Wednesday, Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) and dozens of his GOP colleagues held a joint news conference attacking the what he called the “Socialist Democrats’ secret, closed-door, Capitol basement impeachment proceedings that shut out the public and congressmen from impeachment testimony, evidence and developments.”
Immediately after the news conference ended, Congressman Brooks and his GOP colleagues proceeded to the secret, Capitol basement hearing room and chanted for Socialist Democrats to “Let Us In!” When a staffer opened the door to tell congressmen they could not enter, the GOP congressmen brushed past the staffer and rushed into the Intelligence Committee’s secret impeachment proceedings.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam, whom Brooks nicknamed “Star Chamber” Schiff (D, CA) then halted the proceedings rather than making them public to congressmen or other American citizens.
Immediately thereafter, heated words erupted between the Democrats and the GOP congressmen who sought to make public what Brooks called “the sordid process by which Socialist Democrats seek to repudiate and trash the 60+ million American citizens who voted Donald Trump for President.
Brooks pointed out that in accord with Intelligence Committee rules, Congressman Brooks did not take his iPad or cell phone into the committee chamber.)
“Let me focus on but one of the judicial defects foisted on the American people by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff,” Brooks said. “The use of secretive, infamous, star-chamber type proceedings in the Capitol’s basement rather than public proceedings, public proceedings, where the American people can see for themselves firsthand the railroad job being presided over by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chairman Adam Schiff. The American people deserve a public and open process.”
“Bear in mind the significance of what we are talking about here today,” Brooks continued. “We are a republic. Close to a million Americans have fought in wars— beginning with the Revolutionary War— to give us the rights to control our own destiny, and what the Socialist Democrats seek to do today is to thwart, to disregard, to repudiate the votes of 60 million Americans in the 2016 elections. By golly, if they are going to do it, do it in public. Don’t hide it from the American people. Show your face so we can all see the travesty that you are trying to foist on America and the degradation of our republic that you are engaged in. We demand open proceedings, the American people deserve nothing less, their representatives in congress deserve nothing less.”
Congressman Bradley Byrne (R-Montrose) was also present in this protest.
“This is a sham,” Byrne said. “They’re trying to impeach a President of the United States behind closed doors, with no rules, with no resolution to set it up. The American people are seeing this for what it is, but we’re going to have to continue to stand up and push back against this nonsense, and that’s what happened today.”
“Adam Schiff just SHUT DOWN his secret underground impeachment hearing after I led a group of Republicans into the room,” Byrne said afterward. “Now he’s threatening me with an Ethics complaint! I’m on the Armed Services Cmte but being blocked from the Dept. Asst. SecDef’s testimony. This is a SHAM!”
Democrats tabled a vote to censure and remove Schiff earlier this week.
President Trump has referred to the impeachment inquiry as a “lynching.”
Those comments drew criticism from Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell (D-Selma), U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D), and former Vice President Joe Biden (D). It was later reported that Democrats, including Biden, used the same term for the William Jefferson Clinton impeachment in 1998.
Byrne is running for Doug Jones’ Senate seat.
Congressman Mo Brooks represents Alabama’s Fifth Congressional District.
