Republicans Reject “Open and Transparent” Clause From Biden Impeachment Rules

Republicans are doubling down on their removal of the phrase “open and transparent” from a proposed resolution to impeach President Joe Biden, continuing to defend a move that by all means looks like an effort to keep the American people in the dark and out of a legal challenge to the nation’s highest elected official.

Republicans on the House Rules Committee on Tuesday voted against adding the clause back into their impeachment rules.

A senior House Republican aide identified with House Speaker Mike Johnson previously said that the term was excluded from the resolution on the basis that it was “too wordy,” according to USA Today.

But Democrats got feisty about that, pointing toward their 2019 impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, which didn’t just include the phrase in its text but utilized it as a header to front a section explaining the proceedings.

“My point is that at the impeachment inquiry phase, when we took that vote, from then on, everything was public, which is why the resolution was structured as such,” said Colorado Representative Joe Neguse. “In this instance, Republicans have removed it, and it’s clear that they don’t intend to have a public process.”

Neguse also highlighted that Republicans’ impeachment rules, as currently written, don’t require a single public hearing.

The blatant dismissal of the phrase seems more akin to shirking responsibility for a transparent proceeding, despite aggressive Republican signaling otherwise.

On Tuesday, Republican Representative Guy Reschenthaler claimed the inquiry was inherently transparent because “you can’t turn on a news program” without seeing Representatives Jim Jordan or House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer discussing the investigation.

It’s not the only aspect of the inquiry in which Republicans are insisting on discretion. Last week, the caucus threatened to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress if he refused to appear for a closed-door deposition, despite the president’s son’s previously voiced preference for a public hearing, fearing that information from those interviews would be selectively leaked and used to “manipulate, even distort, the facts and misinform the American public.”