WATCH: John Cornyn Comically Deflates When Biden Nominee Explains Her ‘Racist Theory’ About Black Superiority Was Satire

Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn performed a spectacular “Gotcha!” fail when he tried to trip up Kristen Clarke at her conformation hearing to be President Joe Biden’s assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Cornyn began his questioning of Clarke with an air of gravity, somberly paraphrasing the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Miss Clarke, Martin Luther King famously said that he had a dream of the day when his children would be known by the content of their character and not the color of their skin,” Cornyn said, then poignantly added “Do you agree with that?”

“Absolutely, senator,” Ms. Clarke replied.

“Well, maybe there’s a misprint, but I’m sure you can clear it up for me, dating back to your days in school when you seemed to argue that African-Americans were genetically Superior to Caucasians,” Cornyn Matlocked, then asked “Is that correct?”

“No, senator, I believe you are referring to an op-ed that I wrote at the age of 19 about the Bell Curve theory, a racist book that equated DNA with genetics and race,” Clarke explained, adding “As a black student at Harvard at that time, we took great offense to this book, it was co-authored by a Harvard professor, did a number of events to speak out against the book, and this op-ed opened with a satirical reference to the statement that you just noted.”

Clarke noted that reporting in the campus paper at the time made this clear.

“What I was trying to do was to hold up a mirror and put one racist theory alongside another to challenge people as to why we were unwilling to wholly reject the racist theory that defined the Bell Curve book,” Clarke explained.

“But this was satire?” Cornyn asked, to which Clarke confirmed “Absolutely, senator.”

“And where was that published?” Cornyn asked.

“In the student paper, the Harvard Crimson,” Clarke repeated, and again noted reporting “from that time, from that day that makes clear that these were not views that I espoused, senator.”

After several seconds of pricelessly awkward silence, Cornyn moved on to his next question.

Watch above via C-Span.