Sen. Roy Blunt blasted Democrats for impeachment secrecy. But now limiting access is OK?
A minute ago, furious Senate Republicans couldn’t believe the lack of impeachment-related transparency that Democrats were trying to get away with.
On Oct. 22, Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt issued a statement headlined, “Blunt Slams Lack of Fairness, Transparency in Democrats’ Impeachment Efforts.”
“We have a process that’s going on in secret,” he said, when the framers had intended just the opposite. “In the early Federalist Papers, looking at impeachment, they understood that impeachment was a very vaguely defined thing in the Constitution, and because of that they said that impeachment has to be public ... You can’t have people in this setting, behind closed doors, pursuing what is clearly an unfair way to pursue something as a constitutional privilege.”
That was then, of course. What was shady three months ago is perfect today. October’s “Star Chamber” is January’s North Star.
That’s the only explanation for Blunt’s Tuesday remarks about restricting public and press access during President Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial. There will be periods, Blunt said, when the Senate chamber will be cleared of reporters.
Most of the trial will be televised. But portions of the debate will be held under circumstances that Blunt described this way: “I mean closed session. I mean there will be nobody there but senators and essential staff. No cameras, no C-Span, no coverage, what the rules say happened last time,” during Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
One concern then was that some of the discussion of Clinton’s sex life was inappropriate for the Senate floor — and for that matter, for publication in newspapers.
As Senate Rules Committee chairman, it will be up to Blunt to referee access this time, and he says security concerns are an issue, though why that would require limiting access for credentialed journalists isn’t clear. He says it would take 67 “yes” votes to change the rules, though the way they’re interpreted is largely up to him.
The Standing Committee of Correspondents is naturally not happy, and said in a statement that these proposed limits on reporters “exceed those put in place during the State of the Union, Inauguration Day or even during the Clinton impeachment trial 20 years ago.”
We are always in favor of greater transparency in government, and the only positive we see in Blunt’s about-face on the importance of doing everything impeachment-related in plain view is that it may increase public interest in a trial that so far seems to have riveted only serious partisans. Now that Americans have been told that some of the debate — the most embarrassing bits? — are off-limits, that may change. After all, if this impeachment is such a hoax, why not debate it in public?
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 5:00 AM.