Radio host Hugh Hewitt claimed Democrats are resorting to medieval standards of justice in their impeachment inquiry of President Trump.
On Tuesday, Ambassador Bill Taylor participated in a closed-door testimony that included a 15-page opening statement about his opposition to withholding military aid to Ukraine as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry.
Although the opening statement was obtained by the Washington Post, his testimony was private and any information from his closed-door session was leaked without the context of the whole hearing.
Because the testimony was not conducted in public, Hewitt took to Twitter to criticize the process being used in the impeachment inquiry.
Taylor’s testimony is unknown to me, and to you @ron_fournier. Leaked accounts are disputed. Neither you nor I know what he testified. This is why Star Chamber has such a bad reputation and why we don’t do trials in secret. Don’t abandon first principles to get @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/mHv7rz3mRz
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) October 23, 2019
Star Chamber was a medieval judicial system that was conducted outside the bounds of common law without a jury present. While Star Chamber offered an expeditious legal hearing by skipping over the common law courts, it was often misused because the court was autonomous and the hearings were often conducted in private.
Hewitt urged Democrats not to abandon the “first principles” of common law from which the justice system in the United States was built.
Some found Hewitt’s comments to be an overreaction. Soledad O’Brien claimed the radio host was “struggling.”
Hugh is struggling… https://t.co/nUlbcAndmY
— Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien) October 23, 2019
Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist and frequent Trump critic, claimed the president tramples “first principles” regularly and warned Hewitt that he was “better than” the hyperbolic comparison he made. O’Brien disagreed.
(Hugh is not better than that) https://t.co/zlg5ztbZdw
— Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien) October 23, 2019
Although he received pushback from O’Brien, Hewitt was not alone in his criticism of the closed-door process. Many Republicans expressed frustration with the impeachment inquiry, including Rep. Andy Biggs who accused Democrats of running a “kangaroo court.”
