The expression “to gaslight” comes from the 1944 movie in which a mentally sound woman is deliberately driven to doubt her own sanity by the lies told to her over and over. We hear the term often these days, simply because we’re subjected to gaslighting all the time, typically by the agenda-driven: advertisers, politicians, bureaucrats. Washington DC truly is the home of the whopper. No wonder so many people just tune out all politicians and don’t even bother to vote. (Note: that’s a reason, not an excuse. There’s no excuse for not voting.)

Yesterday’s example of a politician’s lie coming to light was Jamaal Bowman’s insistence, even as he was pleading guilty to setting off an emergency-exit alarm in the Capitol building, that he didn’t mean to disrupt anything, that he made a mistake because he was in a rush to get to the floor of Congress for the Speaker’s vote and the doors that were normally open wouldn’t open. For some reason, he claimed he thought the plainly-labeled fire alarm was the emergency unlocking mechanism for the doors. Yes, Bowman had DISRUPTED CONGRESS during OFFICIAL BUSINESS, which has been the pretext for sentencing numerous January 6 defendants to many years in prison.

But the same day he made this claim --- avoiding any prison time at all, or even having a misdemeanor charge on his record --- video footage was released showing Rep. Bowman quickly and nonchalantly removing the warning signs on the exit doors without even attempting to open them, then quickly triggering the alarm and leaving. Thanks to the existence of that video, we may conclude that Bowman has been lying to us.

https://www.westernjournal.com/new-footage-dem-pulled-fire-alarm-released-good-luck-explaining-jamaal/

Now he’s just avoiding us, hoping this incident will die down. And it probably will (with help from the “news” media, which largely ignored this story), as another lie rises to take its place in the public consciousness. In the meantime, this will be his clever avoidance technique...

Without that video, the public might have grudgingly given him the benefit of the doubt. After all, that’s what the law is supposed to do: presume him innocent until proven guilty. Fortunately for Charles Boyer’s character in GASLIGHT, he’s going about his business in the late 1800s, when no video could possibly exist of him turning the gaslight down. As long as there are no eyewitnesses, he’s free to do as he pleases.

Bowman might not even have to use his avoidance strategy for long, because the very next day, there was a new lie exposed. Our newest Lie Of The Day, concerning the “Justice” Department’s assessment of evidence against the Biden family, was told in the form of public statements by serial liar Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, just now being brought to light.

Recall that yesterday in our commentary about Sen. Chuck Grassley’s letter to the DOJ/FBI, we linked to a story in JUST THE NEWS about U.S. Attorney Scott Brady’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, telling them his investigative team had found enough evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the Biden family to refer criminal matters to three separate U.S. attorneys’ offices: Manhattan, Brooklyn and Delaware. He testified that he thought “there was reluctance on the part of the FBI to really do any tasking relative to our assignment from DAG [Deputy Attorney General] Rosen and looking into allegations of Ukrainian corruption broadly and then specifically anything that intersected with Hunter Biden and his role in Burisma. It was very challenging.”

IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler had given similar testimony. Anyway, that story sets the scene for Raskin’s lie, so here it is again.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/federal-prosecutor-biden-bribery-claim-credible-enough-further

Here’s the telling excerpt from JUST THE NEWS:

“Brady also directly contradicted claims by Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, alleging that his office had not found the FD-1023 informant report credible and shut down that line of inquiry.”

“‘My understanding of Mr. Raskin's public statements is that, based on the determination that I and my team found the allegations in the 1023 not credible or other information not credible, we did not escalate the assessment to a limited or full investigation,’ Brady said. ‘That's not true.’”

(ASIDE: If Democrats controlled Congress, Jamie Raskin and not Jim Jordan would chair the House Judiciary Committee. Something to tell your friends who might not think elections make any difference.)

This observation by Brady, placed at the very end of the story, did not escape notice by such analysts as Bonchie at Redstate.com, who reports that the House Oversight Committee is accusing Raskin of lying. “Former U.S. Attorney Scott Brady’s testimony CONFIRMS Ranking Member Raskin LIED about the FBI’s Biden Bribery Record. The U.S. Attorney’s Office uncovered enough indicia of credibility of the evidence and recommended further investigative steps to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware…”

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/10/26/new-house-gop-provides-evidence-jamie-raskin-lied-about-biden-bribery-investigation-n2165579

Here’s their full tweet (“X”?). The comments are pretty entertaining as well, along the lines of, “Jamie Raskin lied; so what else is new?” But the best comments are the ones asking some version of, “What are you going to do about it?”

https://twitter.com/GOPoversight/status/1717557013813543266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp

The question remains: what ARE they going to do? Kentucky Rep. James Comer, who chairs Oversight, has written to Raskin demanding an apology and correction. The DAILY CALLER prints his letter, unintentionally hilarious for its inside address to “The Honorable Jamie Raskin.”

The rest of the letter is great, too, especially this paragraph:

“Additionally, we ask, Mr. Raskin, that you take seriously your position as Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and its incumbent responsibility to be honest regarding facts learned in the course of investigations—even those that are inconvenient to your own political views. While we appreciate your role up to this point has been to play defense counsel for the Biden family, it is time to follow the evidence and speak the truth.”

https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/26/james-comer-jame-raskin-apologize-lies-fbi-form/

Brady had also said in his testimony that the FBI never told his office about Hunter Biden’s laptop, let alone that they had confirmed it was real.

“I would have thought that would be something, especially as has been publicly reported, there’s information relating to Hunter Biden’s activities on the board of Burisma in Ukraine, that might have been helpful in our assessment of the information that we were receiving about him,” Brady testified. “I would have expected that to be shared.”

As for Raskin, Bonchie likens him to renowned liar California Rep. Adam Schiff, who will forever be remembered for his lies perpetuating the fake Trump-Russia connection. “On more than one occasion,” Bonchie says, “Schiff claimed to have seen direct evidence that collusion occurred. He has never produced it to this day.” Jamie Raskin just might be in his league.

Breitbart News has a good write-up on the story as well. Wendell Husebo notes that back in June, former Attorney General Bill Barr discounted what Raskin had said.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/10/26/u-s-prosecutor-says-10m-biden-bribe-credible-contradicting-democrat-jamie-raskin/

From their archives:

Bill Barr Dispels Democrat Jamie Raskin's Claim DOJ Ended Bribery Probe (breitbart.com)

So, will this most recently uncovered incidence of gaslighting reap any serious consequences for Raskin and his party? It should, but almost certainly will not. We can hope enough people are sick of being lied to by the most conniving serial liars like Schiff and Raskin (Schumer also comes to mind) that it will make a difference on Election Day. (In our own party, we’ve been heartened by the choice of Rep. Mike Johnson as Speaker, as he seems extremely candid and well-spoken.) In the meantime, whenever somebody tries to turn down the gas, we just do our best to turn the light back up.