East Texas congressman and friend of the Observer Louie Gohmert is, as one might imagine, having himself quite the time during the U.S. House's impeachment hearings. Several times a day, whether any of his colleagues like it or not, Gohmert gets five minutes alone with the House Judiciary Committee microphone and the American news-watching public to say whatever the Sam Hill he wants, truth and history be damned.
Sometimes, he publicly names the person many conservatives believe is the whistleblower, who reported the alleged scheme that's put Gohmert's Dear Leader, President Donald Trump, so close to impeachment. Other times he is welcome comic relief at a time when everything feels exhausting.
Here's a little of what we got from Gohmert on Thursday:
"Never in history has a president been accused of crimes with the target constantly changing," Gohmert said at one point, apparently forgetting the years 1992-2000 and 2008-2016.
Gohmert, an attorney and former judge, then showed off his deep understanding of how the criminal justice system works.
"If a victim does not admit to be a victim — anybody that's been a prosecutor surely knows this — you can go to court, force it to court, and if the victim says, 'I wasn't a victim,' you don't get a conviction and if you do, that is not sustained because that's what courts and Congress call a no evidence point."
Ukraine, according to Gohmert, hasn't come out strongly against the most powerful person in the world because they love him, not because they fear reprisal.
"To the earlier allegation that 'Gee, even though nobody in the Ukrainian government has said that they were a victim, well, it's because the president had a gun to their head.' Well, that's not the case. The reason that they are not saying that is because they knew that this is the most helpful president that they have had since the Steel Curtain fell," Gohmert said.
Frankly, we're a little unsure about what the Pittsburgh Steelers' '70s defensive line has to do with the United States' relationship with Ukraine, but maybe Gohmert knows something we don't.
The president, Gohmert says, was merely trying to curtail foreign interference in American elections when he allegedly threatened Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with withholding foreign aid if he didn't announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, just as Biden was entering the 2020 presidential race.
"You can't root out foreign interference until you know what it was," Gohmert said.