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As I noted earlier, today’s farcical House hearing on the federal response to the violent left-wing rioting taking place in Democrat-run cities like Portland and Oregon was nothing more than a show trial of epic proportions designed to give cover for the failed leadership shown by Democrats including the governors and mayors in the impacted states at the expense of Attorney Gen. Bill Barr and President Trump.

Though Barr indicated early on that he had no intentions of playing the predictable games Democrats do when such hearings are public and televised, that didn’t stop any of the Democrats on the committee from grabbing at their five minutes in the national spotlight.

Another case in point? Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL) who at one point during the hearing brought up the Trump administration’s response to the Wuhan virus outbreak even though the hearing had nothing to do with that topic. After bizarrely comparing Florida’s Wuhan virus case numbers to those of other countries, she snidely asked Barr what she was supposed to tell her constituents about how the administration had handled the outbreak.

As Barr answered, Mucarsel-Powell did as every other Democrat on the panel during the course of the hearing: interrupted him. Except in her case, she accused both Barr and President Trump, without evidence, of “letting Americans die needlessly for political reasons”:

Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell accuses Attorney General Barr and President Trump of "working together" to purposefully kill Americans with COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/tHbVhRZQU4

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 28, 2020

She then smugly smiled afterward as though she’d just won some sort of sick game. A few seconds later, a Republican Congressman demanded of Nadler that her comments be stricken from the record considering she had just “accused the sitting AG of the United State of murder.” Instead of agreeing with him that what Mucarsel-Powell said was outrageous and indefensible, Nadler repeatedly obstructed his attempts at getting the panel to observe the rules of decorum before giving the floor to another Democrat.

Watch:

After Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL) says Trump and Barr are "letting Americans die needlessly because of political reasons," Republicans want her comments stricken from the record, claiming she just accused the attorney general of "murder" pic.twitter.com/fatTLK6s9L

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 28, 2020

Pathetic, not that we should expect anything different from a clown show ringleader like Nadler. Of course, his response would have been dramatically different had a Republican treated a Democrat AG that way.

Speaking of pathetic, if a recent poll is any indication, Mucarsel-Powell has a reason to be showing out in front of the cameras. According to a poll commissioned by a GOP super PAC, she is trailing the Republican who may be her opponent in the November election depending on the results of next month’s primary:

A new poll released this morning in The Miami Herald shows Republican Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez leading Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell 47% to 42% in the race for Florida’s 26th congressional district. https://t.co/r6WOHHS5Xn

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) July 27, 2020

Assuming she routinely pulls these kinds of shameless political stunts (and I think it’s a pretty fair assumption to make), it’s no wonder she’s trailing Gimenez.