Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) used a hearing of the House Oversight Committee to take Ohio Republican Jim Jordan to task for his “playbook” of lies and misinformation about the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of failed one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump.
The hearing was to discuss what Jordan and his GOP colleagues call the “weaponization” of the U.S. government, and Plaskett called Jordan out for only allowing access to documents and other information just minutes before the hearing began, comparing his actions to those of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who handed over thousands of hours of video from the Jan. 6 attack.
“This is unacceptable. I’m ready for it. I don’t know if a lot of other people are, but just as it was unacceptable for Kevin McCarthy to provide 41,000 hours of sensitive security footage to a biased talking head in an effort to rewrite what happened on January 6th.
“This is a new Republican playbook, apparently. Risk American safety and security to score political points.”
A Republican on the committee then demanded that Plaskett’s remarks be stricken from the record: “The gentlelady’s words should be struck. That is out of line and outside the rules of this committee.”
Plaskett continued her verbal destruction of Jordan and the GOP.
“This is a false narrative. We’re engaging in false narratives here, and we [Democrats] are going to tell the truth.”
When it was his time to speak, a churlish Jordan said, “You guys don’t care. You don’t care. You don’t want the American people to see what happened. The full video, transparency, you don’t want that.”
He continued:
“And you don’t want [the testimony of] two journalists who have been named personally by the Biden administration FTC in a letter. They’re here to tell their story. And frankly, I think they’re brave individuals for being willing to come after they’ve been named in a letter from the Biden FTC.”
Plaskett:
“Is this your question time?”
The clearly agitated Ohio Republican remarked, “No, I’m responding to your ridiculous statements you made in your in your opening statement.”
But Plaskett was more than equal to the task:
“OK, well, let’s get on with it.”
Jordan: “Oh, now we want to get on with it. So you can say all the things you want?”
The congresswoman had the perfect comeback:
“I did in my opening statement as well as you had an opening statement. You said what you needed to say in your opening statement. And I, as the ranking member, have used my time!”
