Sheila Jackson Lee: “I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me and for her leadership on this very important issue. She is standing in the…”

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me and for her leadership on this very important issue. She is standing in the gap because all that we have heard from Republicans and their media advocates is that their intention, of course, is to create a 21st century Saturday night massacre. In my questioning of the Deputy Attorney General, that is the exact terminology that I utilized, which is: Was the Deputy Attorney General and the Department of Justice prepared to defend Special Counsel Mueller against a potential Saturday night massacre? Of course, that is the Watergate massacre perpetrated by President Nixon in firing the Attorney General, and then requiring and firing the special prosecutor and--getting someone to fire--literally creating a institutional crisis. Madam Speaker, it is clear, as evidenced by the words of Sean Hannity on December 5, FOX News, who led off his broadcast with the outrageous charge that Mueller is frankly a disgrace by the American justice system and has put the country now on the brink of becoming a banana republic. Not surprisingly, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who enthusiastically praised the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel as a superb choice to be special counsel because his reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity, has done a complete 180-degree turn and now declaims falsely that the very top at the Justice Department and the FBI have become corrupt.…”