GOP Reps Want Impeachment Hearings Public in Order to Subvert Them, Intimidate and Smear Witnesses
October 27, 2019
The Chair of the United States House Select Committee on Benghazi Was Former Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) (United States Congress)
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH
The current rules of the House that allow for closed-door hearings in a secure room (SCIF) limited to members of the committees holding the hearings were created and passed by the then Republican-controlled Congress in 2015. Of course, that makes the brown shirt GOP Republican mob attack on a closed-door deposition this past week, chaired by Adam Schiff, profoundly hypocritical.
Former Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), then Chair of the United States House Select Committee on Benghazi, was unsparing in enforcing the new rules, at the time, that excluded any House Representatives who did not serve on the presiding Committee from attending a closed-door deposition. Gowdy proclaimed that “the closed-door hearings” are productive.” He also sternly stated in June of 2015 that “non-committee members are not allowed in the room during the deposition. Those are the rules, and we have to follow them, no exception.” When former Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA) tried to sit in on a deposition, Gowdy refused to admit him.
The Select Committee on Benghazi was the last of six Republican “investigations” into a 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the death of the US ambassador and three other Americans. The real purpose of the unrelenting House Republican focus on the Benghazi tragedy was not about finding the truth, it was about smearing the Obama administration, Democrats in general and particularly former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The most memorable day of the Select Committee hearing was a public inquisition of Clinton on October 22, 2015, that lasted eight hours. Clinton was the likely Democratic Party candidate for president in 2016, and the Select Committee hearings were perceived by many to be an attempt to slander her or find her guilty of unlawful behavior. Although the Select Committee did succeed in laying the groundwork for Trump’s unfounded campaign trope that Clinton was “crooked” because of her private email server, the final committee report on June 28, 2016 — the Select Committee held its first hearing on September 17, 2014 — found no criminal fault on the part of Clinton or the Obama administration.
In September of 2015, now House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had crowed, “"Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought." It should be noted that one of the leaders of this week’s siege of the impeachment inquiry, Jim Jordan (R-OH), served on the Select Benghzai Committee, so he was fully aware of the rules that govern Adam Schiff’s use of closed-door depositions. (Also serving on the Select Committee was then Congressman, now Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.)
So the Republican-initiated Select Committee served as a ruthless political tool to try and politically wound Clinton, just as the five prior Republican-led investigations of the Benghazi attacks were.
This background on Benghazai is important because if provides compelling evidence of how Congressional Republicans — and that includes the Senate — see high-profile hearings as a way of achieving political goals through unscrupulous theatrics during committee hearings.
On the Senate side, just consider the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. The Thomas hearings were held when the Democrats controlled the Senate, with Joe Biden as chair of the Judiciary Committee. However, the Democrats ceded the optics of the Thomas confirmation hearings to Republican bullying, defaming of Anita Hill, and Clarence Thomas’s claim that he was the victim of a “high-tech lynching.” Fast forward to the Brett Kavanaugh, when the Republicans controlled the Senate, and Kavanaugh followed Thomas’s playbook. The Democrats appeared hapless in defending Christine Blasey Ford or in pushing back at Kavanaugh’s unhinged surly deportment and defiant accusations, which in itself showed that he was unfit for the highest court in the land.
The Thomas and Kavanaugh hearings are representative of how the Republicans view public committee hearings that receive widespread media coverage as theater in which they can influence how the story line unfolds by using brass knuckle tactics and defamatory questioning. This is backed up by smear campaigns that are amplified by coordination with right-wing media to become message points that even influence outlets such as The New York Times and the The Washington Post. The Democrats, on the other hand, appear to be more concerned about acting civilly than calling out the Republicans for their underhanded, merciless and unrelenting tactics.
Yes, the primary reason that three Dem committees are conducting their current depositions in secure rooms with just Democratic and Republican members of three committees conducting the inquiry is because of the rules that the Republicans put in place in 2015. However, there is no doubt that the revelations that have come out thus far about Trump’s violation of the Constitution and corruption might not have seen the day in a public hearing where the Republican committee members would intimidate, slander, bully and muddy the waters.
Adam Schiff appears to be a firm chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, but will he step up to the plate to keep the Republicans from creating chaos instead of illumination during public hearings? Will he push back against Ad Hominem attacks by the GOP? Will he stifle GOP attempts to create message points for the right-wing media that will distract from Trump’s crimes?
The record of Democrats in Congress stepping up their game to call out and control aggressive GOP hijackings of high-stakes hearings is not good. That is a key reason that House Republicans and Trump want open hearings as soon as possible. The Republicans generally control the tenor of these hearings and turn clarity into disinformation.
As with Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford, unless the Democrats forcefully and decisively back up witnesses who face withering personal attacks from the Republican House members — and keep the Republican committee members in check — the case for impeachment will become muddled, and the battle for public opinion will be lost.
The transition from closed-door hearings to public ones may occur by mid-November. The Democrats on the three impeachment inquiry committees need to be prepared to do battle and not acquiesce to Republican ruthlessness.
I recall that when former Congressman Tom DeLay was Republican House Majority Leader (2003-2005), one of his aides bragged about their tactics: “We don’t just beat our opponents to death. We roll them up in a carpet and toss it over the cliff.”
That’s certainly Trump’s outlook, and also of the GOP caucus in general.
When the public impeachment hearings start, will Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi be prepared to rein in Republican misconduct? Will Schiff and Pelosi prevail in ferreting out the facts, having the backs of their witnesses and controlling the messaging?
If not, Trump will emerge from the impeachment inquiry emboldened in his lawlessness and subversion of democracy. Our descent into authoritarianism will, then, only accelerate.
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