Last week found Republicans in Congress complaining loud and long that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
along with the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees, all bipartisan and under the leadership of Rep. Adam Schiff, were violating the rules of the House of Representatives by interviewing witnesses about impeachment behind closed doors. They derided Schiff's hearings as a "secret impeachment."
President Trump
called the hearings a hoax. When some pointed out that the initial round of government interviews of witnesses is always conducted behind closed doors to facilitate candor, Senate Republicans supported the president and condemned the House process. Nevertheless, the House rules, which were adopted in 2015, when Republicans had the majority, clearly authorize the process that Schiff, D-Calif., is utilizing.
Not to be overshadowed by their Senate counterparts in their anger over this process, about 30 House Republicans, not on the interviewing
committees, physically stormed the Intelligence Committee hearing room last Wednesday morning and occupied it so as to bar the scheduled interviews. By midafternoon, they had tired of their stunt and peacefully departed.
...
With the process soon to be as Republicans have demanded, and with the proof of impeachable offenses plain to see, to what will the president's allies resort as a defense? They will claim that that the federal crimes of soliciting campaign assistance from foreign governments and bribery aren't impeachable offenses and that Trump was misunderstood because he exaggerates all the time and often doesn't mean what he says.
And then the American public will decide if all this is skim milk or cream.