Yesterday Congress dragged FBI agent Peter Strzok in front of the House Oversight and Judiciary to take him to task for texts he sent criticizing the president. It's that thing where someone in your friend group screenshots another person in your friend group talking trash and then you all convene at brunch to get to the bottom of it. Mimosas are thrown; democracy dies; splitting the check becomes a whole complicated thing.

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The hearing was ostensibly called to suss out anti-Trump bias in the FBI and, not-so-secretly, intended to discredit the Mueller investigation. Who can really say if that purpose was achieved because everyone in the nation formed their opinions about two and half years ago and now we're just in Purgatory shouting at each other, as the Founding Fathers intended.

Performances at the kangaroo court split pretty much down party lines, with Republicans grand-standing and projecting their outrage, even going as far as to talk smack about Peter Strzok's marriage like panelists on an episode of Jerry Springer.

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In response, many Democrats grumbled their peevish disapproval whilst continuing to participate in a process that clearly went off the rails years ago. But one Congressman, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, took advantage of his free afternoon off from work to crack open a burn book written by the Republicans themselves and give an oratory performance that will leave you clutching all the pearls in the ocean.

After hours of congressional leaders grilling Strzok about negative things FBI agents tweeted about Trump during the campaign and claiming it was part of Deep State Conspiracy, it was Raskin's turn and, like our first president, Alexander Hamilton, he did not throw away his shot.



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Raskin started reading off insults Republicans like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio lobbed at Trump and then asked Strzok if he'd directed them to say those things and if it was part of a Deep State Conspiracy. Honey, rhetorical question shade is perhaps the deepest (state) shade there is and I live.

Raskin: In the spring of 2016, Senator Ted Cruz called Donald Trump a "sniveling coward, a pathological liar, and a serial philanderer." Was this attack on Trump by Senator Ted Cruz a coordinated part of Deep State Conspiracy that you organized?

Strzok: No.

Me: BLOOP.

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Jamie Raskin brought the receipts. And not just any receipts; these are CVS-length receipts. I'm not sure how the phrase "a sniveling coward" didn't lodge itself in my brain two years ago but I'm so glad it came galloping through time and space like a Catty Patronus yesterday. I will think about it every day from henceforth.

Raskin was just getting started, though. Apparently, in the past, every Republican who currently spinelessly aquiesces to whatever malevolent demand Trump makes, at one point called him an idiot. And Raskin, like the North in Game of Thrones, remembers.

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Raskin: In October of 2016, Speaker Paul Ryan, said "I am not going to defend Donald Trump. Not now, not in the future." Was this fleeting outburst of moral courage part of a Deep State Conspiracy that you organized?

Strzok: No.

Me:

YouTube

A fleeting outburst of moral courage! This is a read inside of a read. A read inception! This is a read that has collateral damage! There were no survivors. I am actually dead from this. The truth killed me. A ghost wrote this. Boo, etc.

Y'all the Democrats snapped! Sort of. In this one, small, non-legislative area. I do not know how everyone in that hearing wasn't screaming and throwing chairs. A congressman just sat there for two minutes and read insults about the president into the public record and America has never been so great.

Other greatest hits from Raskin's burn book:

"A moron!"

"An empty vessel!"

"Like an 11-year-old child!"

"A dope and an idiot with the intelligence of a kindergartener!"

(I'm sorry, I have to pause for a second because I am wheezing.)

The Raskin reading railroad chugged along, as he casually noted "This conspiracy does appear to be overwhelming Republican. If it exists." Give this man a judge chair on Drag Race. I'm exhausted.

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Raskin concluded by calling out his colleagues: "This hearing has been a circus and a kangaroo court, run in banana republic fashion." And, obviously, he's right. Talking trash on text messages does not indicate a Deep State Conspiracy. If so, every 14-year-old would be a character on The Americans.

Even talking trash on text message about a government figure whom you're investigating isn't indication of a conspiracy unless that its a conspiracy to get caught and dragged in front of a highly partisan Congress. Truth is, if you're investigating anyone, eventually you're going to realize they are complete garbage. Literally anyone. Spend enough time digging through anybody's emails and you're going to be like "Yuck. Bring on the Thanos hand. And hurry up with it, my dude."

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That's the whole point of the internet: it connects us to the people that we love or admire or thirst after and then inundates us with content about them until we literally hate them. Instagram's like, "Wouldn't it be great if instead of passively looking at pictures of people and the food they eat, you could pepper them with questions like a press junket?" And I'm like, "Here's my first question: can we not?"

My second question, of course, is "Did you hear what those Republicans called Trump?! A sniveling coward! The intelligence of a kindergartner! Ah, if only it mattered! What a great day for America!"

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R. Eric Thomas R Eric Thomas is a Senior Staff Writer at ELLE.com, home of his daily humor column "Eric Reads the News," which skewers politics, pop culture, celebrity shade, and schadenfreude.

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