Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas stepped into the spotlight during the Republican sham-impeachment inquiry on Thursday. She began by modestly reminding everyone that the so-called “evidence” the Republicans keep pointing to is not evidence at all, and never has been. “Repeating the same lies will not somehow turn them into truths,” she said. Then Crockett turned up the heat: “Kind of like the election that Trump lost. Say it with me: He lost it. Repeating the same lie that he won wasn't going to turn the election around.” Hot enough? How about this: “The ‘lost’ in this chamber keep pushing lies and lunacy on behalf of a multitime loser.”
That’s minute one. Crockett proceeded to drop microphones all over the inquiry chamber as she spent the rest of her time hammering home every fact out there about Donald Trump, his dirty dealings, and the charges against him while continuously throwing well-deserved shade at Republicans. Crockett joked that if Republicans “continue to say ‘if’ or ‘Hunter,’ and we were playing a drinking game, I would be drunk by now.”
One of the highlights was when Crockett held up a picture of the boxes of classified documents discovered by the FBI in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago bathroom, saying that when Democratic officials “start talking about things that look like evidence, [Republicans] want to act like they blind.” She then turned the gas all the way up, motioning to the image she was holding up: “They don't know what this is. These are our national secrets. Looks like—in the shitter to me.”
And she didn’t stop there.
Enjoy.
Crockett: Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Before I begin my questioning, I want to remind everyone that the information recorded in the FBI Form 1023 that my Republican colleagues keep citing is not evidence of anything. This form reflects the years-old secondhand unverified information from a Ukrainian oligarch as relayed to the FBI by a confidential human source. These unverified second-hand allegations have been repeatedly debunked and undermined, including by the confidential human source who relayed this information to the FBI.
The tip, recorded in the Form 1023, was thoroughly explored by the U.S. attorney handpicked by Donald Trump, which was Attorney General William Barr and the assessment was closed. Finally, Devin Archer, Hunter Biden's former business partner who worked with the Ukrainian oligarch in question, told this committee in a transcribed interview in July that he had no knowledge of any such payments allegedly described in this form.
Repeating the same lies will not somehow turn them into truths. Kind of like the election that Trump lost: Say it with me. He lost it. Repeating the same lie that he won wasn't going to turn the election around. The “lost” in this chamber keep pushing lies and lunacy on behalf of a multitime loser. So if we gon’ talk about China, let's go ahead and talk about China.
And let's talk about the dealings. And let me point out the fact that right now each of you has admitted that none of you are fact witnesses. We walked in without facts. And unfortunately, because what we say isn't necessarily evidence, we have wasted the American people's time and we are going to walk out of this chamber, and we still have no facts that are leading to anything.
But let me give y’all a little bit of tea while we're here. So: I have a document that I will ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record. It’s a fact sheet on President Trump's shady business dealings with the Chinese government.
Comer: What are you entering in? A record from who?
Crockett: This is from the Congressional Integrity.
Comer: Congressional Integrity Project, the dark-money PAC. I object. Object to that too.
Crockett: Of course y’all are going to object, but we gon’ talk about it. So it says Trump has extensive financial ties to the Chinese government. President Trump collected millions from Chinese government-owned entities while in office: ‘“I have the best tenants in the world.”President Trump was well aware of the multiple million-dollar lease to Chinese interests. President Trump promised to donate foreign government profits while in office, but he donated less than a third of his proceeds from the Chinese government.
President Trump maintained three foreign bank accounts while in office, including one in China. President Trump's business with China raises legal and ethical concerns. President Trump: “President Xi loves the people of China. He loves his country, and he's doing a very good job.”
Let me tell you something: I don't want to talk about what y’all want to act like is some big mystery because we keep sitting here. And Professor Gerhardt, just just to be clear: As my colleagues have even tried to provide evidence, which they're not the ones to provide evidence. Have you ever heard them say if since we've been sitting here for I don't know how long?
Gerhardt: Yes, I. I've been taking a tally.
Crockett: Oh, okay. Can you show us what the tally is?
Gerhardt: More than 35 times the Republican witnesses and Republican members of the committee have used the word ‘if.’
Crockett: Thank you so much for that. Because honestly, if they would continue to say “if” or “Hunter,” and we were playing a drinking game, I would be drunk by now. Because I promise you, they have not talked about the subject of this, which would be the president. But let me tell you something that was so disturbing as I walked into this chamber today. As I prepared, I said, “What is the crime?”
