To advance their anti-Biden crusade, congressional Republicans were heavily invested in an elusive “informant,” who purportedly had evidence against the president. As it turns out, the GOP’s witness appears to have a bit of a credibility problem.
As we discussed yesterday, the man in question is Gal Luft, a director at a D.C.-area think tank who’s been charged with being an unregistered agent for China, trying to broker secret arms deals, violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, and lying to federal agents.
In theory, this should probably be the point at which Republicans either look for new witnesses or find a different obsession. In practice, as The Washington Post reported, GOP lawmakers are undeterred.
House Republicans on Tuesday said they still hope to call a man indicted on charges of arms trafficking and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Chinese entities as a witness in their investigations of President Biden and his son Hunter. Senior Republicans dismissed the importance of the charges against the fugitive defendant and instead accused the Justice Department, the FBI and other authorities of orchestrating a vast conspiracy on behalf of the first family, providing no documentation or other evidence to support their accusations.
I suppose this was inevitable. After learning that federal prosecutors have evidence of several felonies allegedly committed by their “informant,” Republicans did what they now do routinely: They concluded that federal law enforcement is part of an elaborate conspiracy — that only GOP officials and their allies can see — that doesn’t make any sense.
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, by way of Donald Trump’s social media platform, responded to Luft’s indictment by arguing, “The corruption of Biden’s DOJ runs deep.”
Similarly, GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, having abandoned her earlier persona as a mainstream gadfly in her party, told Fox Business yesterday, “They are trying to silence our witnesses.” At this point, I could spend a paragraph or two marveling at Republicans’ willingness to peddle such claims without evidence. I could also explain, again, that we already know that these GOP claims are wrong: The indictment against Luft was apparently handed down last fall — before the House GOP majority was even elected, and before the party was on the prowl for anti-Biden witnesses. But just as important is the unfortunate fact that the Republican campaign against the U.S. justice system has become reflexive. It’s simply assumed in too many GOP circles that if federal prosecutors have evidence against a criminal suspect that the party wants, likes, or needs, then the case must be the result of politically motivated corruption. As we’ve discussed, the United States only has two major political parties. When one of them tries to convince its base that the justice system is not to be trusted — in effect, delegitimizing federal law enforcement — the consequences are worth worrying about.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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