Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., engaged in a shouting match Thursday over whether the House Oversight Committee should investigate the Russian inference in the presidential election, The Hill reports.
Chaffetz, the chairman, chided Cummings, the ranking Democrat, about rehashing the Hillary Clinton investigation in the Benghazi Committee as opposed to dealing with the hacking matter at hand, according to the report.
"I think the thing that I'm most concerned about is that we cannot just turn a blind eye when we have 17 intelligence agencies who unanimously agree [that Russia interfered in the U.S. elections]," Cummings said, per The Hill.
"You and I know what happened with the Benghazi Committee — it became a partisan fight."
An agitated Chaffetz cut Cummings off, leading to the fiery exchange as chronicled by The Hill:
"The gentleman's time is expired here," Chaffetz interjected. "You're going well outside the scope of this discussion."
"I'm not," Cummings fired back. "No, I'm not. I would pray that you not — don't do that."
"I just want an answer to a simple question," Chaffetz said, now shouting over Cummings.
"I've answered it," Cummings responded, shouting over Chaffetz. "I've told you, yes."
"I'm gonna ask one more time," Chaffetz continued.
"I just answered you!" Cummings blasted back. "I just answered you. You're not listening!"
Chaffetz was agitated Cummings brought up Clinton's investigations as opposed to answering directly whether the House Oversight Committee probe the hacks into the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), according to the report.
Chaffetz had said, per The Hill, it was "inappropriate" to "dive into the private systems of a political party" — which was the Intelligence Committee's jurisdiction and already has an investigation under way.
"That's not anybody else's work — that's our work!" Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., shouted, leading to the ensuing remarks which tipped off Chaffetz's frustration. "There's plenty of reports we can talk about — and we ought to do it publicly — about the damage done to the confidence in our electoral system. That's what's important here.
"We had nine separate investigations into Hillary Clinton . . ."
Chaffetz then turned to Cummings, the ranking Democrat, for a resolution to the debate, which brought the above fireworks.
"It's clear that politics have prevented this committee from being willing or able to do the necessary objective and nonpartisan oversight on the Russian attack," Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., said, initiating the heated session.
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