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Thursday 24 October 2019
Chaos erupts as Republicans barge into Trump impeachment inquiry hearing
House Republicans speak to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on Wednesday.
Photograph: Carlos Jasso/Reuters
Political tensions over an intensifying impeachment inquiry reached fever pitch on Wednesday as Republicans “stormed” a closed-door committee hearing on Capitol Hill where another witness to the Ukraine controversy was appearing – a day after devastating testimony from a key diplomat.
A group of Republican members of the House of Representatives,
chanting “Let us in”, barged into a secure, in-camera hearing room
where Laura Cooper, a top Pentagon official who oversees Ukraine policy,
was set to testify before the committees in charge of the inquiry.
The chaos and confusion temporarily shut down the proceedings as Republicans
tweeted live updates of the disruption from their cellphones, which are
not typically permitted in classified areas, and reportedly entered
into yelling matches with committee members.
“BREAKING:
I led over 30 of my colleagues into the SCIF where Adam Schiff is
holding secret impeachment depositions. Still inside – more details to
come,” tweeted Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican congressman and one of
Donald Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, referring to secured
areas of the Capitol known as Sensitive Compartmented Information
Facilities, or SCIFs, and Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House
intelligence committee leading the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry.
The Republicans who led the protest do not sit on the three
committees involved in the impeachment inquiry and are not permitted to
attend. Members of those committees already include Republican members
of Congress, as well as Democrats
and both parties attend and ask questions at the hearings, whether
public or, as in this case, closed to the public and the press.
But the members involved in the action on Wednesday have sought to
attack the inquiry on procedural grounds, protesting against the private
nature of the hearings and demanding access to the full breadth of the
testimony that has rattled Washington in recent weeks.
Much of the testimony that has been made public by the committee, however, and news reports confirm key elements of a whistleblower complaint that set in motion
the impeachment inquiry. The investigation centers on reports of Donald
Trump withholding military aid and dangling a meeting at the White
House for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in return for favors that would benefit him in domestic US politics.
Could Donald Trump actually be impeached? – video
The invading Republicans were still in the chamber by early afternoon and ordered in pizza.
“Reporting from Adam Schiff’s secret chamber,” Republican congressman
Andy Biggs began, in a series of tweets from inside the room. Biggs has
accused Democrats of conducting a “Soviet-style” impeachment inquiry
and demanded the testimony be made available to all lawmakers.
“When Republican members were in the SCIF, Chairman Schiff immediately left with the witness,” he tweeted.
The dramatic escalation by Republicans on Capitol Hill came after Bill Taylor, the most senior US diplomat in Kyiv, testified for hours before House investigators on Tuesday, delivering an account
that was so shocking to some lawmakers, freshman Democrat congressman
Andy Levin described it as “my most disturbing day in Congress so far –
very troubling”.
In a lengthy opening statement, Taylor told lawmakers that Trump
wanted “everything”, including military aid to Ukraine, tied to a
commitment by the country’s leaders to investigate Democrats and the
2016 election as well as a company linked to the family of Trump’s
leading 2020 Democratic rival, Joe Biden.
“He said that President Trump wanted President Zelenskiy ‘in a public
box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations,”
Taylor said.
Trump emerged briefly on Wednesday to declare victory in enforcing what he called a “permanent” ceasefire
along the northern Syrian border after his abrupt withdrawal of US
troops effectively opened the door for a Turkish offensive against
Kurdish-led forces in that region, leaving scores of civilians and
fighters dead and hundreds of thousands of people displaced.
The president, who has denied any wrongdoing in the impeachment
inquiry, spent the morning on Twitter downplaying the investigation’s
findings, including Taylor’s explosive testimony. He didn’t address the
impeachment issues or take any questions after delivering his statement
on Syria.
Later, leaving the White House for Pittsburgh to speak at a fracking
conference, Trump was unusually quiet when heading to the Marine One
helicopter on the lawn.
He has become accustomed to often relatively lengthy sessions of
questions and answers with reporters gathered outside, on his way to the
helicopter, which has become known as “chopper talk”, but he did not
take any questions on Wednesday.
Meanwhile
a report emerged noting that as early as 7 May, newly elected President
Zelenskiy told senior aides he was already worried about pressure from
the Trump to investigate his Democratic rivals.
The group of advisers spent most of a three-hour meeting talking
about how to navigate the insistence from Trump and his personal lawyer,
Rudy Giuliani, for such an investigation, and how to avoid becoming
entangled in the American elections, according to three people familiar
with the details of the meeting.
Among the many defenses the White House has offered is that Ukraine
had not been aware that Trump was withholding military aid that
Congress approved for the country unless it launched two investigations.
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