Republican Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, struggled to control members of the panel when Thursday's hearing on Capitol Hill turned chaotic.
Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, both Republicans, appeared before the committee this week to testify on the Biden administration's communication with social media companies on the moderation of COVID-19 content on their platforms.
The weaponization is a new committee that was created by the new Republican majority in January, largely in response to the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence last summer that GOP lawmakers criticized as an abuse of federal authority. The panel is led by Jordan, a staunch Trump ally and one of Congress' most conservative members. He also chairs the House Judiciary Committee.
Shortly after Schmitt and Landry's opening statements, committee member Representative Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked Jordan why the two witnesses were allowed to leave the hearing without cross-examination from the panel, arguing that without follow-up interrogation, their testimony should be stricken from the record.
In response to Lynch's concerns, committee members began talking over one another as they tried to argue and defend their colleagues, with Republicans contesting that those courtesies were not made when the witnesses were Democrats, and Democrats pushing back that those instances pertained to different circumstances.
"It has been a long practice of the committee to allow current and former members of Congress to present an opening statement without taking questions," said Russell Dye, Jordan's communications director. "Democrats did the same exact thing when they were in the majority.
"Furthermore, Democrats recently asked Representative Jamie Raskin to provide an opening statement to the committee without taking questions as well. Democrats know all of this, of course, but sadly decided to put on a partisan charade instead of act like adults."
On Thursday, Lynch said Schmitt and Landry "scurried away with [Jordan's] complicity."
"They made some outlandish allegations here and consistent with...congressional hearings in general, we should have the ability to question their statements," Lynch said to Jordan.
GOP Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana then asked why other witnesses, like Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, have been allowed to leave hearings without cross-examination, to which Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida argued that the two men before the panel were not members of Congress.
After nearly five minutes of back and forth between committee members, Lynch said: "This is a mockery."
"If allowing them to leave is not weaponization, I don't know what is Mr. Chairman," committee member Representative Linda Sanchez of California said, agreeing with her Democratic colleague.
Testifying before lawmakers, Schmitt and Landry claimed that the Biden administration led a censorship operation during the pandemic by pressuring Meta, Twitter and YouTube to police COVID-19 information on their platforms
Last May, Missouri and Louisiana filed a lawsuit against the president and members of his team, alleging that they "colluded" with the social media giants "to censor free speech in the name of combating so-called 'disinformation' and 'misinformation.'"
After a lower court ordered the deposition of three top Biden administration officials, a federal appeals court reversed the order in November, ruling that the district court judge erred in her judgment. The lawsuit is currently in discovery.
Newsweek reached out to Lynch for comment.
Update 3/30/23, 12:49 p.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from Russell Dye.
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Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more