New York Democrat gets each witness in impeachment inquiry to admit they have no firsthand evidence of a crime committed
Questioning witnesses in the first impeachment hearing staged by House Republicans, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez prompted each to say they were not presenting “firsthand witness accounts” of crimes committed by Joe Biden.
The New York Democrat also accused Republicans of fabricating supposed evidence of corruption involving the president and his surviving son, Hunter Biden.
Republicans on the House oversight committee called three witnesses, Democrats one.
“Earlier today, one of our colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, presented up on the screen something that … appeared to be a screenshot of a text message containing or insinuating an explosive allegation.... That screenshot of what appeared to be a text message was a fabricated image.”
She caught them fabricating evidence in the hearing. They shopped a bubble around a section of a larger text to take it out of context and make it look like a standalone statement. She (read: her staff) went through the exhibits and found the actual quote with context that entirely changed the meaning of the statement.
In the days of yore, public figures cared about at least pretending to have integrity in the public eye. The system wasn't built with many safeguards against bad actors who do so publicly with zero sense of shame.
I have a contentious opinion. The system *was" built with safeguards against bad actors without shame. I think the founders assumed that dueling would serve that purpose. Anyone who was routinely obnoxious would end up getting killed eventually.
I'm not advocating for the actual use of dueling, but think about how much less of an absolute ass a person would be if they knew you could legally challenge their asshole-ry in a fight to the death?
This is terrible reporting. Could the Guardian have shown the screenshot? Could they have asked what the context was? I don't understand why this all is behind a mostly opaque screen. Why we are being told something that obfuscates what was said rather than giving us the chance to judge for ourselves.