During the impeachment hearings last week, I kind of wanted Fiona Hill to float down from the ceiling after the lunch break like Mary Poppins and spank the ever-living crap out of Gym Jordan and Devin Nunes.
Or maybe give them a royal death glare and intone, “We are not amused.”
Or morph into the first female James Bond and dispatch them like the thuggish Oddjobs they are.
But she did one better. She rebuked them in no uncertain terms:
Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.
The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.
…
Right now, Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advanceRussian interests.
Oh, how outraged the Republicans on the committee were. No! Look! We supported our intelligence agencies! (Er, even if Donald Trump never really has.)
Well, maybe those congresspersons need to talk to their Senate colleague, John Kennedy (R-La.). Because he seems to think there’s still some question about all this.
In other words, Donald Trump’s bonkers conspiracy theories — which were apparently spoon-fed to him by Vladimir Putin and which are not only patently false but also literally impossible — are just as legitimate as the conclusions of the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus.
That’s where we are now.
My “opinion” that syphilis can be cured with clove and gummy bear sandwiches is just as valid as your “opinion” that it can’t.
So let’s not listen to experts. What do they know, really?
This is government-by-conspiracy-theory. This is the country we live in now. And the obsequious weaklings in the GOP are fully buying in.
Gee, this kind of thing has always worked out in the past, right? What could possibly go wrong?
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