If you’re gonna grandstand, might as well go all out, I guess:

WATCH: Lawmakers erupt after Rep. Louie Gohmert brings up Peter Strzok's infidelity with Lisa Page https://t.co/EfyfUlMRAp pic.twitter.com/raKaYuR5Ma

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) July 12, 2018

My pal Karl sums up that exchange in one tweet:

https://twitter.com/justkarl/status/1017488211378102272

It’s not just that. The elephant in the room here is enormous. The Trump Party is suddenly lecturing other people about adulterers lacking credibility? What?

There was a nice mix of views at the hearing this afternoon. On the one hand, you had moron Democrats ready to canonize Strzok because he came out swinging at Gowdy and Goodlatte this morning:

Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen praises Peter Strzok: "If I could give you a purple heart, I would."pic.twitter.com/8rTAcvHNGE

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) July 12, 2018

“This guy was removed by Mueller and harshly criticized by the IG, and yet because Republicans are attacking him he must be made into a hero?” wondered Aaron Blake. Indeed. It’s the Comey playbook. There’s no sin against propriety, even one that wounds Democratic presidential chances grievously, that can’t be absolved by disliking Republicans strongly enough. I don’t know if Strzok conceived of that as a deliberate strategy in showing defiance this morning, expecting correctly that Democrats would line up behind him, or if he just feels defiant and was intent on expressing that. But it’s worked out for him today. He was on an island politically before and he has a cheering section now.

On the other hand, the spectacle of Darrell Issa making Strzok read his texts aloud raised an obvious question:

https://twitter.com/MichaelRWarren/status/1017473036906311682

What sort of texts about Trump are Washington Republicans hiding? Because I kind of suspect they’d make Strzok’s texts about POTUS look like a Breitbart valentine. Or, better yet, what sort of texts about Mueller do the pro-Trumpers like Gohmert have on their phones? The accusation against Strzok, after all, is that his private political opinions and his professional ethics are inseparable; the former inevitably influence the latter. If that’s true, why isn’t it fair to assume that Gohmert’s private opinions about Mueller are corrupting his oversight conduct by turning him into a water-carrier for Trump? Right, Gohmert’s a partisan politician whereas Strzok’s an officer of the law, but (a) cops are allowed to have partisan preferences as citizens and (b) politicians aren’t supposed to be partisans when they have their oversight hats on. If we’re worried about corruption in law enforcement and oversight of law enforcement, shouldn’t we see everyone’s texts?