Rep. Waltz: Dems Block Access to Impeachment Testimony

Rep. Michael Waltz, who was one of the House Republicans who barged into a closed-door deposition of a top Defense Department official testifying in the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, insisted Wednesday that it will be hard to vote on impeachment when "I can't see anything that's going on."

"It's been almost three weeks since Kurt Volker was first testifying," the Florida Republican, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Fox News' Dana Perino. "I have repeatedly asked to see that testimony, to be able to read it...how can we be expected to vote on something so consequential potentially as impeaching the president of the United States when (we) can't see anything that's going on?"

Waltz pointed out that Democrats are saying that in the impeachment inquiries of former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, there were also closed-door investigations, but those were different. 

"The other side could call their own witnesses and the president could have counsel present," said Waltz. "These are fundamental rights in our democracy, as a nation with a rule of law. I've fought from Afghanistan to West Africa and there are countries overseas that handled this in a more fair and transparent way than the Democrats are today."

Democrats have said that Republicans are able to be in the meetings, to ask questions, and to have access to transcripts, but Waltz said that members of Congress should also be able to sit in on hearings even when they are not in the committee holding them. 

"I am on the Armed Services Committee, and today we had a deputy assistant Secretary of Defense, for which the committee I'm on has jurisdiction over," said Waltz. "Yet I'm not allowed to sit in or even, look, I just want to be able to read the transcripts."

Instead, there are "selective leaks" when they are about Trump, he said, such as with the transcript of Ambassador William Taylor,  and then they "sit on it" when it may be exonerating him. 

• Trump: 'You Can't Have Quid Pro Quo With No Quo'
• Full Transcript: William Taylor's Opening Statement on Ukraine