Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar pulled the receipts on Elliot Abrams, the US special envoy to Venezuela, this week, pointing out his past crimes in his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration.
Speaking at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Omar began by pointing out that Abrams had pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding information from Congress over the Iran-Contra affair, a plot developed in the 1980s by the Reagan administration to fund right-wing militias in Nicaragua. Abrams was the assistant secretary of state during the Reagan years, and proved to be a key figure in the scandal.
“I fail to understand why members of this committee or the American people should find any testimony you give today to be truthful,” Omar told him.
Consider the bombs officially dropped.
The Minnesota lawmaker later brought up remarks made by Abrams in February 1982, when he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the US policy in El Salvador was “a fabulous achievement.”
It should be noted that Abrams made those comments despite the 1981 massacre of civilians — many women and young children — living in the village of El Mozote, which was carried out by Salvadoran soldiers who were trained by US military personnel during the country's civil war.
“Do you think that massacre was a fabulous achievement that happened under our watch?” Omar asked Abrams, who…
