The Democrat Star Chamber impeachment effort gets worse

Byron York:
A week ago, House Republicans complained that Democrats imposed excessive secrecy on interviews conducted as part of the drive to impeach President Trump. Now, the situation appears to have gotten worse.

Friday's interview of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, marked a new point — a low point, as Republicans see it — in Democratic efforts to keep impeachment information out of public view.

In this way: The two previous impeachment interviews, with former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, were conducted in the format of what is known as a transcribed interview. Rep. Adam Schiff, who is running the Democratic impeachment effort, decreed that transcripts not be released to the public. At the same time, there were no heavily restrictive rules on what would happen should any member of Congress, acting from memory, reveal things that were said in the interview.

The Yovanovitch session was different. Democrats conducted the interview in the format of a deposition, which is different from a transcribed interview. One key difference is that there are serious penalties for lawmakers who reveal the contents of a deposition. Doing so would almost surely subject the offending member to a House ethics investigation.
...
Schiff and the Democrats have not made the case for their Star Chamber like proceedings and that is because there is no case for such a coup attempt in secrecy.

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