Investigate whether drinking played role in chaotic House hearing, senior Democrat says
A top-ranking Democrat has said that it’s worth investigating whether alcohol was involved in an explosive, insult-ridden House Oversight Committee hearing earlier this week.
Representative Jamie Raskin called for the investigation after Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat, said non-committee members were drinking in the chamber during a hearing where Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene kicked off a fiery exchange by insulting lawmaker Jasmine Crockett.
“I didn’t see the drinking but the gentlelady from New Mexico, Melanie Stansbury, raised it,” Mr Raskin told Fox Newsoutside the US Capitol on Friday. “She said ‘there are members drinking in the room,’ and that’s something that is worth investigating if there was in fact drinking taking place.”
Mr Raskin pointed the finger at lawmakers from across the aisle.
“There was drinking going on in the hearing room on the Republican side,” he told The Hill.
“You had a bunch of members who had skipped legislative votes yesterday in order to go to Donald Trump’s trial...I don’t even want to imagine how much drinking was taking place on the train or up in New York,” he said.
“And these members came back out of control. And the chairman did not rein them in, and the institution pays the price.”
Additional unnamed representatives from both parties also told Politico they saw members drinking.
The incident took place during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Thursday to decide if US Attorney General Merrick Garland could be held in contempt of Congress.
It began when Rep. Greene attacked Democratic lawmaker Jasmine Crockett’s “fake eyelashes.”
Representative Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), pictured at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee on Thursday, called Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘bleach blonde bad-built butch body’ (US House of Representatives/YouTube)
“I’d like to know if any Democrats on the committee are employing Judge [Juan] Merchan’s daughter?” Ms Greene asked.
Judge Juan Merchan presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York. The former president and other Republicans have attacked Judge Merchan as partisan and highlighted that his daughter has worked for Democrats.
“Please tell me what that has to do with Merrick Garland,” Ms Crockett, a Texas Democrat, asked. “Do you know what we’re here for?”
“I don’t think you know what you’re here for,” Ms Greene said. “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democrat from New York, interjected. “How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person,” she said.
Ms Greene then taunted Ms Ocasio-Cortez, asking if her feelings had been hurt.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (right), pictured during Thursday’s House Oversight Committee hearing, exchanged blows after Ms Greene insulted Jasmie Crockett’s ‘fake eyelashes’ (Independent TV)
“Oh girl, oh baby girl, don’t even play,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said.
Mr Raskin, the top Democrat on the panel, then stepped in and told Ms Greene the comments were “beneath even you.” Ms Greene struck her words from the Congressional record but did not apologise to Ms Crockett.
When Chairman James Comer ruled that Ms Greene’s comments did not violate House rules, Ms Crockett responded.
“If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach blond, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?” she asked the chairman.
After a fellow representative asked her to calm down, Ms Crockett continued.
““I’m trying to get clarification,” Ms Crockett said. “Don’t tell me to calm down, because y’all talk noise and then you can’t take it, because if I come and talk s*** about her, y’all gonna have a problem.”
Ms Crockett later called Ms Greene “absolutely” racist for her comments. “She is racist. I mean, I don’t have any questions about that,” she said.
She went on to say that Ms Greene and Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert “aren’t getting along. Boebert has clip-ins in her hair. And Boebert wears lashes, too, sometimes it looks like. I don’t know.”
“But she doesn’t attack her for any of that,” Ms Crockett said.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez made a similar point, Punchbowl News reported.
“It is not lost on me that Ms Greene targeted one of the only Black women on the committee for some of the most egregious and disgusting comments and with the expectation that it will be ignored,” she said.
Meanwhile, Ms Greene said she’s “completely over it” in a Friday post on X.
“Pardon me if I don’t talk as nicely as some people would like to hear,” she wrote. “I’m not going to keep you all addicted to outrage and hopium that never solves a problem or stops the inevitable implosion of the United States of America.”
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