Jamie Raskin turns the tables on GOP in fiery opening statement at 'weaponization' hearing

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) accused Republicans of using "psychological projection" to obscure their efforts to use a congressional investigation to restore Donald Trump to the White House.

The Maryland Democrat gave an opening statement during Thursday's opening hearing of a subcommittee to probe the alleged "weaponization" of the federal government against conservatives, and he said the GOP majority was accusing their political opponents of engaging in the sort of behavior they intended to use their legislative power to carry out.

"Dear colleagues, your subcommittee can absolutely become part of a proud history of serious bipartisan oversight stretching from the Teapot Dome investigation to the Boeing investigation, into the Watergate hearings, to the tobacco hearings, to the select committee on the Jan. 6 attack," Raskin said. "Or you could take oversight down a very dark alley filled with conspiracy theories and disinformation, a place where facts are the enemy and partisan destruction is the overriding goal."

"Millions of Americans already fear that weaponization is the right name for the special subcommittee," he continued, "not because representation of the government is its targets, but because weaponization of the government is its purpose. What's in a name? Well, everything is. The autonym of the opposition subcommittee constitute a case of pure psychological protection. When former president Donald Trump and his followers accused you of doing something, they are usually telling you exactly what their own plans are. By establishing a select subcommittee on weaponization, they are telling us that Donald Trump's followers who obviously control the subcommittee will continue weaponizing any part of the government they can get their hands on to attack their enemies defined as anyone who stands in the way of their quest for power."

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"To be clear, that's not an exclusively partisan operation," Raskin added. "They've proven that they will weaponize the government not just against other parties, but against anyone who refuses to bend to the will and whim of one Donald Trump, whether that's a lifelong Republican state election official, like Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, foreign head of states like president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, or a political movement, like Black Lives Matter, a once-close personal friend and ally of Trump's, like his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for many years, or even a sycophantic Trump appointee, a lifelong Republican like attorney general William Barr. If these people break from the habits of lying and lawlessness that define life as a camp follower in the cult of Donald Trump, if the weaponize campaign isn't partisan, it's entirely political."

"It's got an overriding electoral focus," Raskin concluded. "You know what it is. It's all about restoring Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president, to the office he lost by 7 million votes in 2020 and tried to steal back in a political coup and violent insurrection against our constitutional order on Jan. 6, 2021."

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