House Republicans ramp up their attacks on House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff not calling the whistleblower to testify.
The minority party spent a full five minutes focusing on the still-unnamed whistleblower, who they’ve tried to bring in as a witness. They read several headlines where Mr. Schiff told reporters he was working to have the whistleblower come testify behind closed doors.
Republicans accused Mr. Schiff of going back on his word and hypocritically shutting down their efforts to hear from the individual that sparked the Ukraine probe.
“As we know, it is important to protect whistleblowers from retaliation and from firing, and we want to make sure whistleblowers are able to come forward,” New York Rep. Elise Stefanik said. “But in this case, the fact that we are getting criticized by Chairman Adam Schiff for statements that he himself made early on in this process shows the duplicity and just the abuse of power that we are continuing to see.”
Mr. Schiff allowed a handful of those articles to be submitted into the official congressional record earlier in the hearing.
The California Democrat repeatedly came under fire from Republicans during Wednesday’s hearing for the early interactions his staff had with the whistleblower.
Mr. Schiff rebuked their accusations multiple times throughout the hearing on Wednesday, and said he did not know who the still-unnamed individual’s identity.
California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell hit back in kind, and argued that the whistleblower’s allegations have already been corroborated by a number of the witnesses they’ve brought to public hearings.
Mr. Swalwell then turned to read a number of articles about President Trump’s criticism aimed at the whistleblower into the record.
• Gabriella Muñoz can be reached at gmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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