Conspiracy-mongers in Congress: Republicans go off the deep end

“The most durable narratives are not the ones that stand up to fact-checking. They’re the ones that address our deepest needs and desires,” journalist George Packer once acknowledged. But, he warned, “when facts become fungible, we’re lost.”

These days, in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, conspiracy theories are in the saddle, and facts have become fungible.

During the testimony of John Kerry before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee a couple of weeks ago, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) accused the U.S. Climate Envoy of hyping a global warming “problem that doesn’t exist.” When Kerry pointed to the consensus of climate scientists and the 195 nations that signed the Paris Accords, Perry declared they were “grifting, just like you.” In the 117th Congress, according to one study, 52 percent of House Republicans and 60 percent of Senate Republicans were climate skeptics or deniers. Every time soil or a rock “is deposited into the seas,” opined Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) “that forces the sea levels to rise because now you’ve got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving.”

In May, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) introduced articles of impeachment against FBI Director Christopher Wray. More recently, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, alleged that the Bureau spied on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign “raided” the former president’s home and targeted conservatives in a “double standard” of the system of justice. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) described the Bureau as a “creepy personal snooping machine.” Blasting the FBI as “tyrannical,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) claimed agents “stormed” the home of an anti-abortion activist and arrested him.

The FBI did not “raid” Mar-a-Lago, Wray said; agents acted pursuant to a search warrant approved by a judge. “There are specific rules about where to store classified information,” Wray added, “and in my experience, ballrooms, bathrooms, and bedrooms are not SCIFs” (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities). In the case of the anti-abortion activist, agents knocked on his door and “asked him to exit. He did without incident.” Given his background as a registered Republican who was appointed by President Trump, Wray concluded, “the idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me.”

In May, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) issued a press release: “Grassley, Comer Demand FBI Record Alleging Criminal Scheme Involving Then VP Biden.” Hours later Grassley tweeted, “I can’t verify whether or not it’s really criminal activity…” Two weeks ago, the DOJ unsealed an indictment filed on Nov. 1, 2022, charging Gal Luft, a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, with arms trafficking, sanctions violations, lying to the FBI, and acting as an unregistered agent for China. Arrested in Cyprus in February 2023, Luft skipped bail in April and may now be hiding in Israel. If convicted, he faces up to 100 years in prison.

After acknowledging that Luft was the whistleblower he and Grassley had referenced, Rep. James Comer (R-Tenn.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, insisted he “is a very credible witness.” Comer alleged Luft was the left’s “worst nightmare,” because the FBI had flown to Brussels to interview him, only to insist as well that the Bureau “never investigated any of this. They turned a complete blind eye.” In another non sequitur, Comer stated that Luft had been charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, “which is the main thing we’ve said the Bidens were all along.”

House Republicans joined Comer in suggesting, without evidence, that Luft had been indicted because he had accused the Bidens of wrongdoing. “I don’t trust the DOJ or FBI. They are trying to silence our witnesses,” maintained Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). As Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) recommended immunity from prosecution in exchange for Luft’s testimony against the Bidens, Comer doubled down on his undocumented assertion that “the president of the United States and his family has taken millions of dollars from a company that’s 100 percent wholly owned by the Chinese Communist Party.”

There are 154 House Republicans who claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen; objected to certifying the Electoral College results; supported recounts in swing states; or attended and/or supported the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol who returned or were newly elected to Congress in November 2022. A couple of weeks ago, GOP Chair Ronna McDaniel told CNN’s Chris Wallace “I don’t think he [Biden] won it fair.” The only evidence she cited — a woman from Wayne County, Michigan, who claimed she was told to backdate ballots, and the removal of Republican poll watchers — has been debunked.

McDaniel did not mention that more than 60 court cases challenging the results were rejected. In one of them, Stephanos Bibas, who was appointed to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President Trump, summarized a simple principle MAGA Republicans and their enablers continue to ignore. Charges of unfairness, Judge Bibas agreed, “are serious.” But such charges “require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”

Let’s hope all Americans keep this principle in mind if, as expected, former President Trump is indicted again in the near future.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Stuart Blumin) of “Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century.”