House Republicans have complained that impeachment inquiry hearings are being held behind closed doors, but Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) says there's a good reason for that.
The House Intelligence Committee chairman, who's been heading up the closed-door depositions, accused President Donald Trump's energy secretary and House Republicans of helping to coordinate witness testimony, reported the New York Times.
Schiff said the depositions have been conducted in secret so the witnesses wouldn't be able to coordinate their testimony, but the California Democrat said Trump's allies have been helping them do it, anyway.
Portions of the transcript of former special envoy Kurt Volker's testimony was leaked to the conservative Washington Examiner the day before Gordon Sondland, a Trump donor and ambassador to the European Union, told lawmakers about their communications with Ukrainian government officials.
That same day, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal recounting his conversations with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani about Ukraine.
“I don’t think either was coincidental,” Schiff said, making clear that he believes Perry and other Republicans were helping Sondland craft his testimony about those efforts.
Schiff said Democrats on the Intelligence Committee noticed reports in conservative media outlets that mischaracterized what Volker was telling lawmakers, as his testimony was taking place -- and he said Republicans were feeding those efforts from the hearings.
“Even while the hearing was going on,” Schiff says, “some Republican members were pushing out text messages, and doing so in a misleading way.”
So the Democratic majority that evening released copies of Volker's text messages related to Ukraine, and have continued releasing evidence on a near-daily basis to counter GOP efforts to control the narrative.
