatened by the pro-Trump political machine. Trump endorsed a Republican primary challenger to Cheney no matter her staunchly conservative voting record because she dared to oppose him on the issue of lies of a stolen election.

“It’s got an overriding electoral focus,” Raskin said. “And you know what it is. It’s all about restoring Donald Trump, the twice impeached former president, to the office he lost by seven million votes in 2020 and tried to steal back in a political coup and violent insurrection against our Constitutional order on January 6, 2021.” Raskin also cited specific comments from Jordan about plans for the focus of what is now the House GOP majority helping with Trump’s potential success in 2024, which shows Republicans’ political ambitions.

Raskin also named a series of situations where a committee interested in investigating the so-called weaponization of the federal government should train its focus, ranging from Trump’s repeated decisions to fire oversight officials to interest from Bill Barr in tamping down on further scrutiny of the circumstances of hush money infamously provided to women with whom Trump purportedly had affairs. Raskin also pointed to the work of Special Counsel John Durham, whose sprawling investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation never showed a criminal conspiracy of any sort underlying that probe. Two cases that went to trial, in which the charges didn’t include conspiracy, both ended in acquittals, and the third dealt with a single former investigative staff member altering an email. That’s it, although Durham kept at it for years. Check out the hearing below: