Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Thursday defended House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) secret impeachment chamber, arguing that impeachment due process would essentially “help potential criminals line up their testimony.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who called for President Trump to be impeached prior to her taking office in January, expressed support for Schiff’s secret impeachment proceedings in a response to Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) on Twitter.
“Hey @AOC I thought you supported Open and Transparent government,” Mooney wrote. “Truth is for @AOC the ends justify the means and she gladly reverts to Soviet style secret hearings in the Capitol basement.”
“Socialism and one-sided Kangaroo Courts have no place in the #USA #ExposeSchiffSCIF,” he added:
Ocasio-Cortez responded by first implying that a “massive crime” has been committed and argued that “making these depositions public will help potential criminals line up their testimony,” ultimately inferring that basic due process will hurt the Democrats’ impeachment efforts.
“Rep. Mooney, you & I both know that when a massive crime is committed, the 1st step is to separate witnesses & get their stories to see what adds up,” she wrote.
“You know that making these depositions public will help potential criminals line up their testimony. Why do you want to do that?” she asked:
The socialist lawmaker’s tweet follows a snarky response to the House Republicans who stormed Schiff’s secret impeachment lair on Wednesday in an effort to demand transparency. Republicans have argued that there is no reason for Schiff to conduct the interviews with witnesses in Schiff’s chamber – or the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) – as “no classified material being discussed,” as Breitbart News reported.
Conducting the interviews in the basement bunker has largely allowed Democrats to leak what they believe to be key lines from witness interviews in an effort to drive the impeachment narrative.
As House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) told Breitbart News Daily:
The president could have legal counsel in the room to question the witnesses that were trying to take the president down. That was the Nixon standard. When they had the Clinton impeachment, reverse the parties, Republican president and House Democrat Majority, they used the Nixon standard, which was both sides can call witnesses. The White House can have a lawyer in the room to question witnesses. That didn’t happen, no vote in the House. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) just decreed an impeachment inquiry and gave the power to Adam Schiff. It was always the [House] Judiciary Committee that ran things, but now Adam Schiff is running things behind closed doors. That was never done before. There were TV cameras in the room for Nixon, by the way. For young viewers, you can watch the Nixon videos. People watch them. You also watched the Clinton proceedings. [Schiff’s] not allowing anybody to watch. 75 percent of the voting Congress is not allowed in that room to see what’s going on.
Ocasio-Cortez mocked the Republicans’ calls for transparency.
“Important to remember that GOP&Dem members have been part of impeachment depositions this whole time. All you need is to sit on the relevant committees,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote, reducing their effort to a “little flash mob.”
“If these guys are so mad, maybe they should take their little flash mob to the @GOPLeader who didn’t assign them to the task,” she added: