House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) had to eject Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida from a closed-door deposition in the impeachment inquiry, a new transcript released on Friday revealed.
Republicans have been complaining for weeks that witness interviews in the inquiry were held in closed session, despite this process being fully consistent with the House rules and, as Schiff has argued, a prudential tactic when conducting a preliminary investigation into potential wrongdoing. At one point, to demonstrate their objections with a cheesy stunt, Gaetz led a group of fellow Republicans to storm a secure room where a deposition was set to take place in the inquiry. Several of them appeared to bring their phones into the location, a gross violation of security rules.
What these theatrics overlooked was that many Republicans were permitted to be inside the deposition room, as long as they were assigned to the committees relevant to the investigation. In fact, many of the Republicans who joined Gaetz’s storming of the deposition were actually permitted to be there.