Rep. Louie Gohmert grilled former Counterintelligence Division Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok as part of a House hearing on FBI bias during the 2016 election.
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Rep. Louie Gohmert grilled Deputy Assistant FBI Director Peter Strzok at joint hearing of the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees.
Tea Party Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) either went too far or just far enough in his questioning of Former FBI Counterintelligence Division Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok Thursday as part of a House hearing on alleged FBI bias during the 2016 election.
The 64-year-old Pittsburg, Texas native who earned a law degree in 1977 from Baylor University, was elected to Congress in 2005 to serve Texas’ 1st District. He is no stranger to controversy.
Gohmert does not believe humans are responsible for climate change and has called evidence fraudulent. In 2012, when asked why he supported keeping the Alaska pipeline running, he said without oil flowing through it, caribou would suffer. Sexually. The Anchorage Daily News reported that Gohmert’s idea was that caribou like the heat radiating from the pipeline and makes for romance: “So when they want to go on a date, they invite each other to head over to the pipeline.”
Here’s what else you need to know about Gohmert:
Describing his “grilling” of Strzok as “fiery,” Gohmert didn’t back away from or apologize for his question. As part of his questioning, bordering on interrogation, during Thursday’s joint hearing of the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees Gohmert pressed on. The hearing is largely focused on a text Strzok sent to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he had an affair,
. @replouiegohmert just shut Peter Strzok down, @DiamondandSilk style. No sugar coating and no beating around the bush. Straight and to the point. We love it.
— Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) July 12,2018
“… I can’t help but wonder, see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife’s eyes and lie to her about Lisa Page…”
The floor erupted in a chorus of “Ohs,” and “Mr. Chairman, this is outrageous …” “Shame on you …” Mr. Chairman, this is intolerable harassment.”
Thanks to @cnn for capturing my thoughts on today’s @HillaryClinton email hearing. pic.twitter.com/Lvmofdzd8C
— David Cicilline (@davidcicilline) July 12,2018
But Gohmert appeared unfazed and carried on.
“The credibility of a witness is always an issue,” he said.
On his website he describes a take-down of Strzok “on his bias and emails sent to (an) unauthorized source.”
Here’s my FULL EXCHANGE with Peter #Strzok this afternoon during the joint @HouseJudiciary & @GOPoversight hearing #StrzokHearing. VIDEO: https://t.co/yZIWniIgwO
— Louie Gohmert (@replouiegohmert) July 12,2018
Strzok texted Page in August of 2016 that “we’ll stop” Trump. When the message was discovered, Strzok was taken off investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election by the Office of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Rarely seen a more cowardly act than Rep. Gohmert attacking a witness personally and then trying to get the chairman to refuse him the chance to respond
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) July 12,2018
Louie Gohmert said he was warned by people “in a position to know, you’re being watched,” by the US government as part of “deep state” tactics.
During an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Gohmert said after he “did a 48-page expose on Mueller and it really came home.”
What I have accumulated here is absolutely shocking upon the realization that #Mueller ‘s disreputable, twisted history speaks to the character of the man placed in a position to attempt to legalize a coup against a lawfully-elected President. DOWNLOAD: https://t.co/4GTxG83QRQ
— Louie Gohmert (@replouiegohmert) April 25,2018
“This is their mode of operation, this is what they do,” Gohmert said.
Gohmert said the Department of Justice, the FBI and the intelligence community were spying on him. Carlson asked in what manner were they spying: “Monitoring your email your phone calls bugging your office?”
Gohmert answered, “All of the above.”
Carlson called it a “constitutional crisis.”
“This has been stirred the Democrats, this needs an investigation or the president or through him the attorney general can appoint an independent counsel this is so political, this is being driven by forces of evil beyond what normal people can think about,” Gohmert said.
He proffered his own conspiracy theory claiming that “people with KKK shirts and with Black Lives Matter” shirts traveled to the Charlottesville protests on the same bus. “I mean somebody is stoking this.” He claimed witnesses said police barricades were purposely set up so fascists, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists were facing off against protesters.
Gohmert said an investigation was warranted to see “who paid for the different groups to come Who ordered the funneling of those groups together.
“There is a strategy to make race the number one issue in 2018 and 2020,” he claimed. “They think this is gonna be their ticket back but it’s gonna blow up in their face.”
When CNN’s Anderson Cooper attempted to have a conversation with Gohmert and asked for evidence of so-called ‘terror babies’ in 2010, Gohmert yelled and clamored that there was evidence that terrorists send “pregnant women over here to have terror babies.”
Cooper said an FBI agent said there was never a credible report about terrorist plots to send pregnant women to the US to give birth to babies that would be groomed as terrorists.
“Before you went on the House floor and spread this story, did you call the FBI,” Cooper asked. “You’re just spreading scare stories” without evidence.
Cooper asked for examples and Gohmert repeatedly ignored questions and said Cooper should “do better.” The remainder of the eight minute interview is mostly Gohmert yelling over Cooper.
Gohmert said Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore “absolutely cannot be bought or sold.”
Gohmert, a former Texas district court judge, said sexual assault allegations against conservative Roy Moore, who lost the Alabama Senate seat vacated by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to Republican Luther Strange, were too old as to be irrelevant, much less prosecuted.
