Rick Scott, Marco Rubio disagree with Gaetz storming House impeachment inquiry

Florida Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott aren’t fans of the House of Representatives’ closed-door impeachment inquiry, but they also aren’t impressed with Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz’s political stunt on Wednesday when he and other Republicans stormed a secure room where a Defense Department official was being interviewed.

Rubio attacked both Republicans and Democrats, arguing that the House proceedings, during the escalating impeachment investigation, have devolved into political theater.

“It’s all theater, on both sides, probably too much theater on both sides,” Rubio said. “The whole thing is if they’re going to do an impeachment process they should do one, a real one like they did with [Richard] Nixon and [Bill] Clinton with rules and rights for the minority and rights for the president and I imagine at some point they’ll have to get to that.

“Right now, it’s just a rolling oppo dump every day,” he said, referring to opposition research that political candidates release to hurt their opponents.

Scott said he has a problem with lawmakers bringing unsecured phones into the meeting room, a potential security breach. Scott said he wouldn’t do that himself, though he disagreed with Democrats’ decision to conduct the inquiry behind closed doors in a meeting room called a SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility.

“We [the U.S. Senate] have a SCIF and I don’t carry my stuff in there,” Scott said. “I make sure I follow all the rules. We ought to be transparent. First off, why does [the impeachment inquiry] have to be in a SCIF? They shouldn’t be in the SCIF in the first place. This stuff should be completely transparent.”

Florida’s two Republican senators support President Donald Trump, but they would also likely be jurors in a potential impeachment trial if the House drafts and votes for impeachment charges.

Democrats say the process is secret for now so witnesses who know something about Trump’s decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine while urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “look into” unfounded claims about former Vice President Joe Biden won’t know what other witnesses are saying.

And Republicans who sit on the Oversight, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees are able to participate in the closed interviews and ask questions. Thirteen of the lawmakers who stormed the room with Gaetz were already able to go inside.

For weeks, Republicans have railed against House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and have called for the inquiry to occur in public. But Gaetz, one of Trump’s biggest defenders in Congress, went one step further.

He led a group of 41 Republican lawmakers in front of television cameras on Wednesday and then proceeded to walk into the House of Representatives’ SCIF, the room where lawmakers receive classified information.

Electronic devices, including cellphones, are not allowed inside SCIFs because they can be vehicles for spies or foreign governments to conduct espionage. Several lawmakers walked into the SCIF holding their cellphones, compromising the security of the room and shutting down the impeachment inquiry for hours.

Gaetz, who frequently defends the president on television, said Republicans must be willing to break rules in order to fight against the impeachment inquiry.

“If Democrats are going to have a world with no rules, Republicans have got to stop thinking that we can use the Marquess of Queensberry rules of engagement when we’re fighting against an angry pack of rabid hyenas,” Gaetz tweeted Thursday. (Marquess of Queensberry rules established generally accepted conditions for boxing matches, such as using gloves and not hitting someone when they’re down.)

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham supported Gaetz’s actions in a Fox News interview on Thursday.

“I’m glad they did it,” Grisham said. “You know, again, these Dems have been doing everything behind closed doors and in secret. And so it’s about time that somebody made a very bold stand, which is I guess a sit-in, which is what they did. And it was great.”

Scott called Gaetz’s actions “frustrating,” adding that he would not be happy if a lawmaker walked into a classified briefing with an electronic device.

“It’s frustrating that people have to go that way to make the message,” Scott said. “But they [Democrats] should open this up so they don’t have to do that.”

Rubio and Scott’s comments come while Trump has been complaining that Senate Republicans are not doing enough to protect him.

In response, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced a symbolic resolution Thursday that calls for an impeachment inquiry vote in the House of Representatives and for the House to allow Trump to confront accusers and call his own witnesses. Rubio and Scott signed onto the resolution.

When told that Trump expressed support for the Gaetz-led intrusion, which also included Florida Republican Reps. Michael Walz and Ross Spano, Rubio said it doesn’t help the American public.

“I don’t think it’s good for the country. I don’t think it’s good for anybody,” Rubio said.

This story was originally published October 24, 2019 at 5:56 PM.