Terrill Panel Bars Fox 25 News; Terrill Blasts Steele

Fox 25 News was ejected from a meeting of a House group investigating Rep. Randy Terrill today and Terrill promptly issued this statement:

Statement of Rep. Randy Terrill Re: Andy Lester Closed House Meeting (Where Fox 25 News was ejected by House leadership and other media outlets were either not informed or denied access altogether.)

Unable to claim that I have violated any pre-existing rule, law or Constitutional provision, the Speaker has announced that I will instead be investigated for the bogus equivalent of embarrassing the House.

While I have not done anything of the sort, I must note that this new low ex post facto standard was apparently invented solely for this situation and will apply only to me.

No other House member before, after or concurrent will ever again be subject to an investigative committee using such a subjective standard. It's clear this ambiguous phrasing was apparently designed to engineer some outcome predetermined by the House leadership. Yet I have done nothing to embarrass either myself or the House of Representatives. In fact, I have absolutely nothing to hide. I have consistently called for a fair and open inquiry into this matter, and I am certain that if I were given such a hearing it would clear me of even any hint of impropriety. Yet Speaker Steele is denying me a fair and open hearing. Instead he has created a process cloaked in secrecy and hidden from the public eye. He is denying me the right to present evidence, cross examine witnesses and challenge the claims my political enemies might make against me.

Amazingly, the Speaker tries to justify the secrecy of his proceedings by claiming he acts out of concern for my right to privacy - a right I have both publicly and privately rejected.

Why is the Speaker trying so hard to keep this matter so secret? What is he trying to hide?

I am only protected by an open process. This secret star-chamber proceeding gives me fewer rights than a Guantanamo detainee.

I only ask that I be given a forum to present my side of the story and to have public oversight over any hearing into the allegations leveled against me.

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