- Rep. Adam Schiff called Rep. Matt Gaetz a "congressbro" over his crashing a deposition in 2019.
- Gaetz and a group of other Republicans had stormed a secure facility being used to depose a witness.
- Eventually, after ordering pizza, "Gaetz and his confederates left the bunker," Schiff wrote.
Rep. Adam Schiff called GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz a '"congressbro" and said it was "like spring break in there" when Gaetz and a group of his Republican colleagues stormed a secure bunker used to handle classified information in the fall of 2019.
Schiff recounted the incident in his new memoir, "Midnight in Washington."
In October 2019, about 30 Republicans — reportedly with President Donald Trump's blessing — caused a scene deep in the bowels of the Capitol by storming in and occupying the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
Schiff, the chairman of the powerful House Intelligence Committee, was using the facility to depose Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Defense, as part of an impeachment investigation into Trump and his dealings with Ukraine.
Gaetz had earlier crashed the closed-door deposition of the National Security Council official Fiona Hill, arguing that he should be let in because he was a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Schiff issued a stern warning to Gaetz to "please, absent yourself," and when Gaetz asked if he would be removed, Schiff said, "You're going to remove yourself," Schiff wrote.
In an email to Insider, a spokesperson for Gaetz did not comment on the specifics of Schiff's anecdotes.
"Adam Schiff tried to conduct a secret sham impeachment in a congressional bunker," the spokesman, Joel Valdez, said. "Congressman Gaetz was honored to lead more than 50 members to jailbreak the truth, as he explained in his book 'Firebrand.'"
"Interestingly," Schiff wrote, "some of the crashers were members of the three committees, but they didn't seem to be aware that they didn't need to crash the proceedings — they could have simply walked through the door. But I could tell they were interested in a brawl, in making a circus of the proceedings, and I wouldn't let them."
The GOP lawmakers brought their phones into the room to live-tweet and livestream the stampede, a serious breach of protocol that posed major national security and cybersecurity risks. They also ordered food to the room.
"It was like spring break in there, and the rebels soon ordered pizza, but the violation of the security of the space where we keep some of the nation's most closely guarded secrets was no joke," Schiff wrote.
The House sergeant-at-arms had to get involved over the security breaches. And after the incursion, the Capitol Police had to sweep the room for electronic devices.
Instead of calling in the Capitol Police to forcibly remove the deposition crashers or canceling — Schiff thought that would be giving in to what they wanted — Schiff went back to his office in the hopes that they would tire themselves out.
Rep. Mark Meadows, the Freedom Caucus leader, approached Schiff in his office to register his complaints and try to come to a resolution, but it went off the rails when Meadows called the intelligence committee's general counsel, Maher Bitar, "a smart-ass," Schiff said.
"Embarrassed, Meadows apologized to Bitar, and the fight went out of him," Schiff wrote.
At that point, Schiff and his staff had the idea to ask House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to schedule votes on the floor to get the group, which by then had delayed the deposition by several hours, out of the basement.
"Not long thereafter, bored and stuffed with pizza, Gaetz and his confederates left the bunker to vote and never bothered to come back," Schiff wrote.
