Rand Paul Releases Question To The Public After Chief Justice Censors Him During Impeachment

The Chief Justice again refused to read Paul's question. This is relatively uncharted because the reading of the name does not directly violate federal law. It is a matter of decorum and restraint claimed by Roberts
inherent authority. https://t.co/7aoEta8RVw

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 30, 2020

Decorum.

Americans should well remember what sticklers Democrats are for decorum when it comes to Senate proceedings.

Remember how decorous liberals were during the Judiciary Committee hearings for Roberts’ now-colleague Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh?

Sometimes it was hard to hear for all the decorum coming from Democrats.

At a news conference after Roberts’ decision, Paul explained his rationale for the question.

“I think this is an important question, one that deserves to be asked. It makes no reference to anybody who may or may not be a whistleblower,” he said.

If the question Paul published on Twitter was indeed the question he had handed to Roberts on Thursday — and there’s no reason to think it isn’t — then it’s clear that Roberts has joined the Alice-in-Wonderland world of the impeachment hearings, where everyone must pretend not to know something that everyone knows.

If Democratic lawmakers and the chief justice were to admit they know who the “whistleblower” is, if they admitted they know what the name “Eric Ciaramella” signified, they might be forced to admit something else everyone knows:

That the impeachment trial of Trump is a sham, dreamed up by a bitter, intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt political #Resistance that has been disgracing itself daily since the 2016 presidential election by defying the country’s tradition of a peaceful transition of power.

As of Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham appeared to be siding with Roberts on the issue of Ciaramella’s name, according to The Hill.

Both have been open about their support for the president, and unmistakably clear about their determination to defeat an impeachment effort that aims to overturn the 2016 vote.

So they both have earned the benefit of the doubt.

But the mental gymnastics surrounding the censorship of the name “Eric Ciaramella” constitute the kind of farce that’s turning the drama of impeachment into the theater of the absurd.

After all, by objecting to the use of the name Eric Ciaramella on the grounds that the identity of the “whistleblower” must be protected, logic would dictate that the objection identifies Ciaremalla as the “whistleblower” after all.

It might upset “decorum,” but sometimes it takes a maverick like Rand Paul to get to the truth.

Story cited here.