The Trump Impeachment Inquiry Should Become Public

If you’re following the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, you may be wondering why you aren’t seeing video clips of testimony by crucial witnesses. The answer is: it’s all happening in secret, not so much to protect national security, but to manage the political process of the inquiry. There are some plausible reasons to justify the ongoing secrecy of depositions being made before the House Intelligence Committee. But the secrecy can’t go on indefinitely. As the contours of the case against Trump become known, it’s time for House Democrats to start moving towards public testimony and a more transparent inquiry.

This starts with a somewhat confusing state of affairs: Last week, the White House counsel defied Congress’s constitutional authority and announced with some fanfare that the Trump administration was refusing to cooperate with the inquiry, which the counsel preposterously labeled as illegitimate and unconstitutional. Yet despite this, some very important executive branch witnesses have testified since. They include the recalled U.S. ambassador to Ukraine; her deputy chief of mission, who was subsequently made the deputy assistant secretary of state with responsibility for Ukraine; and various other high-ranking officials with knowledge of Trump and Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.