For well over a year, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has rarely been at a loss for something to say. He was a frequent guest on television news programs throughout the Russia probe, and as House Intelligence Committee chairman, Schiff has been front and center in the effort to impeach President Trump.
However, it turns out that there’s one venue in which Schiff apparently doesn’t want to saying anything. Though a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee introduced a motion to require Schiff to testify in the impeachment hearings, but Democrats scuttled the move, Breitbart reported.
After Collins made the motion to compel Schiff’s testimony, a Democrat member of the committee made a follow-up motion to table further consideration of the move. A vote was held, and in party-line fashion, Democrats decided 27-17 that Collins’ motion would go down to defeat.
“I question the motive”
Earlier this week, Republican Georgia Congressman Doug Collins indicated that he wanted to see Schiff made available for questioning. “First and foremost, the first person that needs to testify is Adam Schiff,” Collins told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.
“If he chooses not to [testify], then I really question his veracity and what he’s putting in his report. I question the motive of why he’s doing it,” Collins said of Schiff.
“Chairman Nadler sent a letter asking us by Friday to present this list and present all the things that we would like to do. However, we’re not going to see the Schiff report, as it is going to be known, out of committee until Tuesday night, possibly Wednesday morning before we get to see it,” he added.
Schiff’s defiance
Still, the California Democrat has long made it clear that he has no plans to show up in such a capacity.
“There is nothing to testify about. I think if the President or his allies in the Senate persist it means they are not serious about what they are doing,” Schiff was quoted as saying on Nov. 24.
“What would I offer in terms of testimony that I heard Dr. (Fiona) Hill in open hearing say such and such?” he asked. “That is not pertinent.”
“The only reason for them to go through with this is to mollify the President and that is not a good reason to try to call a member of Congress as a witness,” Schiff concluded.
That isn’t to say that the California Democrat is in the clear just yet, as the Senate remains in Republican hands, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsay Graham (R-SC) has said he wants to hear from his fellow lawmaker.
“So if there’s a trial in the Senate, one of the witnesses will be Adam Schiff because if he in fact did meet with the whistleblower and coach the guy up, I think that’s relevant to the impeachment inquiry itself,” Graham stated last month, according to The Hill.
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