Republican Kendall Qualls is hitting Democrat Dean Phillips for supporting California Democrat Adam Schiff’s closed-door impeachment hearings, taking place in the basement of the U.S. Capitol.
Qualls, a successful local businessman, is running against Phillips come 2020, in Minnesota’s third Congressional district. Phillips—the local liquor magnate who won CD3 in 2018—ran on moderation, but has since proved to be a reliable vote for Democratic leadership in Congress.
“Democrats like Dean Phillips are moving faster to impeach Donald Trump than any President in U.S. history. The President deserves an open process, and that means bringing these hearings out of the basement and into the public eye,” said Qualls.
Qualls is right that Phillips’ support of ongoing impeachment proceedings is particularly problematic.
Schiff’s hearings
Adam Schiff (D-CA), mastermind of the now-defunct Russia Investigation’s efforts to remove Trump from office, has been holding closed-door hearings on impeachment, over alleged wrongdoing by President Trump during a phone call with Ukraine’s newly elected President. The Democrats say that Trump threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine in order to get Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, investigated.
But there are a lot of holes in the Democrats’ impeachment case. To name just a few, the White House released a transcript of the call and there was clearly no threat to withhold aid. And the Ukrainians didn’t even know that aid was on the line while the call occurred.
Worse, the “whistleblower” in question is really a CIA insider, who had no first-hand knowledge of the supposed wrongdoing he was highlighting. And that whistleblower’s report is riddled with known inaccuracies. Even more spooky, at the last second, the bureaucracy changed the rules to allow “whistleblowers” to report second and third-hand information, which allowed this whistleblowers’ report to move forward.
(For a more detailed summary on the problems with Democrats’ impeachment case, click here).
The glaring flaws in the Democrats’ case explains the closed-door hearings. If the testimony given during these hearings is so damning to the President, why not make it public?
But Quals’ opponent, Dean Phillips, has said that he expects another 30 days of closed door hearings, and defended the closed door hearings. “The commencement of public hearings before Thanksgiving is a reasonable objective…,” said Phillips.
The Democrats’ strategy is simple: Democrats get to ask the “witnesses” softball questions behind close doors, and then leak selectively about the “testimony” to the media. That keeps the media narrative going. But, in the end, nobody knows how much the witnesses actually witnessed, or whether or not they are credible whatsoever.
This trickery has meant that even Democrats running for president are hard-pressed to defend Schiff’s tactics, which include blatantly lying, and making up a false transcript of Trump’s Ukraine call.
Qualls makes sense
Because of these problems, CD 3 candidate Kendall Qualls is making it clear that Democrats’ selective leaks should not be tolerated. “Regardless of your position on President Trump, whether you support him or not, he deserves a fair, open and transparent process that is not conducted behind closed doors with “evidence” and other information leaked to the press,” said Qualls.
Willis Krumholz
Willis L. Krumholz is a fellow at Defense Priorities. He holds a JD and MBA degree from the University of St. Thomas, and works in the financial services industry. The views expressed are those of the author only. You can follow Willis on Twitter @WillKrumholz.
