Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform this morning started with a whimper—albeit a very loud one—from Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus.
Meadows jumped in with a point of order right after Chairman Elijah Cummings opened the hearing and immediately tried to derail the entire process, moving to postpone Cohen’s testimony on the grounds that it and some of the evidence was not submitted to Committee members with enough lead time.
The congressman’s baby-headed outburst was a pretty naked attempt to run interference for Trump, who, after hearing about the lengths Cohen was going to in his testimony, likely doesn’t want a side-by-side of this shitfest next to his second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
The ranking Republican on the Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, also jumped in to whine at Cummings for not following the rules. The whole thing eventually came down to a vote to table Meadows’ motion to postpone the hearing, which the Ayes clearly won verbally (despite Meadows shouting NooOOOo), but that Meadows forced into a counted verbal vote just to waste more time.
After around 20 minutes of squabbling and opening statements from Cummings and Jordan, Cohen is finally giving his testimony. Meadows, shockingly, has yet to interrupt him.