Democrats whining for more witnesses to provide testimony at the Senate impeachment trial were just caught concealing one witness from the President’s defense team.
House Intelligence Chairman and lead House manager for the Senate impeachment trial Rep. Adam Schiff has talked about the 17 witnesses that were interviewed but they leave one out. The 18th witness, Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general who has knowledge of the origins of the whistleblower complaint that started the impeachment spectacle.
Members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is not allowed to disclose the testimony because it is classified. Republicans on the committee who have had access to the testimony said that it should be heard in the president’s impeachment trial.
“The reason it hasn’t been released is it’s not helpful to Adam Schiff. It is not helpful to the whistleblower,” said Rep. John Ratcliffe, Texas Republican, who took part in the October interview with Mr. Atkinson. “It raises credibility issues about both of them.”
Since the documents are classified, only members of the intelligence committee have access to it and the Democrats have denied giving the President’s legal team a copy.
Atkinson’s testimony to House lawmakers gave an explanation of the origins of the whistleblower complaint that has now led to two articles of impeachment against President Trump.
Initially, Schiff said that he had no contact or knowledge of the whistleblower but, later admitted his office did have contact with the whistleblower before the complaint was lodged with the Inspector Generals office.
The closed-door session with Atkinson is a focus for House Republicans who have seen the interview.
“It addresses the issue about contacts between Schiff, his staff and the whistleblower, and what the inspector general knows about that. So those are material facts that should be talked about, but Adam Schiff has prevented that,” Mr. Ratcliffe told The Washington Times.
Senate Republicans like Senator Joni Ernst are starting to demand the transcript.
“We should be allowed to take a look at that, but again they have stated numerous times in their brief they had overwhelming evidence — it would be so clear to everyone — and I haven’t seen that yet,” she said.
Whatever is in that transcript Schiff does not want it to be released to the senate or the public. It’s time for Republican senators to unite and get that transcript.
House impeachment managers aren’t the only ones looking like fools, a Virginia Democrat looked like a fool trying to describe what an “assault weapon” is and a Democrat congresswoman gets caught trying to delete on of her posts attacking Jews.
