House Democrats’ strategy will exclude some of President Trump’s staunchest defenders from public impeachment hearings that the world will be watching.
Reps. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Lee Zeldin of New York, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania are among the Republicans on three committees who have taken part in closed-door depositions of witnesses Democrats say can prove Trump abused his office by seeking Ukraine’s help investigating his political opponents.
The GOP lawmakers have cross-examined the witnesses and in some cases, have claimed to have significantly weakened witness testimony against the president.
But none of the lawmakers will be included when the Intelligence Committee interviews the witnesses in public in the coming weeks.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff will eliminate two of the three committees — Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Government Reform — that have been interviewing the witnesses privately, and the four GOP lawmakers sit on those panels.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee, which typically conducts impeachment hearings, will also be excluded.
“There is no reason to limit it to Intelligence,” Meadows told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
“The Intel Committee has no reason to have jurisdiction over this. It’s because they believe Adam Schiff is a better face for the Democrat Party and has done a better job. “
The Judiciary Committee has always conducted impeachment hearings for judges and held impeachment hearings for both Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
But Pelosi announced that while Judiciary would mark up articles of impeachment, it would not conduct the hearings.
Instead, the House will vote this week on impeachment proceedings that will authorize the Intelligence Committee to conduct the public hearings, “as well as procedures to transmit any evidence or report to the Judiciary Committee.”
Pelosi has clashed with Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, who for months conducted hearings he unilaterally declared were part of impeachment proceedings on a wide range offenses Democrats believe Trump has committed. The hearings were contentious and criticized by both parties. Pelosi shifted the investigation to Intelligence in late September, and the closed-door investigation added Oversight and Foreign Intelligence to help with the questioning.
Jordan, who is the top Republican on Oversight, has been grilling the witnesses in the closed-door sessions but will be excluded from the public hearings.
He said the decision to cut Oversight from the public hearings is part of an effort by Democrats to shape the narrative against the president.
The Oversight Committee is made up of 41 lawmakers, including 16 Republicans, among them Meadows and Jordan.
The Intelligence Committee is much smaller, which will limit the public questioning of witnesses. There are 13 Democrats and only nine Republicans on the panel.
“It’s not like we didn’t expect it,” Jordan said when asked about the decision to exclude his committee from public questioning. “I think it’s wrong. Intelligence is one of the smallest committees in the Congress.”
Rep. Scott Perry, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee who has been involved in the closed-door questioning, said most lawmakers in Congress have no idea what is going on in the closed-door hearings, including those who will be marking up impeachment articles.
“People need to see the witnesses,” Perry said. “This is essentially propaganda, and members aren’t allowed to participate in this.”
Pelosi announced Monday the House will vote on a formal procedure for conducting the impeachment proceedings that will include rights for the GOP and due process for President Trump, who Democrats accuse of obstruction and abuse of power.
Zeldin, who has been critical of the impeachment witnesses, is also on Foreign Affairs and will be shut out of the public hearings.
The New York Republican said testimony provided by Ukraine envoy William Taylor earlier this month, that Democrats declared was damning for Trump, was actually “fourth hand information” and called the impeachment proceedings “a joke.”
Republicans said the procedure Democrats have proposed would leave it up to Judiciary to advance impeachment articles even though most of the lawmakers on the panel were not involved in the closed-door witness interviews, and most are not on the Intelligence Committee, which will conduct the public hearings.
“Articles of impeachment, I thought, were the Jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee,” Republican Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas, a top member of the Intelligence panel, told the Washington Examiner.
Republicans have questioned why Intelligence was conducting the investigation at all since the panel has no jurisdiction over any of the witnesses, other than the original whistleblower whose testimony Schiff has now declared unnecessary.
“There is no classified information,” Conaway told the Washington Examiner. “The only reason that the speaker has chosen to move the investigation away from the Judiciary and to the Intelligence Committee must be some sort of personality issue between her and Nadler and her and Schiff. He should first do an investigation and not just take Adam Schiff’s word for it. It ought to be in Nadler’s committee.”
