Republicans storm hearing room
Republicans’ defence of President Donald Trump grew more frantic and disjointed yesterday, with House members storming a closed-door meeting, delaying the testimony of an impeachment witness as the GOP grappled with a growing abuse-of-power scandal centred on the president.
A group of Trump’s congressional allies escalated their complaints about the impeachment inquiry by barging into a secure facility on Capitol Hill where a Pentagon official was to testify before the House Intelligence Committee.
Their intrusion, which caused the testimony to be delayed for about five hours over security concerns, came a day after the top US diplomat in Ukraine testified under oath that the White House had threatened to withhold muchneeded military aid unless the
Ukrainian government announced investigations for Trump’s political benefit.
The testimony undercut
Trump’s claims of his ‘‘perfect’’ dealings with Ukraine and appeared to push Republican lawmakers into a more aggressive stance as they sought to defend the president from his greatest legal and political threat yet.
‘‘I led over 30 of my colleagues into the SCIF where Adam Schiff is holding secret impeachment depositions,’’ Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said yesterday on Twitter, referring to the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. ‘‘Still inside – more details to come.’’
The lawmakers staged the dramatic protest while making process arguments that sidestepped the substance of the central allegations underpinning the House impeachment inquiry. Democrats accused the protesting members of compromising security by taking their phones inside the secure area where cellphones are prohibited.
Before entering the closeddoor hearing, Republican lawmakers held a news conference to decry how Schiff, the California
Democrat who runs the Intelligence Committee, was carrying out his committee’s portion of the impeachment inquiry.
Several complained about the private nature of the proceedings and claimed that the inquiry was part of a long-running attempt by Democrats to overturn the result of the 2016 presidential election.
But none of the 13 Republicans who spoke defended Trump on the central allegation that he had pushed Ukraine to investigate Democrats while blocking military aid that had been approved for Kyiv.
Damning testimony from William Taylor Jr., the acting US ambassador to Ukraine, has rocked the White House’s impeachment defence, making it more difficult for Republicans to claim that Trump had done nothing wrong.
– Washington Post