Fox News Freaks Out Over Proposed Removal of ‘So Help You God’ From House Committee Oath
Fox News is freaking out over a draft proposal to remove the words “so help you God” from the oath given to congressional witnesses, but they seem to have missed an arguably more telling change.
On Tuesday night’s edition of Hannity, host Sean Hannity railed against a draft proposal by the House Committee on Natural Resources to strike the phrase from the witness oath.
“The left is trying to erase what has been our Judeo-Christian principles,” Hannity declared, and added that “Democrats are actually moving to strike the words ‘So help you god’ from the oath. This reads like a playbook for a strong arm socialist takeover of some banana republic.”
Other Fox News programs followed suit, running nine segments on the proposed rule change.
Then, on Wednesday morning’s edition of America’s Newsroom, co-host Bill Hemmer asked Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) — who is a member of the committee in question — about the proposal, and she quickly quashed the controversy.
“The chair of the committee will add it back in,” Dingell said, and added “It is my full intent to vote to add it back in and let us put this issue behind us and focus on the issues. This is important. I’m a Catholic girl. I think people are trying to cause some trouble here to divert, instead of focusing on what we’ll do about healthcare, pre-existing conditions.”
Whew! Crisis averted.
Rather than an attempt to murder all that is holy, the proposed change could also be seen as an attempt at inclusiveness of those whose religious beliefs, or lack thereof, conflict with the oath. Either way, witnesses have long had the option to make a non-religious affirmation in lieu of the oath.
But these Fox personalities ignored another proposed change that will, apparently, remain in the committee’s version of the oath. In addition to striking “so help you God” (which it no longer will do), the draft proposal adds a particularly timely phrase: “under penalty of law.”
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but that change comes after disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn‘s attorneys tried to argue that maybe Flynn didn’t know lying to the FBI was a crime, and after former Trump attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, and as the House Intelligence Committee tries to get Special Counsel Mueller to review transcripts of testimony from Donald Trump Jr. and others to see if they committed perjury.
Witnesses shouldn’t have to be told that lying to Congress is a crime, but at least on one House committee, now they will be. So help them God.
Watch Hannity’s rant above, via Fox News.
