'Orwellian dystopia': House Dem torches Jim Jordan's latest 'weaponization' hearing

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) on Thursday lashed out at the circus-like government "weaponization" hearing that the House Oversight Committee conducted with anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

In taking stock of the hearing, Connolly lamented that House Republicans were holding up Kennedy, who just this weekend floated the idea that the novel coronavirus was engineered to kill Black people while sparing Jews, was being held up as some victim of government censorship.

"I've been in this Congress 15 years, and I never thought we'd descend to this level of Orwellian dystopia," the Virginia Democrat began. "Suddenly, the tools of the trade are not to get at the truth, but to distract, distort, deflect, and dissemble."

He then argued that Republicans were trying to portray efforts to fact check as infringements upon someone's first amendment rights.

RELATED: Stacey Plaskett to Jim Jordan: 'When conspiracy theories succeed, so does Donald Trump'

Connolly then pointed out the way that Dr. Anthony Fauci was muzzled during the COVID-19 pandemic during the Trump administration, and also the way that he has been subject to intimidations and threats from right-wing conspiracy theorists.

He wrapped up his condemnation of the hearing by shredding some Republicans for "explicitly endorsing" the kinds of violence and intimidation that occurred on January 6th, 2021, but that were rationalized by some as just a mere tourist group that got a little rowdy.

Watch the video below or at this link.