66 Seconds of Footage That Show Jerry Nadler’s a Massive Hypocrite on Releasing Mueller Report
It has become apparent that there are Democrats who lack any consistent convictions or core values, save for protecting their own political power and advancing their partisan agenda by any means necessary, no matter how hypocritical doing so may be.
While that doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone on the left, it most certainly does to Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee. It applies particularly with regard to his repeated demands that the recently submitted final report from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump be released to Congress “in its entirety,” without any redactions whatsoever, immediately.
The Washington Examiner reported, however, that Nadler was singing an entirely different tune 21 years ago, when he staunchly opposed the release of an unredacted version of the final report produced by then-independent counsel Ken Starr, who had been investigating then-President Bill Clinton.
The disparate remarks from Nadler about the release of the reports involving both Clinton and Trump were recently compiled into a short video clip posted to Twitter that highlights just how blatantly hypocritical and self-serving the duplicitous congressman truly is.
In a recent appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Nadler said of the Mueller report, “We are demanding and we have a right, Congress has a right to the entire report, with no redactions whatsoever.”
But when speaking to Charlie Rose two decades ago about the Starr report, Nadler said, “Much of this material is federal 6(e) material, that is material that by law, unless contravened by vote of the House, must be kept secret.”
Back to CBS in the present, Nadler said, “We’re entitled to see it because Congress represents the nation and Congress has to take action on any of it, so we are entitled to see all of it.”
But on the House floor two decades ago, Nadler said of an unredacted Starr report, “The entire Judiciary Committee is going to see it, to decide what must be kept confidential as protecting privacy of third parties. That means 50 people are going to see it. It’s going to leak out, and those privacy rights are going to be violated, and that is ensured by this resolution.”
Once again during his recent CBS appearance, Nadler said of Attorney General William Barr, “He has said he is going to redact four classifications of information. Our position is that he should redact none of it.”
Flashback to 20 years ago once more, and Nadler said of Starr’s unredacted report, “It represents statements which may or may not be true by various witnesses, salacious material, all kinds of material, that it would be unfair to release.”
So, what has changed between then and now that has prompted Nadler to do a complete 180-degree turn on whether independent/special counsel reports should be redacted? Just the political party of the president at the time, nothing more and nothing less.
When it was Democrat President Bill Clinton who stood to be embarrassed or implicated by the unredacted release of “salacious material” and testimony that “may or may not be true,” Nadler was firmly against it.
But when it comes to Republican President Donald Trump, Nadler is gleefully looking forward to seeing, and putting to partisan use, whatever “salacious material” and dubious witness testimony they come across, for the explicit purpose of embarrassing or implicating the president.
As for Barr, the Examiner reported that the attorney general recently informed Congress that its members would soon see as much of the Mueller report as he would be able to release — except for certain portions that must be redacted, which by law include such things as grand jury testimony, information pertaining to ongoing investigations, information that is classified or sensitive and information that would threaten the privacy and reputations of peripheral and unindicted third parties.
Nadler was correct in the late 1990s that the Starr report shouldn’t be released in an unredacted fashion for political purposes. And were Nadler not a disgustingly partisan hack of an ideologue dead-set on taking down a duly elected president for no legitimate reason, he would hold the same position today with respect to the Mueller report.
