Democrats in Congress weren’t thrilled at allegations of perpetuating censorship from Fox journalist Hillary Vaughn, who questioned prominent members this week around the testimony of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy is currently running for the Democratic presidential nomination for 2024 and spoke Thursday before the subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee dealing with the so-called weaponization of the federal government.
Kennedy has promoted skepticism of vaccines and conspiracy theories regarding, besides other topics, the impacts of COVID-19, having recently argued on camera that there were meaningfully distinct impacts from the virus on Chinese and Jewish groups. Democrats clamored against hearing from Kennedy in Congress at all.
“That’s not censorship,” Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.) told Fox’s Hillary Vaughn. “Censorship would [be not] allowing someone to speak. He can speak. That doesn’t give him necessarily the ability to have to do it in the halls of Congress.”
“I don’t think you want to bring bigots before the Congress, but apparently that’s par for the course with this majority,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told Vaughn. Footage of remarks from both these Democrats was spotlighted on Fox during a broadcasting hour now hosted by Jesse Watters after Tucker Carlson’s departure.
Plaskett is the top Dem on the panel fighting purported weaponization, and during the hearing that featured Kennedy, she lambasted the committee’s Republicans having gotten to the point of hosting him at all. As others have, she accused her GOP colleagues of acting essentially out of a political interest in boosting Trump’s renewed candidacy for office and undercutting Biden. The general point of Republicans’ arguments involved claims yet again of censorship against dissenting voices, though there’s still no evidence of broad conspiracies to suppress Republicans’ reach. Polling makes clear that Kennedy is a longshot candidate and is highly unlikely to get anywhere close to actually nabbing the Democratic Party’s nod, but his antics, which have drawn public condemnation even from members of his family, have proven to be a distraction.
Watch the comments from Democrats at this link, via HuffPost.
