The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
GOP protest delays impeachment testimony
GOP House members delay testimony by storming secure room.
The impeachment testimony from a Pentagon official responsible for Ukraine policy was delayed Wednesday after several of President Donald Trump’s congressional allies staged a demonstration against the probe and barged into a secure facility on Capitol Hill.
What Republicans say
GOP lawmakers have accused the probe’s Democratic leaders of conducting a secret campaign against the president by investigating behind closed doors.
What Democrats say
Democrats have said they will release transcripts of testimony and open the process for public hearings after they conduct their initial investigation.
Georgia Repub
WASHINGTON — licans are bristling at what they contend is a lack of access and transparency from congressional Democrats conducting an impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump.
At least two Georgians were among the GOP lawmakers who stormed a closed-door House Intelligence Committee deposition Wednesday morning.
Others have taken to social media and the well of the House in recent days to rail about elected members of Congress and the public being locked out of hearings. And all nine of the state’s U.S. House Republicans voted or voiced support for a GOP resolution this week to censure Intel
ligence Chairman Adam Schiff, who’s leading the impeachment investigation.
The torrent of complaints comes as Republicans adopt a more confrontational approach to the inquiry at the request of Trump.
“The whole process is ludicrous,” said U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Pooler, on Wednesday. “There’s a protocol to follow, and (Democrats are) not following any kind of protocol.”
Carter was one of roughly two-dozen conservative Republicans who pushed their way into a secure hearing room where members of the Intelligence panel and two other committees were preparing to interview Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura
Cooper earlier in the day. Her testimony, originally set to begin at 10 a.m., was delayed until midafternoon.
The chaos prompted Schiff to stop the deposition. Many of the GOP lawmakers were carrying cellphones, which are barred in that section of the Capitol to protect classified information.
Democratic leaders have only allowed members of three committees — Intelligence, Oversight
and Foreign Affairs — to attend the hearings, but they’ve granted both parties equal time to question witnesses.
Monroe Republican Jody Hice is the only Georgia lawmaker who’s been able to sit in on the hearings as a member of the Oversight panel. Still, the senior House Freedom Caucus member was among the protesters on Wednesday.
“This is the most unfair treatment, unfair process — perhaps more so than any other such process in the history of our country,” he said in a video posted on Twitter. “Fortunately, some Republicans with some spine and
some guts have stormed into the deposition today demanding that they have a right to hear what’s happening.”
Schiff has promised to release transcripts and eventually hold public hearings but said private
depositions were needed during the fact-finding portion of the impeachment inquiry to prevent witnesses from coordinating their testimony. He’s cited the GOP’s handling of the Beng
hazi Select Committee, portions of which were also conducted behind closed doors.
Democrats have contended that they’re fulfilling their Constitutionalduties by investigating Trump and whether he engaged in a “quid pro quo” by using foreign aid to push Ukraine’s leaders to investigate the Biden family and the 2016 election.