On Monday, Stephen Colbert asked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) if “Russian propaganda” had influenced House Republicans and attempts such as the impeachment of President Joe Biden.
On The Late Show, Colbert mentioned Reps. Mike Turner (R-OH) and Michael McCaul (R-TX) recently alleging that Russian propaganda is growing among their colleagues, may have “infected” the base, and has even been repeated on the House floor amid calls for Ukraine aid to be passed.
“Can I have a witness? Have you seen this, and what do you think of such self-accusation? Colbert questioned Ocasio Cortez.
The congresswoman accused Republican politicians, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), of using “wildly propagandistic” terminology to back up assertions that Biden was involved in his son Hunter Biden’s international business transactions. Both Bidens have vehemently denied the charges.
Ocasio Cortez said:
I think if you turn on any House Oversight hearing in the last year, you will see Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and all these folks engaged in wildly propagandistic rhetoric and even — let’s rewind a second. We just went through an impeachment attempt on the president of the United States that was started with a source that Republicans used that was in communication with Russian intelligence. So you have not just the bottom bench here, you have the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer take ‘evidence’ and account from someone who was working with the Russian intelligence and tried to impeach and remove the president of the United States over it. This is serious!
Ocasio Cortez referred to Alexander Smirnov, an informant in the Biden investigation who was indicted earlier this year for lying to the FBI about alleged financial contacts with the Bidens. Comer stated that Smirnov was not “an important part” of his investigation.
Ocasio Cortez declined to indicate how much she believes Republicans acted in “bad faith.”
“What they felt was in good faith or bad faith, I don’t know, but I do think it is immensely serious that something got to this extent and got this far and has been platformed to the extent that it has,” she told Stephen Colbert on Monday.
