UPDATE at 12:38 pm PT: The Washington Post is reporting in a breaking news alert on their website that the standoff is over, and the hearing has resumed.
In a still-developing story, a group of a couple dozen Republican House members barged through the doors of an impeachment hearing being held inside a secure room known as a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility), charging and yelling at the Chairman presiding over the hearing, Adam Schiff from my very proud state of California. The gang of thugs, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, who has been a spectacular submissive for the foreign agent living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The thugs brought cell phones into the SCIF and began taking pictures, and consequently, Capitol Police had to sweep the room, putting on hold the testimony of Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper. This is a huge national security violation, and as far as I’m concerned, Chairman Schiff should confiscate every unauthorized cell phone brought into the SCIF, search their contents, and find out whether Republicans are secretly giving Trump info about the proceedings.
While complaining about the depositions is all the rage in Republican circles these days, a few things should be noted:
Every Republican member and staff of the committees are allowed and have access to everything.
Depositions are not public so Trump’s criminal friends don’t have a chance to get their stories straight.
If the depositions weren't a dumpster fire for Trump, REPUBLICANS on one of the committees would leak them.
Trump’s goons know that judgment day is coming. The evidence Chairman Schiff (for Matt Gaetz, that’s different from SCIF, which you illegally invaded) has been gathering has been methodical, overwhelming, and disastrous for the White House. Democrats have decimated Trump’s paper-wall to try to keep officials quiet as one official after another have defied the White House and answered their duties under subpoena from the United States Congress.
We know that Trump fired the former Ambassador to Ukraine because she wasn’t going to play ball with coercing Ukraine to find domestic political dirt to help Trump. We know that the one piece of contemporary text Trump pointed to as having exonerated him was actually dictated by him. Chief of US Missioni in Ukraine Ambassador Taylor’s testimony yesterday blew apart almost every single one of GOP’s defenses of Trump, including the idea that the eventual release of the aid should serve as evidence that there was no quid pro quo. As it turns out, the aid was only released because Congress found out about the pressure campaign.
Trump’s defenders in the GOP are scared, freaked out, in-panic, and desperate. All they can do is put on bad theater to try to distract the attention of the American people.