House Republicans insisted they had to interview FBI agent Peter Strzok to publicly air his anti-Trump texts in an attempt to discredit the Mueller investigation into Russia’s attack on the 2016 presidential election.
For much of Thursday, the hearing has been a disaster – for the GOP. Grandstanding, lies, attempts to frame Strzok as biased have all failed. In fact, some watching have compared Strzok, the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, to Hillary Clinton during her 11 hour marathon Benghazi testimony.
At one point late Thursday afternoon, Strzok saw fit to berate Rep. Trey Gowdy (who, incidentally, chaired the Committee that forced Hillary Clinton to testify for 11 hours, and concluded he had learned nothing new that day.)
In the clip below, Gowdy reads a part of one of Strzok’s texts.
And that’s when Strzok went for the jugular.
“Sir, my concern was not knowing, given these allegations, what existed,” Strzok said, referring to Trump and his team. “Whether on the one hand, there was no criminal activity whatsoever, towards the middle, that there were individuals kind of pursuing their own agenda for their own self-enrichment, or on the far end, that there might be an impeachable offense.”
It devolved from there.
As Rep. Gowdy interrupted Strzok, Rep. David Cicilline (D-NJ) interjected, noting Gowdy was already a minute and a half over his time limit.
Other Democrats called, “point of order!”
Strzok returned to his testimony.
“The reality is,” Strzok continued, attacking Gowdy, “you know full well I said both, and you know why I said both, why I did that, and what I’m telling you under oath, is that I did not know what existed. I had pre-judged nothing.”
The committee devolved into chaos once again as Gowdy tried to support his line of questioning – which he could not.
“If you can’t control yourself,” Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman charged Gowdy, “how do you expect this committee to control itself?”
“You’ve been out of control since you’ve been on this committee!” Rep. Watson Coleman accused. “Why don’t you leave it alone? This is not Benghazi!” she concluded, referring to Gowdy’s disastrous investigation that found no new evidence of any wrong doing by Hillary Clinton, yet cost the American taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars.
Watch:
EARLIER:
WATCH: PETER STRZOK OBLITERATES TREY GOWDY FOR ATTACKING FBI TO SHIELD TRUMP’S ‘DISGUSTING BEHAVIOR’
WATCH: REPUBLICANS DESTROY THEIR OWN HEARING – THREATEN TO JAIL FBI AGENT FOR FOLLOWING FBI RULES
TOP TRUMP TARGET PETER STRZOK DESTROYS ‘WITCH HUNT!’ CLAIMS AND EXPOSES REPUBLICANS AS PUTIN’S PAWNS
Thanks to ThinkProgress’ Aaron Rupar for the video.