Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) could barely contain himself during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, lashing out at Attorney General Merrick Garland over a variety of Republican talking points... some of which had nothing to do with Garland. He initially tried to get Garland to accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci of lying to Congress over conspiracy theories regarding his agency’s funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, on which Garland said it was outside his scope of knowledge. When that didn’t work, Cotton accused the Department of Justice of trying to prosecute parents over school mask mandates. Garland was hardly able to get a word in but repeatedly said that was not the case.
As nothing seemed to stick, Cotton went for his ultimate power move, yelling: “This testimony, your directive—your performance is shameful. Thank God you’re not on the Supreme Court. You should resign in disgrace, Judge!” Cotton then got up and left the room, though Garland was given a chance to respond. “I wasn’t sure there was a question there,” he said.
