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You might recall that back in July, Arlington/Falls Church Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti was compelled to appear in a closed-door, secret, sham hearing put on by the horrendous, MAGA extremist Rep. Jim “Gym” Jordan. As VA Del. Adele McClure (D-Arlington) said at the time, the hearing took place “behind closed doors,” “with a complete lack of transparency and accountability,” at which House Republicans “pursue[d] a disgusting, cynical agenda to impress an audience of exactly one.” The hearing, BTW, was about Dehghani-Tafti’s handling of a criminal case involving a political activist, and later over her policies restricting contact with immigration enforcement.” As Dehghani-Tafti said at the time, “My compliance with the subpoena is not, and should not be read, as an acknowledgement of the Committee’s authority to question the work of my office or interfere in the local affairs of the people of Arlington County and the City of Falls Church.”
Now, several months later, we’ve finally got a transcript of the bad-faith hearing, as well as this wildly biased “report” (really a right-wing, anti-immigrant screed) by the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee. In response to that (as well as this ArlNow story – which mostly just does a “both-sides”/false equivalence thing, while amplifying right-wing-Republican falsehoods, b.s., etc. – Dehghani-Tafti had the following to say:
“From the start, this was a political sham. The Committee refused to hear my testimony in public because open testimony doesn’t let you distort a record. This report is the predictable product of that process – a piece of political propaganda timed for the midterms, built on the deliberate misrepresentations of my policies and my testimony.
Now it’s clear why they wouldn’t hold a public hearing and why they stonewalled my requests for the full deposition transcript. They didn’t want the public to see it. I demand the Committee release the full, unedited transcript of my deposition immediately.”
Exactly right. And no “news” media outlet should treat it as anything other than that.
BTW, just to demonstrate how biased and laughable this “report” is, it opens as follows: “Democrats’ open-borders policies at the federal level and sanctuary policies at the state and local level allow millions of illegal aliens to pour into the country and ensure that criminal aliens, after encountered by local law enforcement, are released back into American communities…sanctuary policies in Democrat [sic]-run jurisdictions like Arlington County, Virginia, allow criminal aliens to stay, hurting public safety and endangering law-abiding Americans.” Basically, it sounds like a Fox “News” or Twitter screed, not a real report by a Congressional committee. This “report”/screed also, falsely, accuses Parisa Dehghani-Tafti of supposedly opposing “commonsense immigration enforcement,” supposedly making “prosecutorial decisions for the purpose of avoiding immigration consequences for some criminal defendants,” supposedly treating “illegal aliens differently than similarly situated American citizens,” etc. It also falsely accuses Arlington County of supposedly “requir[ing] law enforcement to release violent criminals,” supposedly maintaining ” radical sanctuary policies,” blah blah blah. In short, this “report” is a completely one-sided, outrageous, falsehood-laden joke – and should be reported on accordingly by the media, right in its headlines and “ledes” (ArlNow definitely didn’t do that).
