GOP witness veers into 'cutting penises off' of babies to dodge Todd Blanche question

A House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) went sideways Tuesday when a GOP witness interrupted a line of Democratic questioning with a non-sequitur about infant genitalia.

It started simply enough. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) pressed the panel on whether the Justice Department's controversial $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization fund" — scrapped last week by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche after bipartisan backlash — should have been shut down. SPLC Interim CEO Bryan Fair said yes. Then Raskin turned to Dr. Alveda King.

"Dr. King, do you agree that that should be shut down?"

King — niece of Martin Luther King Jr., Fox News contributor, and chair of the America First Policy Institute's Center for the American Dream — refused to engage.

"I will not speak on whether that particular fund should be shut down," she said.

Raskin pushed harder. Yes or no?

"I will not answer," she repeated.

Then, as Raskin pivoted to another witness, King cut back in.

"Stop killing the babies and cutting the penises off!" she blurted. "And so any slush fund — money in that is the problem."

Raskin, visibly taken aback, pressed on.

The exchange didn't end there. When Raskin argued the SPLC's use of paid informants mirrored standard law enforcement practice, King jumped back in. "So do you pay the same people to do the bomb and then go and comfort the people from being bombed?" she demanded. "That's kind of a fraud to me. That's weird and chaotic and confusing."

Raskin told her flatly she was "asserting a lot of things under oath, and you haven't brought the evidence with you."

"I think I'll get some for you," King fired back.

The hearing, titled "The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate, Part II," was called to examine a federal indictment handed up against the SPLC in April, alleging the civil rights group secretly paid more than $3 million to informants embedded in extremist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC has said its informant program saved lives and vowed to fight the charges.

The clash between Raskin and King was first reported by journalist Aaron Rupar.