- Rep. Katie Porter said she isn’t sure if Sen. Ted Cruz thinks at all.
- “I struggle to understand how he thinks, if [thinking] is what goes on in his head at all,” she told Vanity Fair.
- The second-term Democrat from California is known for grilling CEOs and top officials.
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Rep. Katie Porter says she isn’t sure “what thinking” is going on in Sen. Ted Cruz’s head or if he “thinks at all” as the Senate prepares to take on a second impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
“I voted for it, and I think it’s appropriate for the Senate to have a trial. I’m not going to put myself in the shoes of people like Ted Cruz,” Porter told Vanity Fair of impeachment. “I struggle to understand how he thinks, if [thinking] is what goes on in his head at all.”
Cruz has emerged as a highly controversial figure after the deadly January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol. On January 13, the House impeached Trump on a charge of inciting the insurrection.
Read more: Donald Trump didn’t pardon himself. A massive tsunami of legal peril now awaits him.
Shortly before the insurrection, Cruz and a top of ten Senators announced they would object to Congress counting electoral votes from several states won by President Joe Biden and demand an “emergency 10-day audit” into the election results.
While many of the GOP Senators in Cruz's group ended up not objecting to electoral votes after the siege, Cruz joined objections to both Arizona and Pennsylvania's electors, dragging the proceedings late into the early hours of January 7.
Now, Cruz is arguing that pursuing a Senate trial is "punitive and vindictive."
Porter, a second-term Democrat and law professor representing Southern California, is best known for her sharp questioning of top CEOs and government officials, often with her signature whiteboard in hand.
In the last Congress, Porter made a name for herself in particular on the House Financial Services Committee and is now joining the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. She is even getting an "OVRSITE" vanity plate on her minivan, she told Vanity Fair.
For the 117th Congress, however, Porter was denied a waiver that would have allowed her to both serve on the Oversight and Financial Service Committees. Both Oversight and Financial Services are in a group of "exclusive" committees that members of Congress are generally only permitted to serve on one of at a time, but members can receive waivers to serve on two exclusive committees at once.