A House Weaponization Subcommittee hearing went off the rails Thursday as one Democratic congressman shouted at Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, over his party’s ability to “cross-examine” testimony provided by prominent Republicans.
The hearing — held to examine the Biden administration’s alleged collusion with Big Tech to violate First Amendment rights — featured testimony from Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry; Sen. Eric Schmitt, formerly Missouri’s attorney general; and the former Missouri deputy attorney general for special litigation, D. John Sauer.
The witnesses were provided the opportunity to discuss their federal government censorship lawsuit, Louisiana and Missouri v. Biden et al., which they filed in May 2022 and describe as “the most important free speech lawsuit of this generation.
Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Stephen Lynch was incensed when the witnesses left after giving their initial statements. “At least if we’re not gonna have the ability to cross-examine, I would move that we strike the testimony provided by Sen. Schmitt and Attorney General Landry,” Lynch told Jordan.
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“You mean you wanna censor it? You wanna censor their testimony,” one Republican questioned as he interrupted Lynch.
“I wanna strike it,” Lynch said repeatedly. “If we aren’t able to probe the veracity of their statements, the truthfulness of their statements…”
“You’ll be given your five minutes when we get to the five minutes of questioning,” Jordan interjected.
“They’re not here to question,” one Democrat representative said as the hearing devolved into chaos and a shouting match between lawmakers.
“They’re not here. They’re absent. They have scurried away with your complicity,” Lynch shouted at Jordan.
“They have not scurried away,” Jordan said over Lynch, recognizing Sauer for his testimony.
“In a country of 330 million people, you couldn’t find two people to defend their statements,” Lynch said loudly across the room. “That’s pretty disgraceful.”
Amid the chaos, one Democrat said, “If allowing them to leave is not weaponization, I don’t know what is, Mr. Chairman.”
Lynch then moved to adjourn the hearing, telling Jordan that what was taking place was a “mockery and a disgrace.”
“The gentleman has not been recognized,” Jordan said over Lynch, calling for Sauer to continue.
“There is a motion on the floor to adjourn and it’s not debatable,” Lynch said. “If you don’t know the rules of the committee, then talk to your parliamentarian.”
While telling Lynch that he wasn’t recognized to make the motion, Jordan was interrupted by another Democrat who told him he was “not following the rules of the committee.”
Jordan’s office said the Judiciary Committee often allows current and former lawmakers to present opening statements without staying for questions.
“It has been a long practice of the Committee to allow current and former Members of Congress to present an opening statement without taking questions,” said Russell Dye, communications director for Jordan and counsel for the House Judiciary Committee. “Democrats did the same exact thing when they were in the majority. Furthermore, Democrats recently asked Rep. Jamie Raskin to provide an opening statement to the Committee without taking questions as well. Democrats know all of this, of course, but sadly decided to put on a partisan charade instead of act like adults.”
The testimony comes after Missouri and Louisiana filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, alleging that the president and members of his team “colluded with social media giants Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to censor free speech in the name of combating so-called ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation.’”
The lawsuit alleges that coordination led to the suppression and censorship of truthful information “on a scale never before seen,” using examples of the COVID lab-leak theory, information about COVID vaccinations, Hunter Biden’s laptop and more.
Schmitt testified that President Biden accomplished “the largest speech censorship operation in recent history” by working with social media companies to suppress and censor information later acknowledged as truthful,” in his written remarks submitted to the subcommittee.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.