Congressman asks why Pelosi still keeping House testimony secret

Why is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still keeping secret literally hours of testimony before the intel committee, whose chief, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., carried much of the load for Pelosi in her impeach-the-president campaign?

That's the question raised anew on Friday by Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas.

He talked about the issue with Fox News:

"They had armed guards outside the door. They still haven't made all the transcripts available to members of Congress. And according to House rules any hearing the transcript is supposed to be available," he said.

Burgess was referencing the testimony from Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson on October 4.

His behind-armed-guards statements remain secret, being closely held by Democrats in the House, even though other witness statements have been released.

Burgess said no one has claimed the statements are classified.

"They were simply secret," he said, but "That doesn't pass muster."

He noted Pelosi's extra-constitutional decision, after only Democrats in the House voted for impeachment allegations, to simply put them in her pocket and not send them to the Senate, which constitutionally controls a "trial."

One reason could be that with a GOP majority there, and the Constitution's requirement for a two-thirds vote to convict, it's highly probably that the president would be acquitted, and then could campaign against Democrats on that.

But there's been no real explanation why those articles are being held, or why that testimony is being kept from the public.

Burgess said Americans now are "sick of" and "frustrated by" the process.

"There are other things we could be doing."

It was only a few weeks ago that Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, "dropped a bomb" during a House impeachment campaign hearing.

He said Schiff was burying that testimony because it includes evidence of the whistleblower's crimes.

A report from the Gateway Pundit explained, "A couple weeks ago, Ratcliffe revealed he 'asked IG Atkinson about his 'investigation' into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower. The transcript is classified 'secret' so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions.'"

The report continued, "Ratcliffe suggested Monday that the 'whistleblower' [reported by several sources to be] Eric Ciaramella committed perjury by making false statements in his written forms filed with the ICIG and that Adam Schiff is hiding evidence of Ciaramella's crimes to protect him from a criminal investigation."

At that time, investigative reporter Paul Spery wrote, "Why is Schiff still withholding transcript of ICIG Michael Atkinson's Oct 4 closed-door testimony which lasted 8+ hours? He's released 15 witness transcripts but is still hiding Atkinson's…"

Ratcliff said, "I know why @paulsperry_ It's because I asked IG Atkinson about his 'investigation' into the contacts between Schiff's staff and the person who later became the whistleblower. The transcript is classified 'secret' so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions."