MAGA Republicans are growing increasingly desperate to find evidence for their investigations built on debunked conspiracy theories into the so-called weaponization of government. Now, for their latest stunt hearing, they have invited an outrageous trio of extreme, far-right MAGA witnesses to testify.
Jim Jordan and his MAGA colleagues are eager to highlight Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known conspiracy theorist whose horrific antisemitic and xenophobic views do not belong in the halls of Congress, and whose anti-vaccine views have put lives in jeopardy. Their remaining witnesses include a far-right journalist who broke the Hunter Biden laptop story and a repeat weaponization witness who supports censorship of voices he disagrees with and worked to overturn the 2020 election results. Providing these dangerous fringe figures with a platform at a Congressional hearing is dangerous, inappropriate, and insulting, and shows just how far the MAGA House GOP is willing to go to push partisan stunts and further their extreme agenda.
Witnesses
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an extreme, far-right conspiracy theorist who holds horrific antisemitic and xenophobic views and has frequently met with and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theorists.
- Kennedy Is A Dangerous Conspiracy Theorist And Extremist. RFK Jr. has long embraced far-right, conspiratorial views. He has a history of supporting antisemitic and racist theories, and has been a central figure in spreading anti-vaccine and medical misinformation – particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic:
- Kennedy Has Embraced Antisemitic And Racist Conspiracy Theories. Kennedy was recently caught on film spreading a xenophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theory about Covid-19 being “ethnically targeted” to spare Jewish and Chinese people. Neo-Nazis, holocaust deniers, and antisemites celebrated Kennedy’s conspiracy theory as “100% correct” — and this wasn’t the first time he has openly embraced antisemitic and racist rhetoric. He has repeatedly made offensive comments comparing vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany and has frequently met with and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theorists like virulent antisemite Louis Farrakhan. Kennedy has also targeted dangerous and disproven anti-vaccine propaganda at the Black community, claiming “people with African blood” respond “completely differently” to vaccines than other groups.
- Kennedy Has Relentlessly Spread Covid-19, Vaccines, And Medical Misinformation. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine conspiracies go back decades and have had deadly real-world consequences. His dangerously false claims about the Covid-19 pandemic were rampant on social media, and he generated death threats against prominent scientists by building an “anti-vaccine juggernaut” spreading misinformation online about Covid-19 vaccines. Kennedy also promoted treatments for Covid that have been repeatedly found to be ineffective.
- Kennedy Holds Extreme, Far-Right Views. Outside of his outlandish conspiracy theories, Kennedy espouses a host of far-right views. He opposes common sense gun control, and believes antidepressants are causing school shootings. Kennedy has echoed extreme right-wing rhetoric about “sealing” the “dystopian” border between the U.S. and Mexico, and he has fully embraced Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.
- Kennedy Is A Republican Stooge, Embraced By The Far-Right In An Attempt To Damage Joe Biden. Kennedy is only using his appearance before the weaponization subcommittee to score political points and attack his opponents. Kennedy is a regular on right-wing media and at far-right events, and far-right trump allies like Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, and Michael Flynn have embraced Kennedy’s candidacy and suggested him as a running mate for Donald Trump. Republican donors are fueling Kennedy’s campaign; he has embraced donors and allies who plotted and participated in the January 6 attack on the US capitol. Kennedy has said he is “proud that President Trump likes me,” describes his relationship with Ron DeSantis as “extremely friendly,” and refuses to commit to supporting Joe Biden if he is the nominee of the Democratic Party.
- Kennedy’s Claims Of Being Censored By The Biden Administration Are False. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Kennedy baselessly claimed that the Biden administration conspired to censor him across social media. Yet social media companies themselves – not the government – have removed Kennedy’s content for violating rules about spreading misinformation. Far from being “censored,” Kennedy was named a top spreader of misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines and independent analysts have found that Kennedy’s misinformation achieved a greater level of impact than other top spreaders. Meta banned Kennedy’s nonprofit organization from Facebook and Instagram for spreading disinformation about Covid-19, while YouTube removed a video and Twitter flagged a tweet for violating their terms of service. Now, Kennedy is suing the Biden administration & numerous top media outlets, alleging censorship even though his dangerous lies violated social media companies’ terms and conditions. Kennedy even attempted to join a MAGA effort to limit the government’s ability to fight misinformation.
Emma-Jo Morris is a far-right politics editor and columnist for Breitbart News. She previously worked as a deputy politics editor at the New York Post – where she covered the Hunter Biden laptop story – and as a producer at Fox News. She also has ties to right-wing advocacy groups Turning Point USA and CPAC.
