Josh Campbell is a CNN analyst, providing insight on national security, crime, and justice issues. He previously served as a supervisory special agent with the FBI, conducting global terrorism and kidnapping investigations. Follow him on Twitter @joshscampbell. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) Congress has done it again. It has wasted our time and proven it cannot seriously exercise its critical role of holding the executive branch accountable.

In an important hearing Thursday, ostensibly scheduled to allow embattled FBI agent Peter Strzok to face the American people and answer important questions about his conduct during the 2016 election season, House Republicans could not help but stray from oversight into embarrassing overreach.

The committee hearing should have been an opportunity to ask Strzok about his now-famous text messages with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, a fellow employee with whom he had engaged in an extramarital affair and exchanged communications disparaging then-candidate Trump. Congress should have taken this chance to grill him about both the Hillary Clinton and Russia investigations to evaluate whether his personal political beliefs impacted his work.

Instead, the spectacle devolved into a chaotic scene more reminiscent of a bar fight than a congressional hearing, with members of Congress yelling over each other and displaying their complete lack of respect for decorum. In one exchange impugning Strzok's integrity, Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, offered the following disgusting remark , "When I see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife's eye and lie to her about Lisa Page?"

There is no question, our present polarized political climate has tempers flaring on both sides of the political aisle, but this raucous hearing did not prove to be the venue for adult discussion. Instead, we had three separate parties -- Republicans, Democrats, and Strzok -- talking past each other with differing motivations. They were not only ships passing in the night, they weren't even operating in the same dimension.

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