Standoff continues as House Republicans attempt to have pizza delivered to the secure SCIF room they’re holed up in
The thing about standoffs is that the perpetrators almost never think up an exit strategy before going ahead with their plan. Earlier today a couple dozen House Republicans illegally rampaged their way into a secure SCIF room, taking photos and videos while in the classified setting, in an attempt at derailing the testimony of a key impeachment witness. The standoff isn’t going well.
Some of the House Republicans have posted tweets announcing that they were in the SCIF at the time. After various observers on Twitter pointed out that tweeting from the SCIF would be a serious crime, one of them has since asserted that the tweeting was instead done by a staffer who was not in the SCIF. Okay fine, whatever. But now these idiots have another problem: they’re hungry.
It’s unclear how long these rogue Republicans expected to remain holed up, but they clearly didn’t bring any food with them. Now that it’s past lunchtime, they’re attempting to have a pizza delivered to them in the classified SCIF room. No really, this happening. Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski is openly mocking them for it, quipping that the Republicans are a “bunch of brave freedom fighters having pizza in a secure conference room.”
All this idiocy and potential criminality aside, there are two very serious aspects to this story. First, these House Republicans have no basis for their protest, as other Republicans who are actually on the House committees in question have been allowed to fully participate in the impeachment hearings thus far. Second, this desperate stunt comes after Bill Taylor’s testimony delivered a bodyblow to Donald Trump, and it’s currently holding up the impeachment testimony of a key Department of Defense official. Team Trump clearly knows this is going poorly for them.
