Lawmakers clashed Wednesday at an impeachment hearing against President Trump over the identity of the whistleblower who set off the Democrats’ drive to oust the president.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence presiding over the hearing, said he would block questions aimed at exposing the identity of the whistleblower, as he has done in the probe’s closed-door interviews.
“We will not permit the outing of the whistleblower,” said Mr. Schiff, California Democrat.
Republicans last week attempted to call the whistleblower as a witness at the hearings but Mr. Schiff shot down the request.
Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, confronted Mr. Schiff over reports he knows the whistleblower’s identity.
“Of the 435 members of Congress, you are the only one who knows who that individual is,” he said.
Mr. Schiff accused Mr. Jordan of making “false statements.”
“I do not know the identity of the whistleblower,” the chairman said.
Mr. Schiff’s staff met with the whistleblower before he filed the complaint against the president, and Mr. Schiff was informed of the complaint in advance.
When the complaint was made public, Mr. Schiff denied advance knowledge of the whistleblower’s intentions.
Rep. Mike Conaway, Texas Republican, moved to subpoena the whistleblower for a “closed-door secret hearing” that would give all members the same access allegedly provided to Mr. Schiff and his staff.
Mr. Schiff ruled that the matter would be addressed after the day’s testimony.
Lawmakers on Wednesday were hearing from William Taylor, the former U.S. charge d’affaires in Ukraine, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, who oversaw Ukraine policy.
Both men have told lawmakers behind closed doors that they were concerned Mr. Trump was politicizing U.S. policy in Ukraine.
The impeachment inquiry stems from a July 25 phone call in which Mr. Trump pressed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for a “favor” in investigating former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, and other corruption allegations.
The whistleblower, who is believed to be a CIA official assigned to the White House, then accused the president of abusing his power for personal gain, including withholding U.S. military aid from Ukraine to force the investigation.
A rough transcript of the call did not show a quid pro quo with the investigation request, but Democrats argue the threat was understood and part of an ongoing pressure campaign of “shadow” foreign policy conducted by Mr. Trump’s private lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani.
The testimony provided so far, which has been gleaned from leaked copies of prepared opening remarks and accounts by congressional staff in the room, has largely centered on people’s opinions about what the president was doing when pressing for an investigation.
Mr. Trump wanted an investigation into allegations of corruption involving Mr. Biden and his son Hunter, who got a high-paying job on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, while his father was the point man for Obama White House policy in the country, which is notorious for corruption, especially in the energy industry.
Mr. Trump also wanted Ukraine to look into a missing Democratic National Committee server that was hacked by Russia during the 2016 presidential campaigns. An American cybersecurity company called CrowdStrike examined the server to probe the hack, but it disappeared before it could be handed over to the FBI.
Mr. Trump subscribes to an unsubstantiated theory that the server ended up in Ukraine.
Democratic leaders had until this week resisted putting the impeachment inquiry to a vote, saying the complaints about the process masked Republicans’ inability to defend Mr. Trump’s action, which they describe as an abuse of his office for personal political gain.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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