Because when you're talking about impeachment, you're talking about high crimes or misdemeanors. And I can't seem to find the crime. And honestly, no one has testified of what crime they believe the president of the United States has committed. But when we start talking about things that look like evidence, they want to act like they blind. They don't know what this is.
These are our national secrets. Looks like in the shitter to me. This looks like more evidence of our national secrets—say on a stage at Mar-a-Lago. When we're talking about somebody that’s committed high crimes, it’s at least indictments. Let's say 32 counts related to unauthorized retention of national security secrets. Seven counts related to obstructing the investigation. Three false statements. One count of conspiracy to defraud the United States.Falsifying business records.Conspiracy to defraud the United States.Two counts related to efforts to obstruct the vote certification proceedings. One count of conspiracy to violate civil rights.Twenty-three counts related to forgery or false document statements.Eight counts related to soliciting. And I could go on because he's got 91 counts pending right now.
But I will tell you what the president has been guilty of: He has, unfortunately, been guilty of loving his child unconditionally. And that is the only evidence that they have brought forward. And honestly, I hope and pray that my parents love me half as much as he loves his child. Until they find some evidence, we need to get back to the people's work, which means keeping this government open so that people don't go hungry in the streets of the United States.
And I will yield.
I could listen to this all day long.
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On Thursday, after Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez deconstructed the through-the-looking-glass nature of the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, fellow Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida got his five minutes. Wasting no time, Moskowitz brought some real entertainment to the proceedings.
After Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Republican, told Moskowitz it was his “lucky day” to have this time, Moskowitz replied, “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it's your lucky day.” Smiling and looking at the underwhelming Republican witnesses, Moskowitz quipped, “What a day we are having here, isn't it? I mean, listen, as a former director of emergency management, I know a disaster when I see one.”
Kapow. Moskowitz went on, saying you didn’t have to take his word for it, and then mentioned the reaction of conservative strategist and convicted criminal Steve Bannon. Bannon, Moskowitz said, was angry that conservative legal scholar Jonathan Turley was one of the first Republican witnesses, after Turley testified that nothing the Republican Party has uncovered so far rises to the level of impeachment. Moskowitz turned to the Republicans on the committee and said, “Boy, that is awkward. I mean, look, it's like political impeachment malpractice.”
And Moskowitz was just getting started.
RELATED STORY: Live coverage: Republican impeachment inquiry (Part 2)
From there, Moskowitz proceeded with slides. First, he mentioned that Fox News asked Comer if he could make a solid allegation of bribery against Joe Biden, to which Comer responded, “I hope so.” Moskowitz then brought up Sen. Chuck Grassley’s strange admission (on television, no less): "We [Republicans] are not interested in whether the allegations against Vice President Biden are accurate or not.”
After that, Moskowitz really let loose, and it’s worth quoting at length:
We're all appearing now in the world's worst-acted TV drama, right? It's been picked up for a second season. ‘The Real House Republicans of Oversight.’ You know, perhaps the material is so bad due to the writers' strike. I mean, how many Republicans, Freedom Caucus members, part of the chaos caucus, have said there's no evidence to impeach Joe Biden?
And again, of course, we know it's not about the evidence. Why? Here is a list of all of the articles of impeachment that have been filed by my colleagues, some that are on this committee. When was the first article filed? It was filed in January of ‘21, two weeks after Jan. 6th. So before we had a single hearing, before they went through this myriad of fishing, they were filing articles of impeachment.
Professor Turley, you said this doesn't rise to the level of impeachment and you said they shouldn't prejudge. Well, here’s a list right here of every single member, many on this committee, prejudging. They're filing articles of impeachment: COVID, Afghanistan, Hunter Biden. And they're all one-upping each other in the Donald Trump-friend-Olympics, trying to get invited to the sleepover at Mar-a-Lago. ‘I filed articles of impeachment against Merrick Garland. No, I filed articles of impeachment against Kamala Harris.’ Okay.
It is ridiculous. But this is what this is about. Let me show you. It's a simple board, right? So all other presidents in the United States, 50% of the impeachments, Donald Trump … Donald Trump has half of the impeachments in American history. But you know what? He's got 100% of the indictments, 100% of all indictments. Zero for the other presidents. Listen, let me do it another way. I want to channel my inner Tim Russert. So let me go to the board. Right? And I don't have Florida, but Donald Trump impeachments—oh, how many impeachments we got? How many indictments we got? Four. How many for Biden? Zero, zero.