- Morris Became A Far-Right Favorite After Breaking The New York Post Story About Hunter Biden’s Laptop. In October 2020, the New York Post published a front-page story co-authored by Morris attacking Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings during the Obama administration, claiming she received a call from a repair shop in Delaware with the contents of Hunter’s laptop. Even though she claimed the laptop amounted to a “smoking gun” of influence peddling, a joint investigation by two Senate committees (both led by Republicans) found no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. Since publishing the story, Morris has received significant attention from right-wing media and increased her Twitter following by nearly 820 percent.
- Morris Is An Editor For The Far-Right Breitbart News Network & Has Built Her Career On Right-Wing Journalism. Morris currently serves as politics editor and a columnist at Breitbart News, a far-right media website notorious for publishing racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic content in addition to baseless conspiracy theories about everything from birtherism and climate change denial to Covid-19 misinformation and lies about voter fraud during the 2020 election. The publication has been denounced by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “the media arm” of alt-right white nationalists. Even before joining Breitbart in 2021, Morris built her career on right-wing journalism, having previously worked as a deputy politics editor at the New York Post and as a producer at Fox News.
- Morris Has Pushed A False Right-Wing Narrative That Conservatives Are Being Censored By The Biden Administration. Morris’ reporting has also focused on pushing false MAGA narratives about the so-called weaponization of the federal government against former President Trump, his supporters, and conservative speech in general. When reporting on Twitter owner Elon Musk’s cache of internal documents known as the “Twitter Files,” Morris came to inaccurate and highly exaggerated conclusions about the Twitter Files supposedly pointing to government censorship. Even as she claimed that “censorship was orchestrated by [the] security state,” citing the Twitter Files, analysts and researchers found that the emails between Twitter and Biden’s team referenced legitimate violations of company policy against revenge porn, and did not amount to “smoking gun” evidence of political meddling.
- Morris’ Reporting Focuses on Culture Wars & Partisan Grievances, Frequently Targeting Trans People. Attacking trans people has become a staple of Morris’ reporting at Breitbart News. Morris, who herself identifies as gay, recently published a three-part series of outlandish articles entitled “Survivors of the Trans Panic,” in which she likens trans people to an abductive “cult” targeting children and threatening lesbians, followed by a fear-mongering story about high school students increasingly identifying as LGBTQ+.
John Sauer is a Special Assistant Attorney General for the Louisiana Department of Justice who previously served as Deputy Attorney General and Solicitor General of Missouri.
- Sauer Is Yet Another Repeat GOP Witness. Sauer is a repeat witness, having appeared before the same exact subcommittee to testify on the so-called weaponization of government less than four months ago. In March 2023, he testified before the committee about an ongoing lawsuit against the Biden administration.
- John Sauer Supports Censorship Of Voices He Disagrees With. Throughout his legal career, Sauer has used his government positions to curtail the rights of marginalized people and silence voices he disagrees with. In 2018, Sauer fought against the first amendment religious liberties of members of the Satanic Temple in a court case about Missouri’s anti-abortion statutes. In November 2022, Sauer also sought to silence people with disabilities from participating in a legal case about Covid-19 mask mandates, arguing that representation for students with disabilities was unnecessary and plaintiffs “didn’t have to raise every single argument” in court.
- John Sauer Fought Against Civil Liberties For LGBTQ+ Americans. Sauer opposed marriage equality in 2015 and fought discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people in 2021, submitting a legal brief arguing in favor of eschewing protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. In College Of The Ozarks v. Biden, Saur asked the court to strike down a Biden administration directive redefining sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
- John Sauer’s Fought Efforts to Combat Pandemic Misinformation. Sauer joined Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt in a lawsuit alleging collusion between President Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and social media companies to “silence” individuals. Sauer personally added a prominent conspiracy theorist known as one of “the most notorious purveyors of disinformation in the country” as a plaintiff in the case. The plaintiff’s firm pushed false information about Covid-19, including claims that vaccines were “98 times worse than the virus” and caused “strange clots,” and the case defended misinformation like false claims that celebrities died from Covid-19 vaccination.
- John Sauer Is An Arch-Conservative Trump Donor Who Supported Overturning the 2020 Election. Sauer is a contributor to right-wing Federalist Society and has donated over $45,000 to federal Republican candidates and PACs since 2008, including at least $5,600 to former President Trump’s 2020 campaign. In December 2020, Sauer joined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Sauer, signing on as Missouri Solicitor General, was credited with rounding up 17 additional Republican attorneys general to support the lawsuit. The lawsuit, which sought to prevent the selection of presidential electors based on the official popular vote margins, was dismissed for lack of standing by the U.S. Supreme Court.