Rep. Matt Gaetz tore into the perceived political biases of one of the professors who was called by Democrats to testify about impeaching President Trump.
The Florida Republican pointed out that Stanford Law professor Pamela Karlan donated money to opponents of the president, including to 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is vying for the Democratic nomination.
“You gave 1,000 bucks to Elizabeth Warren, right?” Gaetz asked.
“I believe so,” Karlan said.
“You gave 1,200 bucks to Barack Obama?” Gaetz said, with Karlan responding that she had “no reason to question that.”
“And you gave 2,000 bucks to Hillary Clinton?” Gaetz said.
“That’s correct,” she said.
“Why so much more for Hillary than the other two?” Gaetz said.
Karlan responded that it was because she has “been giving a lot of money to charity recently because of all the poor people in the United States.”
“Well, those aren’t the only folks you’ve been giving to,” the congressman said. “Now, have you ever been on a podcast called Versus Trump?”
She said she thought she had appeared on a live panel “that the people who ran the podcast called, ‘Versus Trump.’”
“On that, do you remember saying the following?” Gaetz asked. “‘Liberals tend to cluster more. Conservatives, especially very conservative people, tend to spread out more, perhaps because they don’t even want to be around themselves.’ Did you say that?”
“Yes, I did,” Karlan said.
Gaetz asked if she understood “how that reflects contempt” on people who are conservative.
“No, what I was talking about there was the natural tendency — if you put the quote in context — the natural tendency of a compactness requirement to favor a party whose voters are more spread out,” she said. “And I do not have contempt for conservatives.”