Donald Trump is right. He's sick of winning. He's just winning, running away with it. And that's why we're here. We're here because of math. That's what this is about. They can't save Donald Trump. They can't take away the two impeachments and the four indictments. But they can try to put some numbers on the board for Joe Biden.
But the problem is, when you sling mud, you’ve got to have mud. And they just don't have anything, Mr. Chairman. So, look, we get it. We know why we're here. That's why they say ‘the Biden family,’ ‘the Bidens,’ ‘James Biden,’ Joe Biden's dog Commander’—but not ‘Joe Biden.’ Never Joe Biden. So when are you going to have the vote on impeachment, Mr. Chairman?
What are you scared of? Call the vote. Come on. If you all think there's so much evidence, we're here. Call the vote on impeachment. Impeach him right now! I dare you!
Oh boy, he got a lot with his five minutes.
Enough with the weak leadership and MAGA circus. Sign the petition: Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker!
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Watch Jamie Raskin shred the 'flying monkeys' running the impeachment inquiry
Republicans’ baseless impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden began on Thursday. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin leveled the room with his opening statement as he pointed out the circus Republicans were conducting. He was followed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who blew apart the lies and exposed the witnesses for their complete evidentiary irrelevance.
Ocasio-Cortez started her five minutes by asking the three witnesses whether their testimonies included “any firsthand witness account of crimes committed” by President Joe Biden. All three answered that they had no such accounts. In contrast, there were two witnesses with firsthand accounts being blocked by the Republican majority, Ocasio-Cortez said. “And I want to explain why this is important,” she continued. “Members of Congress, all of us in this hearing, are not under oath, as we are presently covered by the speech and debate clause.”
Having explained that it wasn’t illegal for Republicans on the panel to lie or mislead during these hearings, Ocasio-Cortez went on to show how misleading some of the “evidence” Republicans on the committee were presenting was. “Earlier today, one of our colleagues, a gentleman from Florida, presented up on this screen, something that looked—appeared—to be a screenshot of a text message containing or insinuating an explosive allegation,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “That screenshot of what appeared to be a text message was a fabricated image. It was a fabricated image. I don't know where it came from. I don't know if it was the staff of the committee, but it was not the actual direct screenshot from that phone.” She went on to remind the public and those at the hearing that the image presented “excluded critical context that changed the underlying meaning and allegation that was presented up on that screen by this committee and by members of this committee.”
Now that’s evidence of chicanery of the highest order.
RELATED STORY: Live coverage: Republican impeachment inquiry
There is a very good reason the Republicans may have decided not to include witnesses with firsthand knowledge of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s relationship to Burisma, like Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer, who they interviewed behind closed doors. Archer not only contradicted the claims that Joe Biden had anything to do with his son’s business dealings, he also contradicted the theory that the U.S. policy to get rid of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor helped Biden’s son’s business.
Denounce the baseless impeachment inquiry against President Biden.
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Watch Jamie Raskin shred the 'flying monkeys' running the impeachment inquiry
On Thursday, Rep. Jamie Raskin gave the Democratic Party’s opening statement during the first hearing of the political sideshow that is the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Raskin absolutely leveled the place.
“No foreign enemy has ever been able to shut down the government of the United States, but now MAGA Republicans are about to do just that,” he said. He noted the “long-debunked and discredited lie” at the foundation of the impeachment inquiry before pointing out that as “harsh” as his words may seem, Republican lawmakers have said even harsher things about their party’s ongoing civil war.
With aides holding up four placards showing quotes from Republican Reps. Don Bacon, Tony Gonzales, Mike Lawler, and others about the dysfunction in the House GOP, Raskin reminded everyone that being against the extremists in government should not be a partisan position. He then presented substantial evidence that House Republicans’ reason for the impending government shutdown was to aid Donald Trump in his battle against our justice system. Raskin continued:
To delay justice, Donald Trump would cut off paychecks to a couple million service members and federal workers, and furlough more than a million workers and pay them later for having not worked. They would halt food assistance to millions of moms and kids, and keep NIH, in my district, from enrolling any more patients in life and death clinical research trials.
