‘We don’t know whether what he said is true or not because of the sham process that’s being used…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., shut down a CNN correspondent attempting to spin the secretive testimony of a career diplomat as House Democrats continued to build their case for impeachment behind closed doors while selectively leaking information to the public.
Based on such leaks and the publicly available opening statement furnished by Ambassador William Taylor, left-wing media sought to claim that Taylor—who functioned as the top Ukraine diplomat after the removal of partisan Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch—made a case for coercion.
Democrats allege—although no clear evidence has been presented publicly—that Trump pressured the former Soviet satellite into revisiting an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter by threatening to withdraw a promise of military aid to use in its defense against Russia.
After CNN’s Manu Raju sought to challenge Brooks about the ambassador’s opening statement, Brooks refused the bait.
“The opening statement doesn’t make any difference,” said Brooks, cutting off the CNN senior congressional correspondent.
“You should not be relying on it,” he continued. “If you were in a court of law … would you rely just on the opening statement of an attorney?”
Brooks reiterated a major point of objection raised by GOP congressmen that the refusal by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to call a vote on the closed-door hearings had prevented due process.
Dozens of Republicans stormed the Capitol basement on Wednesday to demand in a confrontation with House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif., that the proceedings involve more transparency, as well as the opportunity for rebuttal witnesses and cross-examination.
However, Democrats have resisted since much of the success of their partisan operation rests on steering public opinion for or against the president. Brooks said the information being made available was not necessarily the whole truth.
“We don’t know whether what he said is true or not because of the sham process that’s being used,” he said.
Schiff, already reputed for his public deceptions regarding Russian collusion, has repeatedly acted in bad faith while leading the latest impeachment charge.
He mischaracterized the transcript of the July phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, portraying it in a dramatized version as a “Mafia shakedown.”
He later received four “Pinocchios” from Washington Post fact-checkers for falsely claiming that he had not communicated with the so-called whistleblower whose complaint launched the Democrats’ latest probe.
On Tuesday, Brooks’ office released a statement saying he and other members of the House Freedom Caucus had met with Trump to express their ongoing support.
“We agreed that, to date, Socialist Democrats have produced no credible evidence of an impeachable offense and that the absence of credible evidence likely explains why the Socialist Democrats have insisted on secret, closed-door, Capitol basement proceedings that prevent the pubic, and even Members of Congress, from observing what is really happening,” he said.