This guy is on the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology…
Requesting a minute to bring up what he called “the most important thing,” Rohrabacher asked, “You have indicated that Mars … was totally different thousands of years ago. Is it possible that there was a civilization on Mars thousands of years ago?”
In the video, you can see a young boy behind Rohrabacher suddenly lean over to whisper something to his own seat mate. Farley, meanwhile, barely seems to pause before responding with a correction.
“So, the evidence is that Mars was different billions of years ago … not thousands of years ago,” Farley said. “There is no evidence that I am aware of.”
“Would you rule that out?” Rohrabacher broke in.
Here, Farley took a more conclusive tone, though he still maintained a scientist’s commitment to uncertainty: “I would say that is extremely unlikely.”
Interestingly, Rohrabacher also has Russian entanglements:
Members of the team of Russians who secured a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner also attempted to stage a show trial of anti-Putin campaigner Bill Browder on Capitol Hill.
The trial, which would have come in the form of a congressional hearing, was scheduled for mid-June 2016 by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a long-standing Russia ally who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe. During the hearing, Rohrabacher had planned to confront Browder with a feature-length pro-Kremlin propaganda movie that viciously attacks him—as well as at least two witnesses linked to the Russian authorities, including lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
Ultimately, the hearing was canceled when senior Republicans intervened and agreed to allow a hearing on Russia at the full committee level with a Moscow-sympathetic witness, according to multiple congressional aides.
An email reviewed by The Daily Beast shows that before that June 14 hearing, Rohrabacher’s staff received pro-Kremlin briefings against Browder, once Russia’s biggest foreign investor, and his tax attorney Sergei Magnitsky from a lawyer who was working with Veselnitskaya.
Yes, the Russian government asked Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to push back against sanctions on Russians, and he doesn’t see what the big deal is.
Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) dismissed fresh reports on Wednesday detailing how the Russian government asked him to change his colleagues’ opinions about Russian sanctions as a “nothing burger trying to distract the American people from real issues.”
Many of the details in a Daily Beast article published Wednesday had been previously reported in a lengthy Politico article in November. The Politico story gave Rohrabacher, who has long been known for encouraging improved Russian relations, the nickname “Putin’s favorite congressman.”
F.B.I. Once Warned G.O.P. Congressman That Russian Spies Were Recruiting Him
The F.B.I. warned a Republican congressman in 2012 that Russian spies were trying to recruit him, officials said, an example of how aggressively Russian agents have tried to influence Washington politics.
The congressman, Dana Rohrabacher of California, has been known for years as one of Moscow’s biggest defenders in Washington and as a vocal opponent of American economic sanctions against Russia. He claims to have lost a drunken arm-wrestling match with the current Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, in the 1990s. He is one of President Trump’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill.
As a newly appointed special counsel investigates connections between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, the warning to Mr. Rohrabacher shows that the F.B.I. has for years viewed Russian spies, sometimes posing as diplomats, as having a hand in Washington.
Mr. Rohrabacher was drawn into the maelstrom this week when The Washington Post reported on an audio recording of Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader, saying last year, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” Mr. McCarthy said on Wednesday that he had made a joke that landed poorly.
The GOP, Stupid and in bed with Putin…