“Impeachment will uncover the truth,” House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, tweeted Tuesday.

But a decision by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hand off the impeachment inquiry to the Intelligence Committee means key parts of the inquiry will be kept secret.

The House Intelligence Committee, led by Chairman Adam Schiff, is scheduled on Friday to interview Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael K. Atkinson.

Atkinson is one of the most important witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. He conducted the initial review into a whistleblower allegation that President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate corruption allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and that the White House attempted to conceal records of the July 25 call.

But the public won’t get to see Atkinson testify because the Intelligence Committee will hold Friday’s hearing behind closed doors.

“This hearing is critical to establish additional details, leads, and evidence,” Schiff told fellow Democrats last week.

Schiff is also planning to close a hearing with the whistleblower, if he decides to testify, and he is considering additional, closed-door hearings and depositions of witnesses called to talk to the panel about matters related to the impeachment inquiry.

House Republicans say Democrats are ignoring precedent in order to shape the outcome of the inquiry.

“What they are doing is really a kangaroo court,” Rep. Andy Biggs, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told the Washington Examiner. “They are keeping this under wraps, while at the same time they are trying to stir up public attention to it. They don’t want to take it through a normal process.”

Democrats cite the whistleblower allegation and Atkinson’s letter to Congress on the matter in their decision to launch a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Closed hearings are customary for the Intelligence Committee, which often handles classified and sensitive information related to national security.

But impeachment proceedings are typically conducted in public and, in all of modern history, have been handled by the House Judiciary Committee, not the secretive intelligence panel.

The House Judiciary Committee held four public hearings prior to marking up articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton in December 1998.

Lawmakers heard testimony from 19 experts on the history of impeachment at one hearing, according to the Congressional Research Service, and from independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who investigated Clinton and issued a lengthy report to the House that found 11 possible grounds for impeachment.

A third hearing included witnesses who testified about the consequences of perjury and related crimes. A fourth two-day hearing heard testimony from Clinton’s White House counsel.

Starr’s report was also released to the public.

Starr told the Washington Examiner in an interview Tuesday that the public should be able to see and hear the testimony of the Trump whistleblower and know his or her identity in order to assess the credibility.

“Testimony should presumptively be made public,” Starr said. “In my judgment, the whistleblower has set the country on a path that may result in the impeachment of the president. His or her anonymity is substantially outweighed by the public’s interest in knowing the truth.”

The House normally votes to approve an impeachment inquiry. In this instance, Pelosi skipped the vote and simply declared one.

She also decided to hand off the impeachment inquiry to Schiff, in part because his committee has jurisdiction over the intelligence community, where the whistleblower, according to media reports, is employed as a CIA agent.

Pelosi’s move also diverts the inquiry from the judiciary panel, where Chairman Jerry Nadler had for weeks been conducting “impeachment proceedings,” unsanctioned by Pelosi, that the party acknowledged had devolved into embarrassing political theater.

“The path forward will be centered in the Intelligence Committee led by Chairman Adam Schiff," Pelosi told Democrats Friday.

Biggs, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, and other GOP members of the judiciary panel said skipping a formal vote allowed Democrats to forgo rules that would have given both parties a say in the proceedings, including whether they are conducted in public.

“We go by precedent in the House,” Biggs said. “And precedent is pretty clear here. You start your inquiry by a vote in the House.”

Democratic leaders have not decided officially which panel would advance the articles of impeachment if lawmakers decide there is enough evidence to support them.

Pelosi suggested privately that the Judiciary Committee would mark up articles and send them to the House floor, but no final decision has been made, an aide told the Washington Examiner, adding that they have to first decide if they want to pursue impeachment beyond just an inquiry.

The aide said much of the impeachment evidence is already public, including the rough transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call as well as the whistleblower complaint. President Trump, the aide noted, has said publicly that he asked Zelensky to investigate Biden.

Schiff told Democrats his panel is identifying additional witnesses, “whether in closed sessions or public hearings.”

Schiff on Monday sent subpoenas to Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, as well as three of Giuliani’s associates, Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, and Semyon Kislin.