Freshman Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) would like for individuals to think he’s the most intelligent guy in the space at all times, and he’s not shy about attempting to show the expected point within the very first couple of minutes of any event that includes a captive audience.
He’s specifically keen on promoting his supposed legal proficiencysomething we’ve seen occur at many Congressional hearings where he likes to lecture individuals on the legal meanings of the terms they utilize, which frequently leads to him getting schooled in return by witnesses and committee associates alike regarding the real realities on any provided subject.
Unfortunately for Goldman – and thankfully for us – he when again fell under the exact same pattern Thursday throughout a House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs hearing where the problem under conversation was “The Consequences of Catch and Release at the Border.”
The witnesses on hand for the hearing were Jessica Vaughan, who is the policy research studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, previous ICE chief of personnel Jason Houser, and Matt O’Brien, who is the Immigration Reform Law Institute’s Director of Investigations.
O’Brien, as it ends up, is likewise a previous migration judge, selected by then-Attorney General Bill Barr in 2020 to the Arlington Immigration Court.
His CV on law and unlawful migration is rather comprehensivesomething it appears Goldman either was uninformed of or was not impressed with (or both) as he strongly questioned O’Brien throughout the hearing.
In one specific exchange which is making the rounds on social networks, Goldman asked O’Brien about the declaration he made that President Joe Biden has the authority to unilaterally close down the border.
“Under what authority do you describe?” Goldman asked.
“As I stated, Section 1182F of the Immigration and Nationality Act which was the statutory arrangement that was at problem in Trump v. Hawaii,” O’Brien addressed. “It’s an arrangement that permits the president by pronouncement to briefly suspend the admission of particular classes of aliens into the United States.”
Goldman’s action was to ask “So why didn’t Donald Trump utilize that?” obviously not recognizing that O’Brien had actually simply pointed out the extremely case that showed Trump carried out in reality attempt to utilize it.
“He … he did, that’s why the Trump v. Hawaii case went all the method to the Supreme Court,” O’Brien kept in mind.
For the record, in 2018 the Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favor.
Stammering, Goldman then asked O’Brien, “But then what occurred – why was it depend on in Title 42?”
O’Brien mentioned that “there was a pandemic [going] on. Title 42 is pitched at an extremely various set of scenarios. It’s particularly at a public health crisis. 1182F is pitched at a basic power to handle the border in fight of a crisis.”
As the tweet suggests, Goldman’s effort at tripping up O’Brien plainly did not go according to strategy:
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) February 15, 2024
The particularly amazing aspect of Goldman’s line of questioning is that the judgment in the event pointed out by O’Brien (otherwise called the “travel restriction case”) is thought about by some legal professionals to be a landmark judgment on governmental powers and migration law, that makes everything the more awkward that Goldman the legal professional obviously understood absolutely nothing about it.
I do not understand which was much better, that it was Goldman who got tripped up or that he unintentionally torpedoed his own (implied) argument about Biden allegedly not having the authority to close down the border, however we were so delighted to be here to record Goldman getting owned in either case.
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