Clay Higgins opened his town hall in Crowley on Thursday night with a plea for civility.

"Perhaps you don't agree with the person sitting next to you, politically, or person that lives across the street, maybe you don't vote the same, but you breathe the same air man. We are all Americans we stand in glory underneath the same flag."

"We owe that to each other, so as your Congressional Representative, which I am humbled to be."

According to The Advocate, questions about glyphosate, environmental regulations, SpaceX and the Epstein files then led to heated exchanges — including one in which Higgins told a constituent he would personally carry him out of the building.

The question he came to Crowley to avoid

A resident stood up and identified themselves before asking anything:

"As a survivor of over a decade of childhood abuse at the hands of an army veteran, I must ask why you are the only Congressman who voted not to release the Epstein files."

That is not a gotcha. That is a constituent explaining why the question matters to them personally, and then asking it plainly.

Higgins's answer was that releasing the files would violate 200 years of criminal justice procedure by mandating the release of confidential criminal investigative files. He said he wasn't happy about victims' confidential names being released. He said we need to let the justice system play out before politicizing an investigation.

"Innocent until proven guilty, is that not our standard."

We have been through this answer before. When Higgins cast the lone vote against the Epstein Files Transparency Act, 427 to 1, he gave the same explanation — and the bill already let the attorney general redact victims' personal information, child abuse material, and anything touching an ongoing case. The protection he says he was defending was written into the text he voted against.

It's also worth remembering what Higgins does in Congress. He chairs the subcommittee that subpoenaed those same files. He is not a bystander to the question a constituent stood up to ask him.

Then he offered to carry a man out

The exchange that blew up was about glyphosate — the weed killer sprayed on crops, in a district full of them. A resident asked about it. The back-and-forth escalated.

Here is Higgins:

"If the gentleman would allow me to answer his questions, if you want to run for Congress, knock yourself out."

The resident's reply, per KLFY: "Oh no, we have that in common, I don't like politicians."

Somewhere in that exchange Higgins told the man he would carry him out of the building himself. Another attendee heard it as a threat and shouted:

"These are the people you serve, don't threaten him, I heard you threaten him, it's on video, you said you're going to take him out yourself."

To be precise about what's established: The Advocate reports as fact that Higgins told a constituent he would personally carry him out of the building. The characterization of that as a threat — and the "take him out" phrasing — comes from an attendee in the room, who said it was recorded.

Either way, a sitting congressman who opened the evening asking Americans to respect one another spent part of it telling a voter he'd remove him from the room by hand.

The other thing he wanted to talk about

Higgins also addressed rumors about SpaceX coming to Vermilion Parish, and volunteered his personal regard for Elon Musk:

"I've broken bread with him on a few occasions, he's one of the smartest, and the oddest man I've ever met."

A congressman telling constituents about breaking bread with the world's richest man, at a meeting where they came to ask about pesticide spraying and a child sex trafficking investigation, is its own kind of answer about whose company he keeps.

Why town halls matter here

Most Republicans in Congress have simply stopped holding these. Higgins deserves the narrow credit for showing up in a room where people could ask him things.

But showing up is the floor, not the achievement. What Crowley got was a plea for civility, a recycled explanation for the most conspicuous vote in the House, an anecdote about Elon Musk, and an offer to carry a constituent out of the building.

The survivor who stood up to ask the first question still doesn't have an answer that matches the bill's actual text.

Source

Joel Thompson, "Clay Higgins calls for unity as Crowley town hall turns heated over key issues," The Advocate, and "Tensions rise during Crowley town hall," KLFY, Aug. 14, 2026. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.