Raskin tears apart the Putin Wing of the GOP
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The House Jan. 6 select committee is planning to hold eight public hearings in June, hearings that Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) says will “blow the roof off the House.”
“We now have the evidence to support a story of the worst presidential political crime against the union in American history,” he told CBS News. Whether that evidence is also going to expose Trump’s partners in crime among congressional Republicans, he’s not saying. But he’s also not giving those members any quarter in his speeches on the House floor.
Take Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA), one of the 10 Republicans (the usual suspects in what Rep, Liz Cheney has dubbed the “Putin Wing of the GOP”) to vote against updating the Lend-Lease Act of 1941 to facilitate the transfer of military equipment to Ukraine. Ahead of that vote, Greene spent her three minutes of debate time not talking about Ukraine and Russia, but instead screeching about immigration and the massive invasion of foreigners into the U.S.
Raskin was having absolutely none of that.
“The United States of America just witnessed the most astonishing spectacle,” Raskin said. “We are here to debate aid to the people of Ukraine defending themselves against a massive invasion by Putin and his army. Then the minority puts up the distinguished gentlelady from Georgia who does not mention Ukraine once. She does not mention the thousands of Ukrainian civilians who have been slaughtered by Putin’s army.”
“Instead, she talks about a massive invasion at the border, a massive invasion which their own speakers have said today, hundreds of thousands of people have been apprehended in,” he continued. “That’s very different from a military invasion. The one in Ukraine, of course, the gentlelady’s not going to talk about that.”
Then Raskin reminded the chamber about how Greene heckled him a few weeks ago during the debate to hold former top Trump officials Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino in criminal contempt of Congress. “She had a lot to say the other day when she heckled me continuously when I came to the floor, […] chanting about the Russia hoax and Russia this and Russia that,” Raskin said Thursday.
“Now she had the opportunity to tell the world what her views about Russia are.” He then referenced a tweet storm from Greene in which “she said that the aid that the taxpayers of America are sending to the people of Ukraine to defend themselves against Vladimir Putin and the Russian army falls into the hands of Nazis”. She did say that.
“I want to see her proof. where’s her evidence? She talks about NATO Nazis.” (She does, she uses the hashtag #NATONazis.) “Does the minority believe that our allies in NATO who are trying to defend the people of Ukraine are Nazis?” Raskin continued. “Has it come to this? The gentlelady talked about a massive invasion. We had had a massive invasion of our own chamber and she continues to be a cheerleader for the insurrection and deny what happened here.”
At that point, another Republican interrupted, demanding that Raskin’s words be taken down, what the House does to reprimand a member when they’ve been “disorderly.”
It’s not clear who that Republican was, but it was certainly one that didn’t like hearing the truth about the Putin Wing of the GOP on the House floor.
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