Katie Porter Uses House Hearing to Make Witnesses Literally Play Jeopardy

Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) has a reputation for coming up with sharp, inventive ways of questioning House hearing guests, and she came up with a new one by having witnesses play a game of Jeopardy…with a twist.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee held a subcommittee hearing on Thursday to address financial waste in the Department of Defense. The witnesses were John Tenaglia from the Department of Defense, Brett Mansfield from the DOD Office of Inspector General, and Asif Khan of the U.S Government Accountability Office.

When Porter was given her time, she commented “In Washington, the same game is played every year: the president requests a massive defense budget, lawmakers don’t want to be seen as soft on national security, and defense lobbyists exploit that.” To that end, Porter proposed a “new game” by whipping out a large (if miniaturized) game board called “JeoparDOD,” and she challenged the witnesses to answer questions about waste, missing guardrails, and those who’ve enabled a lack of financial responsibility.

Explaining that the rules would work just like regular Jeopardy, Porter started with Tenaglia, who opted for the 100 points question for Enablers.

“The president who called how much we spend on defense ‘crazy,’ but let defense spending grow by over $100 billion in one term,” Porter read. Tenaglia blanked on the question, so Porter answered “Who is Donald Trump?”

After playing the game, Tenaglia scored 100 points, Mansfield had 500 points, and Khan with 200. Porter moved past these totals to make the point that “the winner here should be the American people, because no matter who uncovers the most waste, the important thing is that we provide long overdue oversight to the taxpayers.”

Watch above.