Top House Democrats slammed Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) on Friday over the Republican’s comments on Fox News earlier in the week in which he said he questions Rep. Judy Chu’s (D-CA) “loyalty or competence.”
“I’m really disappointed and shocked that someone like Judy Chu would have a security clearance and be entitled to confidential intelligence briefings until this is figured out,” said Gooden.
Gooden made the remarks in response to host Jesse Watters asking if he believed “Congresswoman Chu should be looked into?”
Watters asked the question in a segment slamming President Joe Biden for nominating Dominic Ng to lead U.S. trade interests in Asia. The Daily Caller published an article alleging Ng is linked to front organizations for Chinese intelligence agencies, which subsequently led to a small group of GOP House members to call for an FBI investigation into Ng.
Chu, the country’s first Chinese-American congresswoman and chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, hit back at those Republicans and defended Ng – claiming the allegations against him were nothing but right-wing “profiling.”
After Gooden’s Fox News appearance on Wednesday, Chu released a statement saying the congressman’s “comments on Fox News questioning my loyalty to the USA is absolutely outrageous.”
“It is based on false information spread by an extreme, right-wing website. Furthermore, it is racist. I very much doubt that he would be spreading these lies were I not of Chinese American descent,” Chu concluded.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) also released a statement Thursday lambasting Gooden. “Lance Gooden’s slanderous accusation of disloyalty against Rep. Chu is dangerous, unconscionable and xenophobic,” wrote Jeffries.
“Congressman Gooden appears to sympathize with violent insurrectionists and spreads big lies to the American people, having voted not to certify the election of President Joe Biden. Look in the mirror, Lance. You have zero credibility,” Jeffries added.
Gooden hit back on Friday with a statement of his own, doubling down on the “disloyalty” accusation.
“Rather than following facts that indicate the presence of Chinese espionage, Chu and Jeffries are playing the race card in a sick display of disloyalty to our nation,” Gooden said in an email reported on by the Hill.
Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA), head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, also released a statement Friday:
At a time when anti-Asian hate continues to threaten communities, it’s critical that we condemn these racist and xenophobic attacks immediately and hold our fellow colleagues accountable to rid our politics of such dangerous statements and hatred.
The Daily Caller investigation was published on February 9th, which led to the February 15th letter signed by six members of Congress, including Gooden and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-C), asking FBI Director Christopher Wray to investigate “the extent of Mr. Ng’s knowledge of sensitive information, as well as any potential violations of The Espionage Act.”
The publisher of the Daily Caller, which was co-founded by Tucker Carlson, defended the article in a statement to NBC News, saying: “It was well researched, fairly reported and based largely on direct Chinese language source materials. Rep. Chu is lashing out wildly instead of engaging substantively since she can’t refute the facts presented.”
Watch the full clip above via Fox News.
The post Spat Erupts On Capitol Hill After Republican Congressman Questions ‘Loyalty’ of Chinese-American Colleague on Fox News first appeared on Mediaite.