The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

The House impeachment inquiry held its first public hearing, and the word of the day was “hearsay.” The main point of criticism for the testimonies of diplomats Bill Taylor and George Kent was their lack of firsthand information about the matter being investigated, or as one House member put it, “hearsay on hearsay on hearsay.” Taylor reiterated that he wasn’t on the Trump-Ukraine phone call and has never met with President Trump or spoken to acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. One Democrat on the committee, however, tried to make the case that “hearsay can be much better evidence than direct.”

In fact, the lone “bombshell” revelation at yesterday’s hearing was Taylor’s testimony that a member of his staff reportedly told him about an overheard phone conversation between Ambassador Gordon Sondland and the president, where the president supposedly mentioned “investigations.” Trump, however, responded to the claim saying, "I know nothing about that. First time I've heard it.”

Overall, the outcome of the event was fairly predictable. The White House press secretary called the hearing “boring” and “a public joke.” The president told reporters he was too busy to watch it. House Republicans are sticking to the position that there remains no proof of a quid pro quo arrangement. Most voters are unlikely to change their views on the subject, according to a recent survey. But this was all just day one of these public hearings. With more open testimony scheduled this week and next week at least, we’ve got a long slog ahead of us.

Could the United States Senate use a secret ballot to remove President Donald Trump from office? Possibly, but it would be an absolutely terrible idea.

An article published Tuesday at Politico Magazine floats the idea, noting that Senate procedure allows the upper chamber to set its own rules for trying impeachment and that a bloc of just three Republicans could potentially force the issue.

The article — written by a former adviser to Republican politicians — argues that "the Senate’s role in an impeachment is analogous to a U.S. jury, where secret ballots are often used" and that Trump would "benefit in the long run" by being able to "focus his energies on his post-presidency."

The appeal for some in the upper chamber seems obvious; those tired of the Trump presidency or who just can't stand the man himself get to vote to remove the president from office and replace him with Vice President Mike Pence without having to face certain backlash from their own party and their constituents. But unlike jurors, senators are not selected at random. They are selected by the people with the knowledge that the person elected may have to sit for an impeachment trial, along with approving treaties and voting on the president's nominees. Senators are accountable to the voters.

To seriously suggest removing this president from office via secret ballot — which has never been done before — could almost pass for bad satire at this point in the current impeachment process.

The president, his allies in Congress, and his supporters have so far criticized this impeachment process as merely the latest partisan endeavor to undermine a duly elected president, aided by the entrenched forces of the Washington, D.C., Swamp. They have argued that the investigation was initially started without the public accountability of a full House vote, contrary to the precedent set by previous impeachments, and that its preliminary testimony was given behind closed doors, thereby shutting out the American people. Capping the whole thing off with an unaccountable secret vote that breaks with the precedent of past impeachments would only serve to bolster those claims and further delegitimize the final results in the eyes of millions.

Furthermore, it would only boost the narrative that despite the clear results of the 2016 election, Trump has never been given a fair shot at the office by the entrenched, unaccountable forces of the D.C. Swamp voters elected him to drain.

The House Judiciary Committee's top Republican member is demanding that top Democrats allow him see investigation information that has been kept secret from other members of Congress and the American people.

In a trio of Friday afternoon letters to the Democratic chairs of the three committees conducting the House's impeachment investigation — Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs — House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collings, R-Ga., said that he intends to use a House rule to get access to impeachment materials that have thus far only been made available to members of those panels.

"I write to inform you of my intent to exercise my right under House Rule XI, Clause 2(e)(2)(A) to review documents and records in possession of [your committee] so that you may prepare accordingly," the letters explain. "Please make available all records, documents, transcripts, and other materials related to or obtained in the course of the ongoing joint investigation between the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Committee on Oversight and Reform."

According to the House rule Collins cites, "all committee records ... shall be the property of the House, and each Member, Delegate, and the Resident Commissioner shall have access thereto."

The secrecy of the three committees' investigation has drawn an immense amount of criticism from GOP lawmakers this week.

On Monday, Judiciary Committee member Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., was kicked out of an impeachment deposition because he wasn't a member of one of the three panels doing the investigation.

"To exclude Members of Congress from hearings confirms the American people’s suspicions: This is not a legitimate 'impeachment inquiry' — it is a charade," Gaetz told Blaze Media in a statement. "Blocking Members of Congress from attending 'impeachment' hearings is not only unfair, it runs counter to our Democracy. The perpetrators of this impeachment hoax must be held accountable — both by the Congress, and by the American people.”

On Wednesday, Judiciary Committee member Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said on the House Floor that he tried to get access to investigation materials but was also turned away.

"Who gave that order?" Gohmert asked. "Because until a vote is held on the rules ... [impeachment] goes through the Judiciary Committee."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has defended the secretive nature of the investigation, saying that congressional investigators are acting similarly to a grand jury.

In an effort to force transparency to the impeachment proceedings, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and House Rules Committee Ranking Member Tom Cole, R-Okla., introduced legislation Friday afternoon that would allow all members of Congress to view investigation materials, regardless of their committee assignments.

"Chairman Schiff wants to impeach President Trump behind closed doors and clearly has no intention of conducting a fair and open process," Scalise said in a statement announcing the resolution. "We demand transparency. For the sake of our republic, Members of Congress must have access to proceedings with such monumental and dangerous consequences."

House Republicans are moving forward with efforts to censure House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., they announced at a news conference Wednesday morning.

"Today, we're going to be pressing forward with my motion to censure Mr. Schiff, joined by the vast majority of Republicans in this conference," House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told reporters at the conference, at which he was joined by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, Wyo. Biggs also said that the resolution had thus far been joined by almost 150 members of Congress, "with more coming up today to sign on."

In a tweet ahead of the news conference, Biggs said that he would call for a vote on the censure later the same day.

During his remarks, Biggs accused Schiff of having the "temerity to absolutely fabricate" a version of the conversation between President Trump and the president of Ukraine over the phone in late July. "He could have read the transcripts," Biggs added. "Instead he made, whole cloth, a fabrication of something that just absolutely was untrue."

Biggs introduced the measure to censure Schiff last month, following the top Democrat's fictionalized retelling of the Trump-Ukraine phone call at a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee. At the same hearing, Schiff defended his version of events as "parody."

The measure says that Schiff's actions "misled the American people, bring disrepute upon the House of Representatives, and make a mockery of the impeachment process" and resolves that the House "censures and condemns" the Democratic chairman.

Since he introduced the measure to censure Schiff, Biggs added, the intelligence committee chairman "has taken this to a Soviet-style inquiry. That is to say, everything is behind closed doors; there's absolutely no transparency."

The Freedom Caucus chairman also took issue with the overall construction of the House's impeachment proceedings, echoing the White House's criticisms that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the probe without holding a floor vote or affording minority party members and the executive branch procedures that were present for previous impeachment efforts.

"The speaker has taken it upon herself to run an impeachment investigation outside the norm, in violation of the House rules," Biggs said. "There's nothing specifically in the rules, except for this: Where there's nothing specific, our rules say precedent takes place. So she's outside the rules because she's outside the precedent."