House GOPer Blasted for Calling Elizabeth Warren a Liar

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You won’t find more of a spectacle on Capitol Hill than what happened in a House hearing Tuesday featuring consumer watchdog Elizabeth Warren, the White House aide building the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

At the hearing, House Republicans, and Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) in particular, accused Warren of lying to Congress about her role in the settlement negotiations between mortgage servicing companies and state attorneys general. Warren has repeatedly described her role as an advisory one: “We gave advice when asked.” House GOPers, however, continue to claim that she has unduly influenced the settlement talks, and then lied to Congress about the extent of her role in previous testimony.

Then the hearing got really ugly. At around 2:15 p.m., Warren said her time was up and she had to go, based on what McHenry’s staff had told her staff. McHenry said that wasn’t the case, and then accused Warren of lying again, this time about the hearing schedule.

Here’s the exchange:

It’s worth noting that Patrick McHenry questioning someone else’s integrity is as hypocritical as it gets. This is, after all, the guy who created a phony realty company before his initial run for Congress so that he could later say he was the “one small businessman in the race,” as the Washington Monthly reported.

Now McHenry’s facing some blowback for his specious attacks on Warren. Just take a look at his official Facebook page. You’ll find comment after comment demanding McHenry apologize and ripping him for calling Warren a liar. Here are just a few:

“Mr. McHenry, you should be ashamed for your behavior. You are a disgrace to NC, the House of Representatives, and human kind in general.”

“Just because you don’t agree with someone politically, does not allow you to treat them disrespect. Ms. Warren carried herself with dignity and showed you respect. You, on the other hand, treated her with hostility and disrespect.”

“Your treatment of an incredibly smart and strong woman was reprehensible. Ms. Warren represents the interests and people of this country better than you do. I despise that I had to “like” your page so I could tell you off. I’ll be happy to financially contribute to your opponent this cycle.”

“This is your ‘macaca’ moment, Congressman. Enjoy!”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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