On the last day of this year’s legislative session, the House passed House Resolution 11, which created a Special Committee on Impeachment Inquiry. The Resolution recognized credible accusations of separate misconduct by Franklin County State’s Attorney John Lavoie and Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore. The Speaker of the House appointed seven representatives to the Special Committee and I was named as Chair.

The Special Committee is not a typical legislative committee. Its task is to investigate sensitive matters and decide whether its findings should lead to the impeachment of one or both of these elected officials. We have heard calls for the Committee to open its work to the public in full, but I am writing to explain that parts of the Committee’s work should not be done in public. Its work is not the equivalent of a civil trial, a criminal trial, or a pre-trial hearing. It is an investigation. The Committee is the equivalent of a prosecutor or a grand jury determining whether to bring an indictment. Such investigations are not done in public.

Investigations such as this one are kept confidential for several good reasons. Most fundamentally, confidentiality is necessary to protect the integrity of the investigation.

While the Committee’s investigation is ongoing, premature disclosure of sensitive information could lead to interference, tampering, or manipulation of evidence. By limiting access to information to those directly involved in the investigation, confidentiality reduces the risk of external influences and helps maintain the integrity of the process.

Confidentiality helps to ensure that Committee members approach the evidence and facts objectively, without being influenced by external factors or public opinion. When sensitive information remains confidential, the Committee can focus on gathering and analyzing evidence impartially. This promotes a fair and thorough investigation, preserving its integrity.

Confidentiality is also essential to safeguard the identities and statements of witnesses who provide crucial information to the Committee. For witnesses, testifying about traumatic events can be emotionally challenging, especially for victims or witnesses who have experienced abuse or other forms of harm. Testifying in a public session with numerous spectators can be intimidating and affect a person’s ability to provide an accurate and honest account of events. Testifying in public session can have significant psychological impacts on individuals involved in sensitive cases such as the ones the Committee is investigating, especially when their personal experiences are recorded and available online, subject to possible copying and rebroadcasting outside of their control.

Allowing witnesses to testify behind closed doors in executive session addresses these concerns.  Witnesses can share their experiences with the Committee without fear of intimidation or retribution. They can express themselves more freely and provide clearer and more reliable testimony. In addition, if assured confidentiality, additional victims or witnesses may be more willing to come forward to offer testimony and evidence. This promotes the flow of accurate and reliable information, enhancing the integrity of the investigation.

The rights of the respondents must also be considered. Preserving confidentiality prevents the unnecessary public exposure of potentially unfounded allegations or unverified information. It safeguards the respondents’ privacy and reputation until a thorough investigation is completed and wrongdoing, if any, is established.

The Special Committee has considered multiple precedents that support going into executive session to conduct parts of its investigation. Other legislative committees with investigatory powers, such as the House Ethics Panel, Sexual Harassment Prevention Panel, and Discrimination Prevention Panel, have even more stringent confidentiality rules and procedures than those for the Special Committee on Impeachment Inquiry. These panels conduct investigations and hear testimony in nonpublic settings, and rarely are the witnesses or the information gathered during those investigations made public.

Additionally, legislatures in Connecticut, South Dakota, and Illinois have recently conducted impeachment investigations. These states as well as the U.S. Congress have procedures requiring confidentiality and have conducted hearings in executive session during their investigations to determine whether to bring articles of impeachment.

Most on point, however, is Vermont’s own impeachment precedent. In 1976, the Vermont House Judiciary Committee held closed-door sessions to hear testimony from witnesses in the investigation that lead to articles of impeachment against Sheriff Mayo.

Chapter 1, Article 6 of the Vermont Constitution provides “that all power being originally inherent in and consequently derived from the people, therefore, all officers of government, whether legislative or executive, are their trustees and servants; and at all times, in a legal way, accountable to them.”

I certainly agree that the Committee is accountable to the people of Vermont. The people of Vermont expect us to ensure that elected officials who breach the public trust, who are unfit for office, are held responsible. To determine whether to hold them responsible through impeachment, the Committee needs to weigh credible allegations against the investigated officials. To do so, the Committee must conduct a thorough investigation and maintain the integrity of that investigation. And to ensure the integrity of its investigation, the Committee will need to, at times, take testimony and deliberate in executive session.