Watson Coleman allows FBI agent to speak his mind
You tell them, Bonnie. New Jersey Democratic Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman scolded bickering lawmakers during a joint hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and used part of the time shewas allotted to question FBI agent Peter Strzok as an opportunity to remind everyone the POTUS is “unfit” to be in office.
She also blasted Republican Trump chumps who “should be applauding” the disgraced FBI agent and “kissing you and giving you all awards because, but for you, we would have had a legitimate president elected.”
Between firing shots at POTUS, Coleman turned the floor over to Strzok for him to speak his “uninterrupted” piece regarding his actions in the Hillary Clinton email and Russian meddling investigations that have come into the political crossfire after it was revealed he exchanged anti-Trump texts.
The FBI agent defended himself throughout the hearing. And his nearly two-and-a-half-mintute-long monologue represented the first of two drop-the-mic moments during the contentious and wayward congressional inquisition that lasted most of the day on Capitol Hill.
“Everybody is watching this and making up their own minds,” started off Strzok, who was dismissed from Mueller’s team after his texts were exposed. “And what I would tell you is one I’m sitting her telling the truth. And two, independent ofme, I cannot express to you my love of the FBI enough. The men and women who make up that work force, their ethics, their integrity, are unmatched anywhere in the world. I think that’s important, one, because it is who we are. Two, that none of themwould accept any of the behaviors that are being alleged any more than I would accept it in [Trump].”
Strzok thanked the New Jersey heavyweight for the opportunity to talk without getting cut off by squabbling demagogues, one of them being the Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert from Texas who Watson reportedly shouted at for forgetting to pop his meds as he chided Strzok as a “disgrace” for lying to his wife and hiding an extramarital affair with exFBI lawyer Lisa Page with whomhe exchanged some of the texts in question.
The steamy affair elevated Strzok’s and Page’s relationship from personal indiscretion to political slam piece and tabloid fodder, as President Donald Trump and his supporters have pointed to their exchanges as proof special counsel Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt” Russian meddling probe was biased from the beginning.
“This entire exercise comes at a cost,” Strzok cautioned. “We are doing things that are going to, in the future, tear down the underpinnings of what represents law and order in this country. And there is not a robust thick wall there. I think people don’t appreciate how tenuous the balance of the rule of law versus chaos is. And when we as a people engage in activities where we take institutions wholesale, whether it’s the FBI or the U.S. intelligence community, and compare them to Nazis, we destroy things that we may not see for years and years and years.”
The loquacious lawmaker who was just in Trenton last week to greet Taiwanese ambassador Lily Hsu with Mayor Reed Gusciora pretty much testified to Trump’s depravity in asking purposely rhetorical questions during a lawyerly cross examination with a cooperative witness who essentially nodded on in agreement.
“You have had nothing to do with the president enriching himself with his emoluments and carving out opportunities for his daughter [to make sure] she’s not negatively impacted with her brand in China while this side of the aisle says nothing?” the congresswoman asked. “You’ve had nothing to do with the fact that Puerto Rico is still under water and without any kind of electricity in so many places while this side of the aisle has forgotten … what its mission is? But nonetheless, you have been here, and you have tried to answer their questions, and I have never seen my colleagues soout of control, so angry, and so desperate to protect a president we all knowis not fit to be president.”