If you missed Louie Gohmert’s unhinged rant during the House Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday with Eric Holder, here it is.
Gohmert begins his full-on Islamophobic inquisition after the 1:00 mark as he goes on to connect the Boston bombing suspects to local mosques and the Clinton Administration (really), but the real fireworks begin around 4:40 when the shouting begins.
Stay for the Eric Holder smackdown and forgive the large breaks because there’s a lot of argle-bargle in the midst of this.
Gohmert: On the one hand we go after Christian groups like Billy Graham’s group. We go after Franklin Graham’s group. But then we’re hands off when it comes to possibly offended someone who has been radicalized as a terrorist. [...]
Holder: Let me just say this — you’ve made statements as matters of fact, and I…
Gohmert: You point out one thing that I said that was not true. [...] He said I said something as fact that he doesn’t believe was. I’d like to know specifically what it was.
Holder: The only observation I was going to make is that you state as a matter of fact what the FBI did and did not do, and unless someone has done something inappropriate, you don’t have access to the FBI files. You don’t know what the FBI did. You don’t know what the FBI’s interaction was with the Russians. You don’t know what questions were put to the Russians, whether those questions were responded to. You simply do not know that. And you have characterized the FBI as being not thorough or taken exception to my characterization of them as being thorough. I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know. That’s all.
Gohmert: I did not assert what they did or did not do, I asserted [...] I cannot have a witness challenge my character and my integrity and not have an opportunity to respond to that.
He said that I do not know that of which I spoke as being true and the attorney general is wrong on the things that I asserted as fact, and he has to understand the reason I ask questions specifically about what the individual Tamerlan was asked was so I would find out and then the attorney general sits there and… [unintelligible troll-speak]
The attorney general made statements that what I said was not true, when actually, uh, the reverse is what happened. [...] He’s casting aspirations on my asparagus [????]
Holder: All I was saying, for the record, is that the congressman could not know unless, as I said, something inappropriate has happened. [...] He could not know the answer. He could not know. There couldn’t be a basis for the assertions he made, not the questions but the assertions he made, unless he was provided information, and I would say inappropriately, from members of the FBI or people who were involved in the very things he questions me about and I do not think that happened.
What happened during this hearing is quite simple. Louie Gohmert came to the committee hearing armed with conspiracy theories and Islamophobic hogwash delivered to him by right wing blogs and the voices in his head. He then passed this information off as fact, the same “facts” he’s been peddling on Hate Radio for the past several weeks, and Eric Holder called him on it.
If I were to personally characterize Gohmert’s reaction after Holder set him straight on the facts, I’d say he thought the attorney general was being uppity.
Previously: Louie Gohmert says Eric Holder is a terrorist sympathizer and the Muslim Brotherhood is commanding the Obama Administration.