Corrupt theater

The New York Times is reporting that a gaggle of Republican Congressmen stormed a closed-door House Intelligence Committee session shouting “Let us in! Let us in!”

About two dozen House Republicans, chanting “Let us in! Let us in!” tried to storm the secure room where a Defense Department official arrived Wednesday morning to testify in the impeachment inquiry, refusing to leave even after they were turned back by Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that was leading the deposition.

This is no more than corrupt theater, and every single one of the Congressmen who participated is unfit for office and deserves defeat next November.

This was for the cameras, so that the ignoramuses back home would know that Congressman Bubba is trying to defend poor beleaguered Donald Trump from a lynching, an illegal process without the nicety of an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses, et cetera, et cetera.

Ohhh … bullshit.

There are Republicans on the Committee, and they have and are exercising the right to ask questions. And let’s not forget that the very same carnival barker orchestrating complaints about an unfair process is the same person who has ordered workers in his administration not to honor lawful subpoenas — who, in other words, is denying Congress and the public the opportunity to hear ‘his’ blameless side of the story.

I am amazed, day after day, at what Americans don’t know about their own country and how it governs itself. The hearings now underway are not the same as, but analogous to, grand jury proceedings. They are conducted to determine the facts, and whether or not a crime — in this case an impeachable offense — has been committed. Unlike a grand jury proceeding, the subject of the investigation has friends on the committee. If the Committee finds that High Crimes and Misdemeanors warranting removal have been committed, it votes out articles of impeachment.

The entire House votes on those articles, and if it affirms them the matter goes to the Senate for a trial presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Trump will be represented at trial by lawyers and will have the opportunity to cross-examine and challenge witnesses; it will be a real trial.

The Congressmen undoubtedly know all of this, so what happened this morning was no more than, again, corrupt theater meant to impress the ignoramuses back home — whom they obviously hold in contempt.

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