Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York has a Napoleon complex. He is also a dishonorable coward who attacks people personally in front of a camera (and on the congressional record) and then flees the scene before his victims have a chance to respond. He did that to me last Thursday in front of a House Judiciary subcommittee. But I will get the last word in responding to a man who some consider to be morally unfit to serve in the House of Representatives. First, let me provide the context.
Over the summer, I was invited to testify in front of Congress – specifically, before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. Our June hearing was postponed. But it was rescheduled for September 27th, which happened to be the day of the Ford-Kavanaugh showdown in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Because of the unprecedented media coverage and attention to the Senate proceeding, I knew our House hearing would be poorly attended. But I went anyway because I considered it to be my civic duty to offer relevant testimony on the important topic of intellectual freedom in America. So I left my hurricane-ravaged property and drove 375 miles from Wilmington, North Carolina to Washington, D.C.
For those who are not aware, congressional witnesses are not compensated for their hotel and travel. Unless they are making unsubstantiated accusations of sexual assault against a Republican they have to pay their own way. So it is common for members of Congress to thank witnesses for coming to testify.
Given that I am not a member of a political party, I was shocked by the stark difference between the way I was received by Republicans and Democrats on the committee. Republican Steve King of Iowa was cordial and thanked everyone for coming. But when the Democrats began to speak, the tenor of the meeting changed drastically.
Congressman Cohen (D-Tennessee) wasted everyone’s time by talking about matters wholly unrelated to the hearing. After Cohen started praising the “courage” of Professor Ford, he went on a diatribe about a Russian conspiracy to steal the election. Cohen displayed levels of anger that were exponentially greater than the anger displayed by Brett Kavanaugh in the Senate hearings later that day.
Everyone in the room hoped things would settle down when Cohen quit talking and the microphone went to Congressman Nadler. Those hopes were dashed when the 5’4’ congressional giant started attacking several of the witnesses by name. In addition to attacking me personally, Nadler also attacked the Alliance Defending Freedom for their decision to represent me in an important First Amendment case several years ago.
After calling me unfit to be a witness before Congress, Nadler did something utterly bizarre in a hearing dedicated to intellectual freedom. He actually started reading tweets from my Twitter account (@MikeSAdams) into the Congressional record in an effort to prove that I was too “extreme” to testify before Congress. The two tweets he chose revealed just how out of touch the Democratic Party has become in recent years.
The first tweet asserted that same sex “marriage” did not deserve to be given the same recognition as traditional marriage because same sex unions do not equally benefit society. The second tweet stated that the transgendered suffer from a mental disorder, which should be treated rather than affirmed. Given that the second tweet is more controversial than the first, I decided to use a portion of my time to respond to Nadler’s suggestion that it was an extreme view that disqualified me from testifying.
My planned response involved asking Nadler these three questions:
- Generally speaking, would you agree that those who believe they are something they are not are suffering from what would properly be characterized as a mental disorder?
- Are you aware that when I studied psychology in graduate school in the 1980s that virtually every psychology professor believed that the transgendered suffered from a mental disorder known as GID?
- Finally, are you aware that the professor in my abnormal psychology class who taught me that the transgendered suffer from a mental disorder was a card-carrying member of the Democratic Party who voted for Michael Dukakis?
This series of questions would have been enough to demonstrate the point that commonly held views are now being characterized by the Democratic Party as so extreme that they disqualify people from participation in the political process. My point would have been particularly salient given that the hearing was about intellectual freedom and the stifling of mainstream opinions.
But I was not able to ask Nadler any of these questions because after he finished speaking he went storming out of the meeting in apparent protest – as is quite common with Democrats these days. As he waddled past the table where I was seated, I turned and looked straight at him until I had his attention. Then, the following exchange occurred:
Adams: Where are you going?
Nadler: I have a vote on the house floor.
Adams: You’re a coward.
Nadler: What did you just call me?
Adams: I called you a coward.
Nadler: But I have a bill on the floor.
Adams: You’re still a coward.
Nadler was furious that I called him out on his cowardice. He will be more furious when he learns that I have been invited back to Washington D.C. to consult with congressional leaders on a free speech bill designed to withhold federal funding from public universities that violate the First Amendment. Then, he will probably explode when he sees me waiting outside his office with a cameraman who will videotape our next encounter.
In that next encounter with Jerry Nadler, I will respond point by point to his attacks upon my attorneys and me. Then I will post the video on the Internet as a service to the public.
I won’t hold a grudge. But I will set the record straight.
To be continued …