Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was told to leave a closed-door House Intelligence Committee hearing for the testimony of a former National Security Council expert on Russia, complained Tuesday that as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, he should have been permitted to stay.
"I was seated in the committee room when (Intelligence Chairman) Adam Schiff asked me to leave," the Florida Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "I informed him I was a member of the Judiciary Committee, and the Judiciary chairman on Sept. 12 announced the beginning of the impeachment inquiry. So it is like watching the Keystone Cops run an impeachment."
On Monday, Fiona Hill, a former deputy assistant to the president, testified before the committee, leading Gaetz to ask Tuesday about the quality of her testimony.
"If the evidence is so good, why are House Democrats doing so much to keep it a secret?" he said.
He further claimed that the House Judiciary Committee is being excluded from the impeachment inquiry, even though Chairman Jerry Nadler started the impeachment talk, is because it has a number of the president's strongest supporters.
"(We) beat them on the Russia probe," said Gaetz. "Now you see Nancy Pelosi reshuffling the legislative deck to try to get an outcome. She wants to exclude people like me who defend the president."
During the Russia investigation, people like former special counsel Robert Mueller and ex-Trump aide Corey Lewandowski were questioned in public, but that went "bad for them," said Gaetz.
He also said he thinks it's insulting to Democrats running for president to take the debate stage knowing Pelosi "has such little confidence in them, that she's trying to remove the president now. There is an expectation if he is not impeached, he will be reelected in 2020."
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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