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Watch: Jamie Raskin derails GOP hearing by railing against Trump's 'lethal recklessness and lying'
March 28, 2023
During a House Oversight Committee hearing on school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) slammed former President Donald Trump and his administration, calling his public health response to the emergency a "historic debacle."
"You don't need to go to the American Medical Association or the American Hospital Association or the American Nursing Association to conclude that Trump's lethal recklessness and lying led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths," Raskin said.
"You just have to go to Donald Trump's own COVID-19 adviser, Dr. Deborah Birx, who said that by undermining mass testing, not more aggressively coordinating vaccination and treatment, not seriously implementing mask mandates, the administration failed to save at least 130,000 lives, and probably a lot more than that."
Raskin went on to quote Birx's 2022 testimony before the the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, where she said, "We probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30 percent less, to 40 percent less range."
IN OTHER NEWS: GOP's Tommy Tuberville singlehandedly blocks military promotions to protest abortion
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The United Nations Security Council on Monday rejected a Russia-led effort to launch a fresh international probe into last year's sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the wake of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh's reports accusing the U.S. of carrying out the attack.
Brazil and China supported Russia's resolution while the U.S., France, the United Kingdom, and other Security Council members abstained, leaving the proposal short of the nine votes needed for passage.
The Security Council said in a press release that, if adopted, the resolution would have requested that the secretary-general establish "an international, independent investigation commission to conduct a comprehensive, transparent, and impartial international investigation of all aspects of the act of sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines—including identification of its perpetrators, sponsors, organizers, and accomplices."
Ahead of Monday's vote, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that "without an objective and transparent international investigation, the truth will not be uncovered as to what happened."
Robert Wood, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N., countered that the Biden administration "was not involved in any way" in the Nord Stream explosions and accused Russia of attempting to "discredit the work of ongoing national investigations and prejudice any conclusions they reach that do not comport to Russia's predetermined and political narrative."
Denmark, Sweden, and Germany told the U.N. Security Council last month that their investigations into the Nord Stream blasts—which nations agree was an act of deliberate sabotage rather than an accident—are still ongoing.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told reporters that the Biden administration is "not a party" to those investigations "because there are countries on whose sovereign territory this attack occurred, and we're deferring it to them."
The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill reported over the weekend that Russian officials have complained in letters to the U.S. and European governments that "they have been barred from examining evidence gathered from the sites where the blasts occurred."
Scahill noted that "despite Russia's majority ownership of the pipelines, Russian officials said, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden have rejected Russia's repeated requests for a joint investigation—confirming their 'suspicions that these countries are trying to conceal evidence, or to cover up the sponsors and perpetrators of these acts of sabotage.'"
"Denmark and Sweden have cited procedural matters and national regulations as to why they aren't collaborating with Russia," Scahill added. "But it's pretty obvious that they have also adopted the position that Russia should be viewed as a suspect in the sabotage and wouldn't want to invite it into the probe, particularly given Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
Citing an anonymous source, Hersh reported last month that U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline system, believing it posed a threat to "western dominance." According to Hersh, the Biden White House was particularly concerned about Nord Stream 2, which would have carried gas from Russia to Germany.
Germany put the pipeline on hold a day before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Weeks after Hersh published his initial report, The New York Timesran a story alleging that "intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials" implicates a shadowy "pro-Ukrainian group" in the Nord Stream attack.
Last week, Hersh alleged that U.S. intelligence agencies have been "feeding" the Times and other outlets false information in an attempt to cover up the Biden administration's involvement in the Nord Stream operation. Hersh also blasted the U.S. press corps for failing to ask why the Biden administration has thus far been unwilling to launch its own investigation.
At a congressional hearing a day after Hersh published his follow-up story, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) asked U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken whether he can "assure the world that no agency of the U.S. government blew up those pipelines or facilitated that action."
"Yes," Blinken responded, "yes I can."
Scahill noted Saturday that he asked the Biden White House Hersh's question about why American intelligence agencies have not formally announced a probe of the Nord Stream attack.
"In a statement, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson did not directly address any of my questions," Scahill wrote.
Instead, she repeated the White House's dismissal of Hersh's reporting as "totally false concoctions."
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Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is single-handedly blocking a handful of military promotions to protest a Pentagon directive giving service members access to abortion services.
The Alabama Republican is holding up 160 promotions, which usually sail through the Senate Armed Services Committee, to force the Department of Justice to reverse a February policy directive that Republicans say amounts to using taxpayer funds for abortions, reported Punchbowl News.
“I hate to have to do this, it’s unfortunate, but we make the laws over here -- the DoD doesn’t," Tuberville said. "This is not about abortion. It’s about taxpayer-funded abortions … If this was about a list of personnel, people actually doing the fighting, this might be different … If this had to do with winning a war, obviously I wouldn’t be doing this.”
Although other GOP senators on the Armed Services panel agreed with Tuberville's objection, they're not entirely comfortable with his decision to use the promotions -- which includes commanders assigned to theaters with active conflicts -- as leverage in the domestic policy spat.
READ MORE: Christie slams Pence over J6: 'Who needs him?'
“Clearly, on the DoD policy, I absolutely agree with Sen. Tuberville,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the ranking Republican on the committee. “That said, there are a lot of military positions that need to be filled, and so we’re working with leadership and Sen. Tuberville to see what can be resolved.”
The second-ranking Republican on the panel was more blunt.
"It’s a tactic that he chose to use," said Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE). "He has that right as a senator. It’s not one that I would use.”
Committee chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) warned that Tuberville's blockade would disrupt the military "at the highest levels," but some Republicans are cheering on the former college football coach from the sidelines.
“I think what [the Pentagon is] doing is illegal," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). "I don’t think they have the authority to do this. Basically they’re setting a policy to give people leave, to use taxpayer dollars, which I think runs afoul of existing law.”
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