CNN host Don Lemon reported Wednesday evening that many Republicans wanted to be arrested for storming the secure room where the House Intelligence Committee depositions were taking place.
Fox News reporter Chad Pergram tweeted that he was told “there was never any chance [members] who barged into SCIF would be arrested by [capital police], but some members asked to be arrested. They wanted the optic of being frog-marched out of the SCIF in front of TV cameras. That would help w/GOP narrative of Dem process abuse.”
Commentator Wajahat Ali called it the perfect example of “martyrdom for snowflakes.”
“We laugh, I laugh, but we have to realize that we are looking at a Republican Party beholden to Trump which is not beholden to democracy, the rule of law, process or ethics,” Ali continued. “It’s going to get a lot worse because Donald Trump — they got him dead to right on the Ukraine crisis. They got the quid pro quo. Ambassador Bill Taylor’s opening statement is devastating. The phone call transcript is devastating. I just want to remind people that Donald Trump released that transcript thinking that would exonerate him. Just pause for a moment and reflect upon that.”
He predicted that in the next year, Americans would see more obstruction of justice and more pundits willing to say whatever it takes to defend Trump.
“We are going to see people like [former acting Attorney General] Matthew Whitaker come out and say that people like him can’t abuse power,” Ali continued. “And we’re going to see his attorney come out and say something like, ‘Oh yeah, Donald Trump can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue because he is president and above the law,’ which is by the way what Donald Trump said in 2016. That’s what’s scary.”
He went on to call the Republican Party an “extremist minority party leaning authoritarian” and predicted that it would ultimately sink “everything” for the president. He also predicted things would get a lot worse.
Opinion columnist Catherine Rampell explained that a full quarter of “the boneheads” that stormed the secure room are members of the committee and have access to participate in the depositions.
“They didn’t need to bust down the door figuratively or otherwise. They were allowed into this hearing,” she said.
“Republicans are basically turning into sort of a funhouse-mirror caricature of the left-wing cancel-culture college student that they love to make fun of,” she continued. “They claim to be all about not only free speech but also law and order and stand for all of these principles. And they condemn the snowflakes who can’t take criticism of whatever their precious ideas are or their heroes are. And yet they are the ones who when the law isn’t on their side and facts aren’t on their side just shout down the opposition.”