House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) hired a friend and former colleague of the so-called “whistleblower” to join his staff just one day after President Trump’s now-controversial phone call with Ukraine, the Washington Examiner reported.
These new details further complicate Schiff’s official narrative about his staff’s contacts with the whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. Schiff has repeatedly denied knowledge of the whistleblower’s identity.
“Bro-like” friendship
The staffer, Sean Misko, worked with the whistleblower at the National Security Council under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Both have since left the Trump administration.
The Examiner had previously reported that Misko and the whistleblower, who has been identified as CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, had a chummy, “bro-like” friendship at the NSC. Ciaramella, Trump’s Ukraine director at the NSC, left the White House at some point in 2017.
Misko, the former director for Gulf States, left the NSC in August 2018 and joined Schiff’s staff a year later, the very same month that the whistleblower’s complaint surfaced. The Examiner previously reported the month in which Misko was hired, but a date is now known from public disbursement records. July 26, the day after Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president is when he was officially brought on board.
As Breitbart has reported, Misko also briefly worked at the Atlantic Council a think-tank with ties to Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden sat. A second Schiff staffer with ties to the Atlantic Council — which also has been funded by George Soros — went to Ukraine 12 days after the whistleblower complaint emerged on a “study trip” that the think tank organized.
Schiff passes baton to Nadler
Republicans have condemned Schiff as a liar whose leading role in the impeachment inquiry has compromised the good faith of a solemn process.
The California Democrat lied on television in a September television appearance when he claimed that his staff had no contact with the whistleblower.
It later came to light that the whistleblower reached out to Schiff’s staff before filing his August complaint. Despite his central role in the impeachment, the whistleblower has long since receded from view with the sanction and protection of Democrats, who have sought to keep him from testifying.
After weeks of investigating Trump’s actions towards Ukraine, Schiff’s Intel Committee passed along a report summarizing his party’s accusations to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, this week. Nadler’s Republican counterpart, ranking member Doug Collins (R-GA), has vowed to make Schiff testify about the whistleblower.
Republicans rejected Schiff’s report as the “ramblings of a basement blogger,” in the words of Trump’s press secretary, Stephanie Grisham.
Although Schiff has passed the baton to Nadler, there are few indications that the process will veer from the partisan course already charted by Schiff. Nadler’s first hearing Wednesday featured three liberal university professors who angrily accused President Trump of impeachable wrongdoing.
No comments: