Watch America's Dumbest Congressman Compare Separated Families to Paul Manafort

By Rafi Schwartz  |  December 20, 2018 | 9:22pm
Congress

Congressman Louie Gohmert. God, where to even start?

When he’s not busy making dropping some grotesque anti-Semitism on cable news channels, or warning us that space gays will doom our entire species, he’s busy acting like a typical Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives; which means licking the boots of President Donald Trump’s chief xenophobia enforcer when she comes to brief Congress about how great America has gotten at hating immigrants these days.

That enforcer, by the way, is Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who appeared before the House Homeland Security committee on Thursday, ostensibly to give an update on all the new and exciting ways the administration is ruining the lives of migrants who simply want a chance at a better one.

There she met with a, um, frosty reception from House Democrats (Rep. Luiz Gutierrez called her a “remorseless” liar) furious over the recent death of seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin, who died from complications including dehydration on December 8 while she and her father were in the custody of the Border Patrol—something CBP head Kevin McAleenan conveniently failed to mention when he spoke before Congress on Dec. 11.

Speaking with Republican committee members, however, Nielsen had a much easier go of things. Which brings us back to Gohmert, who kicked off his line of questioning, if you really want to call it that, by insisting that DHS’ policy of ripping migrant children away from their families was essentially fine because “parents are separated from children every single day of every year, year after year, when a parent—when there’s probable cause to believe a parent has committed a crime.”

As a reminder, the “crime” most instances being talked about here, is the extremely legal process of entering the U.S. without documentation in order to claim asylum.

And Gohmert wasn’t done. Not even close:

[Special Prosecutor Robert] Mueller—and I know he’s a hero to some folks around here—he did it to [convicted felon Paul] Manafort, separated him from his two beautiful children. It happens.

It might interest you to know that Paul Manafort’s “two beautiful children” Jessica and Andrea are both in their 30s. It might also interest you to know that this summer Jessica filed paperwork to legally change her name from “Manafort” to “Bond.” So, yeah, equating these two daughters of privilege to the undocumented immigrant kids being caged in a repurposed Wal-Mart isn’t exactly a one-to-one comparison.

But Gohmert just kept on talking, making sure that everyone knew without a shadow of a doubt that the United States of America would proudly intervene to make sure Jesus Actual Christ wasn’t killed.

“If Mary and Joseph were trying to come into the United States under the situation that existed and King Herod was trying to kill everybody under two, would they be eligible for asylum in the United States?” Gohmert asked Nielsen in the sort of hypothetical I have to imagine is pretty common in hotel rooms during a TPUSA conference after someone smokes the devil’s lettuce.

“Yes,” Nielsen answered.

Whew, glad we got that figured out. The public’s money well spent.

 
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