The Democrats' impeachment inquiry is "just a hatchet job" against President Donald Trump, and its proceedings must be put out in public, Rep. Bradley Byrne, one of the GOP representatives who entered a closed-door hearing in protest, said Thursday.
"We had a press conference to call attention to the fact that there were these secret proceedings going on we weren't privy to," the Alabama Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "I can tell you that the Democrats in that room were dumbfounded that we walked into that room. They were stunned."
Byrne said he spoke with several of the Democrats in the meeting, and told Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff that he shouldn't leave, but he did anyway.
He added that he was a student intern during the Watergate hearings, and the witnesses were on television and the hearings were open
"They're doing all this in a room where usually we get secret information that is usually classified," he said of the closed hearings. "That's not what that room is set up for at all. I walked into the room yesterday and said this is pathetic. It's about 1/10 the side of the Judiciary hearing room where this should be taking place. I want it all out in the open, every bit of it...the rest of us have had enough and we aren't going to let them continue to play that game."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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