Gohmert's outburst

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing today to look into how Attorney General William Barr has behaved in his position - namely, that he has used it to advance President Trump's political fortunes.

Barr is one of those figures to whom I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt. He'd served in a policy position in the Reagan White House, had a confirmation hearing to be Attorney General under Bush 41 that's been described as "unusually placid" and was well-regarded by both Democrats and Republicans when he served in that position the first time. Amassed considerable business-law experience in the private sector. I resonate with his view on how Roe v. Wade was decided. I even resonated with his rather fiery October 2019 speech about religious freedom and the Biblical roots of American notions about freedom at Notre Dame law school, which ticked off all the right people (atheists and identity-politics militants).

But this year, he's really demonstrated the kind of lockstep personal loyalty to the Very Stable Genius that has been the dismaying moral downfall of so many I'd regarded as principled conservatives.

And that's what today's hearing is about.

Now, opening remarks were given by Donald Ayer, a Republican jurist who had also been appointed by Reagan and Bush 41 to various positions. In fact, he was succeeded by Barr as Deputy Attorney in the early 1990s. In fact, earlier, he and Barr had both clerked for DC US Court of Appeals Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey.

Ayer has clearly soured on Barr of late. He's written two Atlantic articles on Barr's disturbing behavior.

So he makes a pretty obvious choice on committee chair Jerold Nadler's part to give opening remarks.

And that's where Gohmert comes in. Given that it's not unusual for opening remarks at hearings to go over the allotted time limit, it seems likely that the Texas congressman's real peeve was with the content of Ayer's speech:

While Ayer was speaking, Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert began tapping on his desk to disrupt Ayer's opening remarks because he had gone over his time limit. When Democratic lawmakers asked Gohmert to stop, he responded, "There's no rules about when you can make noise."

Nadler replied that he would enforce the five-minute rule for opening statements, but Gohmert pushed back, "Mr. Chairman, this is outrageous. Do you have no respect for the rules whatsoever?"

"He's two minutes beyond concluding, and you don't let us have that kind of time, you gavel down immediately, you're being grossly unfair," Gohmert continued, addressing Nadler. "This man has a written statement and he knew to cut it to five minutes, he couldn't do it. Either we have rules or we don't."

"The gentleman will suspend, the witness will continue," Nadler said.

"Then we can keep making noise," Gohmert responded, and began rapping his desk again.

The hearing briefly devolved into chaos as Gohmert and Republicans continued interrupting Ayer's testimony, and Democrats emphasized that it's fairly routine for opening statements to go over their allotted time limit.

Gohmert, to put it plainly, made an ass of himself.

Now, Gohmert has taken positions I align with on many issues (abortion, climate, hate crimes), but he has a history of flamboyant statements and outrageous behavior - the kind of thing that makes it not too much of a surprise that he has taken on a pretty strong Trumpist odor in recent times.

His stunt today mainly has the effect of reinforcing in the public mind the notion that the yee-haw  element has irrevocably taken over the Republican Party. He has not served what ostensibly are - or at least once were - his core principles well.

He created the image of Trumpism trying to shut actual conservatism up.