Republicans delay inquiry for a few hours
They storm a secure room where a deposition in the impeachment probe was being held
WASHINGTON >> House Republicans ground the impeachment inquiry to a halt for hours Wednesday, staging an attention-grabbing protest at the Capitol that sowed chaos and delayed a crucial deposition as they sought to insulate President Donld Trump against mounting evidence of misconduct.
The day after the most damning testimony yet about Trump’s pressure campaign to enlist Ukraine to smear his political rivals, House Republicans stormed into the secure office suite where impeachment investigators have been conducting private interviews that have painted a damaging picture of the president’s behavior — and refused to leave.
Chanting “Let us in! Let us in!” about two dozen Republican lawmakers — most of whom are not on the committees conducting the inquiry and are therefore not entitled to attend their hearings — pushed past Capitol Police officers to enter the secure rooms of the House Intelligence Committee, which is leading the investigation. Republicans who are on the committees have been in on the hearings from the start and have had the chance to hear from all the witnesses.
After several contentious hours marked by shouting matches between Republican and Democratic lawmakers and an appearance by the sergeant-at-arms, the top law enforcement official in the Capitol, Wednesday’s witness began testifying. Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia,
Ukraine and Eurasia, answered questions for more than three hours before the panel wrapped up its work for the day.
Across the Capitol, leading Republican senators who have become resigned to the prospect of serving as jurors in the impeachment trial of their own party’s president were struggling to cope with the revelations about Trump.
“The picture coming out of it, based on the reporting that we’ve seen, I would say is not a good one,” Sen. John
Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, told CNN. “But I would say also that until we have a process that allows for everybody to see this in full transparency, it’s pretty hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions.”
His comments came a day after Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, denied a claim by Trump that the senator had told the president that a telephone call he had with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, which has become a crucial focus of the inquiry, was “perfect” and “innocent.” McConnell said he could recall no such conversation.
In the House, Republicans were rushing to Trump’s defense as the president has publicly demanded, as they protested the inquiry and insisted on access.
“This is a Soviet-style process,” declared Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House’s No. 2 Republican. “It should not be allowed in the United States of America. Every member of Congress ought to be allowed in that room. The press ought to be allowed in that room.”
Some of the Republicans brought their cellphones into the secure room, which is not permitted and considered a security breach. The sergeant-at-arms, the top law enforcement officer in the Capitol, was called in to handle the situation as Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, attempted to intervene.
The standoff stretched into the afternoon as protesting Republicans ordered pizza and fast food for the throng of reporters assembled to witness their spectacle. It came the day after the explosive testimony of William Taylor, the top American diplomat in Ukraine, who effectively confirmed Democrats’ main accusation against Trump: that the president withheld military aid from Ukraine in a quid pro quo effort to pressure that country’s leader to incriminate former Vice President Joe Biden and smear other Democrats.