Gaetz continued to lambaste Garrison over his Twitter history, noting one social media post where Garrison criticized former President Donald Trump, and another in which Gaetz accused him of making an “ethno-nationalist” reference to former President Barack Obama.

“Could you enlighten us as to what advice Mr. Garrison has given you, and are you concerned that while you testified publicly to our committee that the department doesn’t embrace critical race theory, you have hired someone who is precisely a critical race theorist?”

Austin responded that he has never personally reviewed Garrison’s tweets, but he never heard him described as a “critical race theorist” before.

“Let me just share one other thing that you brought up, Congressman, about the input that comes to me,” Austin said. “I trust my leadership, from top to bottom, that they will give me fair and balanced and unvarnished input. And for you to say that people are telling me what I want to hear — I get it, but I’m smart enough to know…”

“That does happen,” Gaetz interjected.

“Yeah, you know, maybe they’re telling you what you want to hear!” Austin countered.