Republicans and Democrats saw the FBI agent’s 10-hour grilling on Capitol Hill – likened to ‘a public lynching’ – wildly differently

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Peter Strzok’s 10-hour showdown with congressional lawmakers, a made-for-TV spectacle that featured far more drama than substance, was an airing of the deep partisan divide surrounding the special counsel’s investigation into whether associates of Donald Trump conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

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Strzok helped lead two of the FBI’s most high-profile investigations: inquiries into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. He was removed from the Russia investigation after the discovery of anti-Trump text messages exchanged with an FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.

Democrats treated the star witness as a persecuted victim of a cynical plot to undermine the Russia inquiry. Meanwhile, Republicans held him up as a symbol of an agency overrun by anti-Trump bias.

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“Peter Strzok’s testimony was a disgrace,” Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for the president, said on Twitter. “It taints the entire Mueller witch hunt. President Trump is being investigated by people who possess pathological hatred for him. All the results of the investigation are ‘fruit of the poison tree’ and should be dismissed.”

Democrats, however, agreed with the sentiment expressed by their colleague, California congressman Ted Lieu: “Let me start by saying, this is a stupid and ridiculous hearing.”

For many viewers watching from home, either viewpoint was overshadowed by the stunning display of congressional dysfunction as the hearing descended into shouting matches between lawmakers and between Republicans and the witness.

“In the end, the hearing did more to harm Congress and the FBI than it did to expose wrongdoing,” the Washington Post editorial board concluded on Friday in a piece titled The Strzok hearing damaged our democracy.

During the daylong meeting, Strzok sparred with Republicans, who lashed out at him in often sharply personal exchanges.

At one point, Trey Gowdy, chairman of the oversight committee, grew frustrated with Strzok’s answers and shouted: “I don’t give a damn what you appreciate, Agent Strzok.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Congresssman Trey Gowdy: ‘I don’t give a damn what you appreciate Agent Strzok.’ Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

In perhaps the most dramatic outburst, congressman Louie Gohmert raised the agent’s extramarital affair: “I can’t help but wonder when I see you looking there with a little smirk – how many times did you look so innocent into your wife’s eyes and lie to her about Lisa Page?”

“It felt like a public lynching,” Dana Perino, a Fox News host and a former White House press secretary under President George W Bush, said of the Republicans’ interrogation of Strzok.

Perino called Gohmert’s attack “way overboard” and also faulted Democrats for their “outrageous” defense of the witness. She wondered if it was time to remove the cameras from congressional hearings.

“They should not be on camera,” she said. “As soon as you bring cameras into this situation you have all of this grandstanding.”

But Republicans insisted Strzok’s testimony showed the extent to which bias infected the Russia inquiry.

“It proves that really that there are two rotten bookends on the Russia investigation,” Matt Gaetz, a Republican congressman from Florida and one of the president’s strongest defenders in Congress, said on Fox.

And yet some analysts couldn’t help but notice a hint of irony in Republicans’ argument that Strzok’s personal views must have influenced his official duty, while they simultaneously conduct investigations into politicians they openly support or oppose.

“What is actually on display here is House GOP members demonstrating that they cannot even conceive of the possibility someone could place duty and institutional integrity over base political and personal interests,” said Susan Hennessey, a national security expert and the executive editor of Lawfare blog. “The concept is too foreign to them to comprehend.”