At the same hour that Donald Trump was being arraigned in Miami in the espionage case on Tuesday, Matt Gaetz and others were back at the Capitol producing a mock hearing that honored the January 6 rioters as heroes and martyrs.
Because Gaetz is not a committee chairman, the hearing was not official. Kevin McCarthy allowed it anyway.
The cosplayers included Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Ralph Norman, and others as they impersonated official congress members. Gaetz used all the right lingo to make it seem official.
He impersonated a chairman — “you are recognized,” “thank you for your testimony,” “I’ll recognize myself [for] questions,” “her time has expired” — and the others played along (“thank you for the opportunity to testify,” “I yield back”). Gaetz said testimony could be used “for the official record [of the] House” or for “work in the Judiciary Committee, upon which I serve, or the Oversight Committee.” C-SPAN carried the proceedings live.
The witnesses included family members of insurrectionists, as well as Jeffrey Clark, the Trump official from the DOJ who tried to get states to toss real election results.
“To all of you, my condolences,” said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who added tenderly that “you know how I feel about Ashli” Babbitt, the woman police shot as she breached the last line of defense protecting lawmakers in the House chamber.
Howls of “wrongful conviction” and “fascism” came from the witnesses, and cries of “tyranny” came from the fake dais.
In the audience people were wearing T-shirts claiming rioters were murdered by Capitol Police, while two Capitol Police officers stood outside in the hallway guarding the people accusing them of murder.
More at the Washington Post