OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A House Democrat made what many observers believe is a horrific remark to a grieving mother who lost her daughter to a fentanyl overdose during a hearing regarding the potential impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who did not attend.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) claimed to Josephine Dunn, whose 26-year-old daughter Ashley lost her life to fentanyl-laced pills, that she was being “used” by Republicans, Fox News reported.
Dunn had received an invitation from Republicans to participate in the hearing and recount her experience of losing her daughter to fentanyl.
Expressing his “sincere condolences” to Dunn for the loss of her daughter, the Democrat then claimed he wanted to “apologize in some ways” to her because she was “being used as a fact witness for an impeachment investigation.”
Then he said: “Obviously, given what your experience has been, you don’t have the background to understand what a high crime and misdemeanor is and how it relates to this.”
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His statement drew the ire of Dunn, who related to the Daily Caller on Friday that Goldman is “unaware about what my understanding, about what my education, what my experience is in any of those areas when it comes to misdemeanors or high crimes.”
“I have my opinions, and for him to assume that I want to just put more money into a system that has had plenty of money placed into it and is still broken is incorrect. Please don’t think for me. I have a brain. I can think and speak for myself,” she told the outlet.
During the hearing, Dunn was visibly frustrated and upset with Goldman as he questioned her.
“You would agree, would you not, that it would help to stop the fentanyl trade and fentanyl trafficking from coming into this country if we had more law enforcement officers at the border and more resources and technology to stop the fentanyl from coming in?” he asked Dunn. “Do you agree with that?”
But Dunn rejected Goldman’s premise outright.
“Border Patrol is now being used to make sandwiches and to screen people and let them into our country. So I disagree with you,” she said.
Moments later, she added: “I would like the border patrol to be able to do the job that they were hired to do. Every border patrol officer that I have spoken to has told me that their hands are tied by this administration and Mr. Mayorkas. I’ve been to the border, sir, have you?”
Goldman responded by stating that he was the one who was asking the questions during the hearing.
Later, Dunn wrote on Facebook: “Pardon me sir, but you know nothing of my experience, my background or my understanding. Also, in all of my research, you have yet to travel once to the Southern Border of the United States. Is that why you avoided my question?”
“Are you unable to return to your constituency and explain your lack of understanding of the border, lack of experience at the border or was it something else? I would think you could have heard what I actually said. Not what you wanted me to say,” she added.
Republica calls for impeaching Mayorkas began early on after President Joe Biden repealed nearly all of former President Donald Trump’s strict immigration and border enforcement policies on his first day in office.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) laid out a case for impeaching Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during a fiery hearing earlier this month.
Some 10 million people have crossed into the U.S. during President Joe Biden’s and Mayoraks’ terms. As for the DHS chief, MTG, as she is known, accused him last week of lying to Congress more than 20 times about the ongoing border crisis.
“Here’s some of Secretary Mayorkas’s effective results: approximately 10 million illegal border crossers from over 160 countries have invaded the United States since President Biden took office and Secretary Mayorkas has started his job,” Greene said, also charging Mayorkas with poorly leading the 260,000 DHS employees.
