National security expert appalled by Matt Gaetz cell phone stunt: ‘I cannot emphasize enough how serious this is’

A national security expert and former congressional staffer broke down the seriousness of a breach by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and other Republican lawmakers into a secure area beneath the Capitol.

A group of GOP congress members carrying prohibited cell phones stormed a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility in the Capitol basement, where Laura Cooper, a Pentagon official with jurisdiction over Ukraine policy, was scheduled to testify as part of the House impeachment inquiry.

“Aside from disrupting the testimony of a DoD official shedding light on the President’s attempts to extort a sham investigation into the child of his most feared political rival by withholding military aid that Congress gave to resist a Russian invasion,” tweeted Mieke Eoyang, vice president of the Third Way think tank’s national security program, “storming the SCIF without respecting the security protocols that require people to leave their electronic devices *outside* the space, is actually compromising our national security.”

View the complete October 23 article by Travis Gettys from Ray Story on the AlterNet website here.