Trump's convinced that if we shut the government down, his four criminal prosecutions on 91 different charges will be defunded and delayed long enough to keep him from having to go before a jury of his peers before the 2024 election. And like flying monkeys on a mission for the Wicked Witch of the West, Trump's followers in the House now carry messages out to the world: Shut down the government. Shut down the prosecutions.
RELATED STORY: Live coverage: Republican impeachment inquiry
We are less than three days away from Republicans shutting down the government. Instead of figuring out how to accomplish one of the most basic functions of their job—keeping the government running—the Republican Party pushes forward with their evidence-free impeachment inquiry. After a clownish press conference on Wednesday kicked off the festivities, how much more ludicrous this will all get is hard to fathom.
Enough with the weak leadership and MAGA circus. Sign the petition: Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker!
House Republicans are on the brink of shutting down the government. The Senate is moving forward with a bipartisan continuing resolution to keep the government open into November, but House Republicans are busy with a "pissing match" between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and obstructionist Rep. Matt Gaetz. That doesn’t mean the House isn’t doing anything, though. No, Republicans are getting their bogus impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden moving, saying they see no reason it couldn’t continue through a government shutdown.
“We’re going to keep going,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer told CNN on Tuesday, saying that a shutdown wouldn’t affect the members or staff involved in the impeachment inquiry. That would be a great look for Republicans—showing voters that they weren’t focused on keeping the government open, and offering a constant reminder that members of Congress were still being paid while government workers weren’t.
Comer has a hearing scheduled for Thursday, which his office told Fox News “will examine the value of an impeachment inquiry.” Apparently, even Comer isn’t confident that he and his fellow Republicans have made that case to the public. The hearing will rehash the findings of Comer’s months of investigations—investigations that notably haven’t turned up any real evidence that Biden has engaged in corruption or profited from his son’s business dealings.
Like Comer, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan told CNN a government shutdown wouldn’t stop him. “Every week there’s a whole roster of folks” scheduled for committee interviews, he said.
The committee staff conducting the interviews wouldn’t be paid in the event of a shutdown, but could be deemed “essential” by Congress members and forced to work. A source told CNN, though, that there was still question about whether a court reporter, necessary for transcribing interviews, would be considered essential, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene noted that a shutdown could affect the ability of government agencies to respond to subpoenas. (Take note: Greene seems to be more clearheaded about the outcomes of a shutdown than Comer or Jordan.)
Going ahead with a baseless impeachment inquiry while shutting down the government out of sheer spite would be an impressive one-two punch, even by Republican standards. What could they possibly do that would more clearly display how far their priorities are from what voters want Congress to deliver?
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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has defended taking $3 million from a group supporting Ken Paxton in the lead-up to the attorney general’s impeachment trial that Patrick presided over as judge.
Patrick said in a TV interview published Wednesday that the controversy over the funding ignored that he took just as much from “the other side,” including donors aligned with Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which Paxton has declared as a political enemy. Patrick gave the explanation, which was heavily caveated, in an interview four days after his Senate voted to acquit Paxton.
“[The $3 million] got headlines because people wanted to make it a headline … but I also raised almost the same amount of money from people who may not be anti-Paxton, but they weren’t out there being pro-Paxton,” Patrick said in the interview with WFAA, the ABC affiliate in Dallas. “There are a few exceptions, because some of the people supporting TLR also supported Ken Paxton.”
The funding in question came in late June, when statewide officials and state lawmakers had a 12-day window to raise money before the first reporting deadline since the regular legislative session. Patrick reported a $1 million donation and $2 million from Defend Texas Liberty PAC, a group that had led the charge to attack House Republicans who voted to impeach Paxton. A leader with the PAC later threatened political revenge against any senator who sided against Paxton in his trial.
The money grabbed attention because the Senate was gearing up for the trial at the time — the chamber approved trial rules June 21 — and Patrick had little need for the money. He is not up for reelection until 2026, he already had over $16 million in the bank as of last year, and he had also never gotten nearly as much money from Defend Texas Liberty before.
Patrick declined to comment on the $3 million in pro-Paxton money when it became public. A day earlier, he had issued a sweeping gag order ahead of the trial.
While Patrick did raise roughly $3 million more on the same fundraising report, it is difficult to verify how much was actually from the “other side” in the Paxton trial. TLR is a powerful tort reform group that has become synonymous with the GOP establishment in Austin; it heavily funded one of Paxton’s 2022 primary challengers and had urged senators to reject pretrial motions to dismiss his impeachment case.
