Oops! Senator Goes to Wrong Hearing

By Arlette Saenz April 3, 2014

Between committee hearings, meetings with constituents and votes on the floor, lawmakers on Capitol Hill juggle some pretty hectic schedules. And the busy agenda caught up this week with one senator who accidentally attended the wrong hearing.

Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., sat down at what he thought was an appropriations hearing on the defense budget and started reading a letter from the Indiana congressional delegation to leaders at the Pentagon.

Then the embarrassing moment came.

"I just got a note saying I'm at the wrong hearing," Coats said. "I've got the right room number but the wrong hearing."

Coats was actually at a different appropriations hearing on Wednesday - one for the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence's upcoming budget.

"Well that would explain why I didn't know about this letter," David Cohen, undersecretary of treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, who was one of the witnesses, said to laughter.

Coats said the incident, which was first spotted by the Washington Post, was the first time he attended the wrong hearing.

"I'll go try to find out where I'm supposed to be," Coats said.

Coats, who recently launched a hilarious Twitter rant after he was banned from Russia, was a good sport about his slip-up, making note of it on Twitter.