Conaway Livid Over House Democrats' Conduct and Their Rules of Impeachment Inquiry

WASHINGTON, DC — Congressman Mike Conaway doesn’t believe the impeachment proceedings as voted on and approved by all Democrats in the U.S. House—with not one Republican vote—are designed to gather the truth.

Rather, he said, “This is anything but a fair and transparent impeachment process. It is designed by the Democrats to benefit the Democrats, and it falls far below the standards laid out in the oath we as Members of Congress vowed to uphold.”

According to House Resolution 504 that was voted in favor by the House Thursday, the Democrats who are have chairmen in control of the investigating committees have the ultimate veto power to disallow Republican cross-examination of witnesses. Democrat chairmen likewise can deny issuing subpoenas called for by Republican lawmakers. The impeachment hearings will be presided over by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and by Rep. Adam Schiff (R-CA) who chairs the House Intelligence Committee. Conaway is a member of that Committee where impeachment hearings are being conducted in secret.

In March, Conaway and the nine Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee demanded that Schiff step down. Back then, Conaway alleged Schiff’s continuing to promote false narratives about the president and collusion with Russia was an abuse of Schiff’s position of power as the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. It is damaging the integrity of the committee, he said. “And it undermines the faith in the United States Government and its institutions.”

Conaway listed his objections to how the hearings have been handled so far and how Democrats agreed to conduct them in the future. His objections are:

• None of the impeachment-related interviews that have taken place in the Intelligence Committee’s spaces have been classified, so they do not need to be conducted in secret, behind closed doors.
• There is no need to hold these interviews under the cloak of secrecy, unless Democrats want to hide information from the American people.
• There is no reason to prevent any Member of Congress from listening in on interviews or reading the transcripts afterwards, unless Democrats want to ensure that Republicans aren’t able to fully participate in this process.
• There is no justification for the House Intelligence Committee to run this investigation instead of the House Judiciary Committee, unless Democrats want to buck the fiduciary responsibility of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and blindly follow the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee wherever his whims and personal grievances may lead him.

“This impeachment process is radically different from past impeachment inquiries, and is rife with calculated political motivations. Today’s House Democrats are behaving in a way that we have never seen before, even during the tenuous Clinton and Nixon impeachment proceedings, and they have done a serious disservice to the American people, past, present, and future, by conducting such grave business in this manner,” Conaway said.

The resolution on how the House will conduct the impeachment inquiry passed 232 to 196. Only two Democrats voted against the measure and one abstained. The only independent in the House voted in favor. Not one Republican voted for the resolution, though 3 abstained.

Conaway is stepping down after he announced in August that he will not seek re-election in 2020. Congressional District 11 will choose a new congressman during the 2020 election cycle.