Usually these Congressional hearings are fun. Great theater. Good television. What’s more relaxing than tuning in to watch some poor sucker get carved up by the Committee, any Committee, particularly if the pigeon is someone we can’t stand. Bring on the popcorn.
But it wasn’t like that on Tuesday at the House Judiciary Committee Hearings or in my living room.
We like Jeff Sessions. Good guy. Totally innocent of all charges. We want him to succeed if only because we want Trump to succeed.
But this attorney general is so inarticulate that he sounds guilty. He looks guilty.
Those five hours watching him squirm were excruciating TV.
Sessions remains President Trump’s one big mistake and it’s no wonder Trump is furious at him.
Because it was something like a double cross when Sessions accepted the offer to run the Dept. of Justice – and then declared himself recused from any probe related to Russia and the 2016 elections. That rendered him useless. Half in – half out, you cannot function properly for Trump or the American people.
He may just as well have recused himself from serving as attorney general, end of story.
That’s because for the Democrats on this Committee, and for Democrats everywhere, the Russia probe is everything.
There is nothing else they think about, these Democrats – as proved when one after another asked the same question, translated as:
“Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Republican Party and is it true that you were seen eating with Russians, drinking with Russians and dancing with Russians…and can you deny that years ago you were spotted at the Russian Tea Room and at the Bolshoi Ballet?
“We have proof here that you like the music of Tchaikovsky…and that you read Tolstoy. “
That is not word for word how it went, but it was the gist, and it is also the gist that the Democrats want us at war with Russia. I can’t figure this out. Nobody can.
Plus there’s a scale measuring how much you are supposed to hate Putin and if it’s less than 10, tag, you’re it. Trump himself needs to be careful. All eyes are upon him for any perceived false more… it’s all being timed and recorded. If he is seen talking to Putin for more than one minute and a half, aha, it means he’s colluding.
All that fell on Sessions during a merciless five-hour grilling minus only a guillotine.
If you like Inquisitions, Tuesday was your day. You got a taste of what it must have been like in Spain and France during those good old days.
Or you can guess what it must be like to be Israel at the United Nations – any day of the week.
Or, say, blurt out Israel at any Democratic National Convention – then wait for the boos.
Or you could have imagined what it was like during the 1940s, 50s, into the 60s when a witch-hunt was on in America during the Red Scare Days.
Then too it was Russia. Except for a detail here and there, we are watching a period of terrible American history repeat itself.
Witch-hunts are back in season and no one does it better than Liberals. On Russia, they won’t let go. On Trump, they won’t let up.
Sessions came off the loser on Tuesday. He was an embarrassment to the Trump Administration and all of it could have been avoided had he been straight with Trump, rather than to disqualify himself a day late and a dollar short. He only had to declare himself unfit – and at least that would have been the truth.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva. Engelhard wrote the international book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal” and the ground-breaking inside-journalism thriller “The Bathsheba Deadline.” His latest is “News Anchor Sweetheart.” He is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com