When a mob of Trump Republicans swarmed a closed classified hearing and chanted without a shred of proof that the impeachment probe is a mockery of a sham, I instantly flashed on the strategy that criminal lawyers always employ while defending members of the Mafia.
Bruce Cutler, the lawyer for mob leader John Gotti, told the press that when you have a client like that, “the only (defense) technique that I know of is to attack the government.” Or, as the author Carl Sandberg famously said, “If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table.” Mob lawyers typically cry that the whole process is unfair, that wiretaps are criminally intrusive, that the witnesses arrayed against their client are rats and traitors, that the entire prosecution is persecution – whatever dust they can kick up to mask the truth.
Donald Trump doesn’t have a substantive defense – he has been caught red-handed in a flagrant and dangerous abuse of power, as documented by stellar witnesses, cables, text messages, and a White House phone summary – so he and his servile Republican allies have resorted to the mobster defense: pound the process. Yell and scream that Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee is railroading Trump behind closed doors with its secretive “Soviet-style” star chamber.
But here’s a nifty rebuttal: Granted, “the committee’s preference for private interviews over public hearings has been questioned.” However, “interviews are a more efficient and effective means of discovery…Interviews also allow the committee to safeguard the privacy of witnesses who fear retaliation for cooperating or whose work requires anonymity, such as intelligence community operatives.”
That must be Adam Schiff, right? Wrong.
That was Trey Gowdy, Republican chairman of the House Select Committee investigating Benghazi. He wrote that on page 360 of the panel’s final report in 2016.
Gowdy did hold public hearings – eventually. But not until he’d gathered all his material in private. Indeed, in a 2014 TV interview, he signaled that he was starting his probe in secret: “I can get more information in a five-hour deposition than I can in five minutes of listening to a colleague ask questions in committee hearings. If it’s about getting the information, then you want to use the investigatory tool that is most calculated and gets you the most amount of information.”
Why was it OK for Gowdy to proceed in secret? Because the House rules said he could. And Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee is following those same House rules…which were approved by the majority Republicans and their Speaker at the time, John Boehner.
Which reminds me: There was a comical moment yesterday on Fox & Friends. The hosts were predictably seething about Schiff – only to be slapped upside the head by their guest, Judge Andrew Napolitano, who dared to dwell in the realm of facts: “I read the House rules…the hearings over which Congressman Schiff is presiding – they are consistent with the rules.”
Brian Kilmeade, who was apparently deaf, replied: “They can make up any rules they want?!”
Napolitano, as if schooling a child, said: “Well, they can’t change the rules, they follow the rules” – which, he pointed out, were approved by Boehner. “The rules say that this level of inquiry, this initial level inquiry, can be done in secret.” And as for the House Republicans who stormed the classified hearing and breached security protocols, “this is just not the most effective way to show respect for what your colleagues are doing.”
Disrespect laced with willful ignorance. The invasive Republicans wanted Americans to believe that the room, until they showed up, had been filled solely by Democrats. That was a lie. Republican members of the Intelligence Committee were already in the room. The House rules clearly state that when a hearing is closed, “Only members, committee staff designated by the chair or ranking minority member, an official reporter, the witness, and the witness’ counsel are permitted to attend. Observers…may not attend.” (Italics mine.)
Bottom line: The current proceedings are akin to a grand jury, where initial fact-finding is conducted before the evidence is presented in public. As Napolitano told his unhappy hosts on Fox News, “This is the initial interview of witnesses to see what they have to say.” That’s how it worked during the Watergate scandal, when House investigators did extensive fact-finding behind closed doors, long before the House Judiciary Committee launched its public hearings.
There will indeed be public impeachment hearings, as early as next month, detailing the case against Trump. But rest assured that when it happens, Trump’s enablers will their tweak their rant about the process. When the hearings are open, they’ll simply scream “media circus! and “show trial!”
They don’t have much else. Trump’s regime is vowing to do a better job of “messaging” – presumably to claim that Democrats are treating abuses of power very unfairly – but perhaps their only recourse is to follow the example of Vincent “the Chin” Gigante. He was the New York mob guy who tried to elude justice by acting like he was nuts, wandering his neighborhood in pajamas.
On second thought. If Trump claims he’s nuts, it might be the first time we believe him.