Donald Trump & Other Republicans Suddenly Don’t Want Those Public Impeachment Hearings They’ve Been Demanding for Weeks

Since the impeachment hearings began, Republicans have made a huge deal out of their purported “secrecy.” They’ve accused House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of hiding things and said Republicans were being left out of the process entirely (despite the fact that there are nearly 50 Republicans on the committees involved who have an active role in the hearings). Last month, two dozen Republican lawmakers stormed a deposition they weren’t authorized to attend as a sort of meaningless, performative protest.

(All of those were retweeted by Donald Trump, by the way.)

This outrage over “secrecy” is, of course, ridiculous. It’s not unprecedented, as the Republicans claim. Both the Clinton and Nixon impeachment inquiries had a mix of closed and open hearings. And the importance of closed-door interviews has been made very clear over the last few weeks. If the hearings were public, witnesses would have the opportunity to coordinate their stories. Instead, people like EU Ambassador George Sondland are forced to make major revisions to their testimony after subsequent witnesses made it clear he was doin’ a perjury.

But after weeks of the GOP whinging about secrecy, Adam Schiff has announced that public hearings will begin next week. So Republicans must be pretty jazzed, right? LOL, no of course not.

Here’s Donald Trump, denouncing the very thing he’s been demanding so vehemently, calling the process “a hoax.”

According to BuzzFeed, GOP Senators are also trying to distance themselves from the hearings:

Despite loudly criticizing the closed-doors secrecy of the impeachment inquiry, Senate Republicans widely say they will not watch the public hearings next week.

Some said they would be too busy, others cited a lack of faith in the inquiry itself. Sen. Richard Shelby argued it would be inappropriate to watch the hearings since impeachment will likely lead to a trial before the Senate.

Yes, that’s right, that’s an Alabama Senator saying it would be “inappropriate” to watch a hearing specifically designed to gather evidence for an impeachment he will eventually have to vote on.

Many more are saying they’ll be too busy to watch, which also doesn’t make sense since this is, again, about to become a big part of their job.

Lindsey Graham says he won’t be watching on principle because, as he said, “I think the whole process is a sham.”

As for Republicans in the House, they’re not doing too much better. Some are attacking Schiff’s choice of witnesses. That makes sense, since the first public witness will be Ambassador William Taylor, whose closed-door deposition involved a lot of very important and super incriminating testimony against Trump.

At least one of those House Republicans who is on a committee overseeing the impeachment inquiry hasn’t even been attending the hearings he’s been granted access to thus far. Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida says he hasn’t been attending the hearings (aka doing his job) because he doesn’t believe in their validity. “It’s 100% political,” said the man whose job is working in politics. “That’s why I haven’t gone down to any of the hearings. I’m truly convinced in three weeks this won’t even be talked about.”

This was never about a fight for access. It was always just a pointless temper tantrum because that’s the only tactic these people have left.

(via BuzzFeed, image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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