A fitting note on which to end a long week of grandstanding, with this guy demanding to know “Why are we hiding this from the American people?” He’s referring to an audio clip that’s been played more than two million times on YouTube, was played live for Kirstjen Nielsen at a televised White House press briefing a few days ago, has been written about extensively by all manner of media outlets, and which has already inspired presidential action in the form of an executive order undoing the child separation policy.

And the reason Republican Karen Handel is trying to shut him down isn’t to “hide” something that’s been unhidden for days. It’s because House rules say you can’t use electronic devices on the floor if doing so would upset decorum. In his own small way, Lieu’s guilty of the same logic Dan Savage is in this post. You can’t morally be bound by rules when your opponent is evil.

I hope this dude at least gets a few CNN/MSNBC guest shots out of this stunt, as that’s obviously what he’s going for by ignoring Handel. Truth to power, etc etc. Lawrence O’Donnell’s producer has already noticed the clip, so fingers crossed!

.@RepTedLieu plays @ProPublica audio from detention center on House floor: "The American people need to hear this…"

"The sergeant of arms will enforce the rules of decorum." pic.twitter.com/kFP8L5ysKk

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 22, 2018