TLR itself only gave $25,000 on Patrick’s latest campaign finance report, while its co-founder, Richard Weekley, gave $50,000.
It is true that some of Patrick’s biggest donors in late June — beside Defend Texas Liberty — were also aligned with TLR. For example, Patrick received $150,000 from real estate developer Ross Perot Jr., who had cut a $1 million check to TLR less than two months earlier.
But some of Patrick’s largest donors beyond Defend Texas Liberty were also not TLR allies. Patrick got $100,000 from Midland oilman Douglas Scharbauer, who has not given anything to TLR this year, according to the latest records. Furthermore, Scharbauer was Paxton’s second largest individual donor on the attorney general’s late June report, the first since he was impeached.
Patrick’s invoking of TLR was notable given that Paxton has pilloried the group as a force behind his impeachment. They have denied any involvement in initiating it.
Patrick backed up TLR as he sought to explain the money he got from the “other side.”
“I don’t believe they were involved in this at all, but they’re seen as, They wanted a trial and they supported other people against Ken Paxton, so anybody supporting TLR, would be thought to be [anti-Paxton],” Patrick said. “I know that’s not the case. They all weren’t.”
Disclosure: Texans for Lawsuit Reform and Ross Perot Jr. have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is in a Catch-22, and he has only himself to blame for it. He’s got until the end of next week to figure out how to keep the government from shutting down—and save his own political skin. So far, he has proven incapable of doing either and created a dynamic in which one of two things is inevitable: a shutdown or a vote calling for his ouster as speaker. At this point, it seems both are likely.
The solution for averting a shutdown is pretty simple: McCarthy has to accept the reality that the Senate and the White House are in Democratic hands, and there is no way that the demands the hard-liners are making on funding will be enacted. If he doesn’t find a compromise and get Democrats in the House to help him pass a stopgap funding bill by the end of next week, the government shuts down and Republicans will get the blame. Because he’s in charge (at least nominally), McCarthy will get the lion’s share of it.
If he does get Democratic help and manage to keep the nation from looking like a banana republic, the nihilists will try to oust him via Rep. Matt Gaetz’s motion to vacate the chair. Someone wanted to make that threat abundantly clear, leaving a copy of that resolution in a restroom near the House chamber, where a reporter would be likely to find it—and did find it.
“The thing that would force the motion to vacate is if Kevin has to rely on Democrat votes to pass a CR,” Freedom Caucus Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado told Punchbowl News Tuesday. “I don’t think it has legs until Kevin relies on Democrats.” On the other hand, he said, “I don’t see how we can pass the bill [a CR] without Democrat votes.”
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Where does that leave Democrats? In a position to let McCarthy dangle.
Since the last time House Republicans took the nation to the brink of disaster on the debt ceiling, a group of conservative Democrats in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus offered to help out by providing enough votes to protect McCarthy from a move to boot him.
That offer is off the table now, Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips told reporters, thanks to McCarthy’s capitulation to the worst people in his conference and his greenlighting a toxic impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. There’s no condoning or rewarding that, even from the most conservative of Democrats.
As of now, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is meeting with his various Democratic groups, including the Problem Solvers, and seeing what it is they want. But that will not include capitulating to Republicans. “Leader Jeffries has been very clear,” Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar reiterated Tuesday morning. “They have to get rid of these ideological riders [on appropriations,] they have to fund the government at existing … levels and we need to meet the needs of the Ukrainian people fighting for freedom and the urgent disasters that we have had across this country.”
That’s where Democrats are and that’s where they need to stay so that McCarthy comes to them. They need to leave him stranded and friendless unless and until they extract concessions, like a commitment to realistically fund the government and put any impeachment nonsense on the back burner. McCarthy has a lot more to lose than Democrats do.
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What do you do if you're associated with one of the biggest election fraud scandals in recent memory? If you're Republican Mark Harris, you try running for office again! On this week's episode of "The Downballot," we revisit the absolutely wild story of Harris' 2018 campaign for Congress, when one of his consultants orchestrated a conspiracy to illegally collect blank absentee ballots from voters and then had his team fill them out before "casting" them. Officials wound up tossing the results of this almost-stolen election, but now Harris is back with a new bid for the House—and he won't shut up about his last race, even blaming Democrats for the debacle.