House Republicans fear Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff will cherry-pick witnesses from weeks of closed-door depositions and only allow public testimony from those with the most incriminating views of President Trump.
The California Democrat has not disclosed who will testify publicly before lawmakers in hearings that are likely to start in November. But Republicans believe he’ll select those who provided the most critical closed-door testimony in depositions that have taken place over the past several weeks while leaving others off the list who might undercut impeachment.
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“It looks like Schiff is using the closed-door depositions as auditions to choose the best witnesses for his open hearings,” a GOP source familiar with the closed-door hearings told the Washington Examiner. “Somehow I doubt he’s going to arrange for the televised testimony of any of the witnesses whose depositions were problematic for the narrative he’s creating.”
Republicans can request witnesses to appear at the public hearings, but Schiff and the Democrats on the panel have the authority to veto those requests.
The public hearings before the intelligence panel will also forbid participation from White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
Republican lawmakers want to call Schiff as a witness, they say, in order to find out what kind of contact Schiff and his staff made with the whistleblower whose complaint about Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky launched the impeachment proceeding.
The GOP has long contended Schiff played a role in orchestrating the complaint and the leaks to the media, which Schiff denies.
“He needs to give a full, honest account about his and his staff’s prior contact with the whistleblower,” the GOP source told the Washington Examiner.
Democrats appear poised to call witnesses such as acting Ukraine Ambassador William Taylor, who Democrats said provided “damning” testimony to support their allegation that Trump held back security aid from Ukraine to get the government’s help investigating his chief political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Democrats also want the public to hear testimony from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a member of the National Security Council who appeared in his military uniform last week to testify behind closed doors that he was alarmed by Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky and believed it threatened national security.
“I think that the American people should hear the testimony of Ambassador Taylor,” Rep. Terri Sewell, a member of the Intelligence Committee, told NBC on Sunday. “We just heard from a war hero, Mr. Vindman, recently. And I think that it’s really important that we get to the bottom of this.”
Some of the closed-door witnesses provided testimony that would undercut the Democrats’ impeachment push.
Former NSC Director for Europe and Russia Timothy Morrison testified last week he “was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed” during the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky.
“I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed,” Morrison said in his opening statement.
Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Republican lawmaker on the intelligence panel, called Morrison’s testimony “devastating to the false Democrat narrative that anything illegal or improper happened on the July 25 Trump-Zelensky call” and “devastating to the credibility of certain other witnesses who have asserted there was anything illegal or improper.”
Kurt Volker, the former top envoy to Ukraine, told the panel Trump never asked him to do anything wrong.
Volker told the panel that he believed Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who is a central figure in the impeachment proceeding, was working on getting Ukraine to clean up corruption, not specifically to target Biden.
“The target is getting Ukraine to be seen as credible in changing the country, fighting corruption, introducing reform, and that Zelensky is the real deal,” Volker said, according to CBS News.
While Schiff has not released a witness list, he announced Monday the release of some of the transcripts from the closed-door depositions.
Monday’s release included testimony sharply critical of Trump provided by former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who Trump recalled three months before the end of her term amid reports she was badmouthing him and undercutting him in Ukraine.
Schiff plans to release testimony on Tuesday from Volker and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.
Sondland, a major GOP donor and Trump ally, provided testimony that undercut allegations Trump was trying to improperly influence Ukraine to investigate Biden, but other witnesses, including Yovanovitch and Vindman, have sharply contradicted his testimony.
Republicans accused Democrats of cherry-picking the transcripts by not releasing Volker’s testimony on Monday.
“Why not release Ambassador Volker’s testimony? He was the very first witness to testify!” Jordan tweeted.
Lauren Fine, a spokeswoman for Minority Whip Steve Scalise, said Democrats have set up a partisan and unfair impeachment proceeding. Most of the proceedings have taken place in a restricted hearing room where only the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight and Government Reform panels can attend.
“Chairman Schiff has completely corrupted this process by singlehandedly choosing witnesses, blocking 75% of all Members of Congress from having access to the hearings and transcripts, and preventing GOP committee members from asking certain questions,” Fine told the Washington Examiner. “With their impeachment resolution vote last week to codify this unfair process, Democrats made it abundantly clear that at no point will they afford the President the same due process rights given to any other President in history.”
