Just how demeaning was the treatment of Hope Hicks by the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and it's chairman, Jerry Nadler? So bad that even a CNN Inside Politics panel on Friday hosted by John King criticized those members and Nadler rather harshly especially after the latter referred to Hope Hicks as "Lewandowski" not once, not twice but three times.
KING: A, why are Congress people taking pictures of a witness in a -- if you're having a serious, prepared, thorough investigation. What is that all about? And then B, for the conversation, Chairman Nadler himself who called off the picture taking there repeatedly referred to her as Ms. Lewandowski.
Corey Lewandowski was the campaign manager. On several occasions, he called her and you see one of them on your screen there. We are not, Mr. Chairman, Ms. Lewandowski.
Her name is Hope Hicks. He fought to get her testimony. He knows her name is Hope Hicks. At one point she said 'my name is Ms. Hicks, Mr. Chairman.'
If you're going to make the case to the American people that you're conducting serious, credible investigations and you're prepared, why be amateur and offensive?
Because when the Mueller Report has been shown to provide no evidence worthy of presidential impeachment, you desperately try to humiliate the President's former aide by repeatedly calling her "Lewandowski" to snarkily imply an affair between Hope Hicks and Corey Lewandowski which is an unsubstantiated rumor.
ABBY PHILLIP: It definitely undermines the case. I mean, it's clearly unprofessional for people to be taking pictures in a closed hearing. Kind of unbelievable that they would do that. But on the Lewandowski thing, there's a big debate about whether it was an intentional slip of the tongue, whatever. Either way, any woman being called something other than their name, being called miss some other man's name is -- it's offensive. Hope Hicks would be right to be a little shaken by that.
And I think that it's an unforced error on Nadler's part. He probably at this point ought to apologize to her because now that it's out there, it's becoming this source of criticism among Hicks' defenders who say this is proof that the Democrats aren't being serious, that they won't even be respectful to a woman in this context. I don't know what was in his mind but he should probably explain it to people at this point.
All that was missing from the ridiculous scene was Congressman Steve Cohen munching from a bucket of KFC.
KING: At one point he said he was preoccupied. He said I'm sorry, I'm preoccupied. You're the chairman of the committee, you have what you think is a star witness, you're having Hope Hicks, someone who knows so much who is around candidate Trump all the time, around President Trump all the time. She's important to them if they are conducting a credible, serious investigation. You would think he would not be preoccupied.
