Chairman of House intelligence committee, Adam Schiff has revealed why he didn’t bring the whistle-blower to testify at the Trump impeachment hearing.
President Trump has been engrossed in a battle with the Democrat controlled House of Reps after a whistle blower alleged that Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden in exchange for $400m worth of military aid.
Earlier this month, when the Republicans requested that the whistleblower be included among the impeachment witnesses called to testify, Schiff said the testimony of the whistle blower, a CIA agent would be “redundant and unnecessary.” after Trump accused the whistleblower of being a traitor. The whistleblower’s attorney further informed the GOP that his client would only answer questions in writing rather than come out publicly to testify.
Adam Schiff said “I know where you are with the whistleblower and the leaf that you don’t need to hear from the whistleblower anymore. You did pledge that the Intelligence Committee would hear from the whistleblower in some form or another? Are you going to fulfill that pledge? We had a deep interest in having them testify. Two things happened. One we were able to prove it with witnesses that had first-hand information and second the president and his allies effectively put that whistleblower’s life in danger. The president said the whistleblower and others should be treated as a traitor and a spy and we ought to use the penalty and that’s the death penalty. So here’s the thing, Chuck, we don’t need the whistleblower’s second-hand evidence. It would only serve to endanger this person and gratify the president’s desire for retribution and that is not a good enough reason to bring in the whistleblower.”