Northeast Texas and Ark-La-Tex area congressmen John Ratcliffe and Louie Gohmert drew rave reviews from conservatives and jeers from Democrats Tuesday morning after assailing former Special Counsel Robert Mueller for what they alleged was a biased report against President Trump and his administration.
TV, newspaper and online news outlets from around the nation posted headlines about each of the two congressmen. The coverage of the two congressmen is expected to continue throughout the day.
Both Republicans sit on the House of Representatives powerful Judiciary Committee chaired by Democrat Jerrold Nadler of New York. Ratcliffe also sits on the House Intelligence Committee and continued his questioning Tuesday afternoon.
Congressman Gohmert of the First Congressional District of Texas in the Tyler-Longview area offered a rough assessment of Robert Mueller directly to his face.
"What he's doing is not obstructing justice; he is pursuing justice and the fact you ran it out two years means you perpetuated injustice!" Gohmert told the former Special Counsel.Online news reports from Fox News alleged Gohmert "yelled" at Mueller. While some did not agree with that assessment, Gohmert's statement to Mueller was unquestionably made with sincere passion from the Tyler-area congressman.
A clearly irritated Mueller would only say "I take your question" in response to Gohmert's fiery response.
John Ratcliffe of the Fourth Congressional District of Texas also aggressively confronted Mueller.
Ratcliffe took issue with Robert Mueller continually asserting that President Trump was "not exonerated."
The congressman from the Rockwall-area town of Heath asked Mueller to identify a single instance when the Department of Justice determined that a potential defendant was "not exonerated" only because innocence could not be fully determined.
Mueller replied that he could not think of any situation.
Ratcliffe said: "The bedrock principle of our justice system is a presumption of innocence — everyone is entitled to it, including a sitting president, and because of a presumption of innocence, a prosecutor never, ever needs to determine it. ... You wrote 180 pages about decisions that weren’t reached, about potential crimes that weren’t charged or decided.”
And Ratcliffe continued to be incensed about the Special Counsel's continued assertion that President Trump was "not exonerated" when no other precedent could be shown for this.
“I agree with Chairman Nadler this morning when he said Donald Trump is not above the law,” said Ratcliffe. “But he damn sure should not be below the law which is where Volume II of this report puts him.”