As Democrats move to make impeachment proceedings public, Republicans slammed the new process House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put forth, saying nothing in the new protocols has changed the restrictive and secretive nature of the proceedings.
The Washington Examiner reported that Republicans say the new process further restricts particular members of their conference from asking questions during hearings.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise blasted the proposal Tuesday night.
“The Soviet-style process that Speaker Pelosi and Adam Schiff have been conducting behind closed doors for weeks now has been rotten to the core. We’ve been highly critical of the fact that it completely denies due process to Republican members of Congress, as well as to the White House,” Scalise told reporters.
He continued, “And so today, [Democrats] filed a resolution. And the resolution that was filed today, in and of itself according to Speaker Pelosi, affirms the Soviet-style process that’s been going on and continues to deny due process and equal access to both sides until Adam Schiff is completed with his secret meetings. In fact, it continues to deny the White House an opportunity to participate in this process.”
Republicans have called for a more public process, saying Democrats never had a formal impeachment inquiry vote, thereby setting up rules and standards for process and protocols for both Republicans and Democrats to abide by during an official proceeding.
Democrats defended the closed-door proceedings saying they were appropriate under the House rules for depositions. However, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, a member of the Judiciary Committee, says that Democrats never appropriately followed deposition rules.
“We followed the rules when we were in the majority last Congress, and we had depositions, and they were really of a discovery nature, but any member of Congress that wanted to sit in could come sit in, so long as they agreed to follow the deposition rules,” Gohmert told the Washington Examiner.
“And if you had a question and you weren’t on the Judiciary Committee, you could write a question out and give it to one of the people that were allowed to ask, but that’s what we’ve done in past depositions,” he said. “And I expected the majority when they said they were going to have depositions, that they would observe that.”
Depositions have so far been held behind closed doors in a secure meeting room.
“There is absolutely no reason to have depositions in a SCIF when they’re unclassified,” he said.
Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, agreed.
“I think that the fact that, for instance, members of the Judiciary, who unlike me, are not on the Intelligence Committee, are not allowed to participate in the impeachment inquiry and depositions of impeachment witnesses is something that we haven’t seen before,” he said.
“Not just when we were in charge … but in the history of impeachment … It was a big deal. They’re approaching it very differently from the rules of both Nixon and Clinton. Republicans and Democrats … Instead, we got a resolution today that was drafted last night, and it centers around the Intelligence Committee, which obviously is not like the Clinton or Nixon impeachment proceedings.” Ratcliffe said.
