In The News
Oversight Committee Democrats Under Fire for Leak of Closed-Door RemarksWe all know what they say about those who leak in glass houses...
Washington,
May 9, 2024
By Matthew Foldi
While the House’s Oversight Committee has earned its share of headlines for its public hearings, the antics of some of its staff–all but certainly Democrats–are now raising eyebrows following the first true leak of this Congress. In advance of the subsequently-canceled hearing with Washington, D.C.’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, committee members and staff attended a closed-door briefing where note-taking–and worse, cameras–was impermissible. That didn’t stop someone from recording Republican Congressman Scott Perry’s remarks that touched on the troubling, and accurate, ties the Democratic Party has had to the KKK–and leaking them, presumably to undercut the rightful focus that Republicans planned to place on anti-Semitism in K-12 and higher education this week.Bottom of Form It’s worth noting that the Democratic Party’s former longtime Senate Majority Leader, Robert Byrd, was an actual KKK member, who once wrote to the KKK’s Imperial Wizard about how “the Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.” President Joe Biden famously eulogized the former Klan member. Per one of the Republicans in the room, the only Democrats present were the Democrats’ communications director and her staffers–it seems unlikely that one of the former Freedom Caucus chairman’s fellow Republicans would leak his remarks, the first time that closed-door remarks have leaked under the chairmanship of James Comer, a Hill vet noted. The obvious question here is whether it was worth it for the Democrats to shatter the fragile detente that had governed the committee up to this point just to have “Scott Perry” and “great replacement theory” pop up on blogs read by literally no one, like Raw Story and CNN. Following this imbroglio, I wouldn’t be shocked if Republicans start leaking the Democrats’ remarks like there’s no tomorrow–and believe me, my DMs are open! While the Oversight Committee ended up letting Bowser avoid coming in for questioning after George Washington University finally cleared out the illegal Palestinian tent city (and make no mistake, fear of coming before Congress was the only reason GW cleaned up its act), Republicans on the Education and Workforce Committee thoroughly outclassed their Democratic counterparts, showing exactly why Democrats on Oversight would logically want to do anything but focus on the hearing, which was on “The Origins and Implications of Rising Antisemitism in Higher Education.” Throughout the Ed and Workforce hearing, which took place following herculean efforts from groups like Parents Defending Education, Democrats showcased a seemingly pathological inability to discuss the rampant anti-Semitism in schools of all levels in America without putting it in their insane framework of intersectionality. Their plans, I’m told, for the Oversight hearing were to lean heavily into focusing on the tragic events of Charlottesville in 2017, instead of doing anything to acknowledge the havoc that left-wing, mask-clad mobs are wreaking on colleges across America. After all, they need these votes. Josh Holmes and the rest of the Ruthless gang were prescient when noting months ago that “Hamas has a constituency in the Democratic Party.” But, as I noted before, committee Democrats like Jamie Raskin say absolutely insane things when they think no one is listening–so I wouldn’t be shocked if Democrats rue this short term dopamine hit. |
