In case you’ve lost track of the recent crazy House hearings, Tuesday was Attorney General Merrick Garland’s turn to be the scapegoat for Republicans to avoid the personal responsibility they love to demand from poor people. Of course, it was yet another opportunity to falsely blame Garland’s Department of Justice for Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions in a New York state court that the federal government had nothing to do with.

Rep. Ted Lieu put the responsibility for Trump’s 34 felony convictions right back where they belong: on crooked Trump’s shoulders. First, Lieu pointed out that a slew of Trump cronies were convicted of federal felonies before Joe Biden became president in 2021. The list includes Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort, former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, former campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopolous, former lawyer Michael Cohen, Trump advisor Roger Stone, and Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy. They were all charged by the Trump DOJ and later convicted.

Then Lieu went in for the rhetorical kill:

LIEU: Trump’s campaign manager: felon; Trump's deputy campaign manager: felon; Trump's foreign policy adviser: felon; Trump's lawyer: felon; Trump's political adviser: felon; Trump's fundraiser: felon.

It is not the fault of the Department of Justice that Donald Trump surrounded himself with criminals. Trump brought that upon himself.

Lieu went on to remind everyone that in America, no one is above the law, not Trump and “certainly none of his criminal felon enablers.”

But wait, there’s more. Lieu called out the likely reason Republicans are attacking Garland for not releasing the audio of President Biden’s deposition with special counsel Robert Hur: in order to weaponize Biden’s stutter. He said Rep. Andy Biggs “gave away the game” when he said he wanted to know if Biden had said, “and, and, and, and, and.”

Garland acknowledged that Hur had said the written transcript was accurate except for some Biden stutters.

So, Lieu dug the knife deeper into the GOP: Biden “has had a stuttering problem his entire life,” Lieu said. “He was made fun of in school and overcame this disability to become president of the United States, a leader of the free world.”

“It is despicable that my Republican colleagues want to go after him for his stuttering problem. They should apologize,” Lieu added.

We know there will never be an apology. The cruelty is the point with this felon-loving party.

Lieu brilliantly uses his questioning time to undercut the GOP "weaponization" narrative by highlighting that a wide array of Trump cronies were convicted of crimes BEFORE Biden became president and made Garland AG pic.twitter.com/gVjydiH2Vc

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 4, 2024