10/31/2019 17:33:42PM EST.
Republican Congressman Doug Collins is calling on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to testify as a witness after Democrats moved forward with their impeachment resolution Thursday morning.
“Come to the Judiciary Committee and take every question asked of you [Schiff]. Be the first witness and take every question asked of you, starting with your own involvement with the whistleblower. Folks, this ain’t over. Get ready. The cloud that is dropping will be dropping on their heads because process matters and substance will always win out in the end and this president has nothing to worry about on substance,” Collins said.
Process leads to substance.
Apart from a fair process, Congress will never find the truth. pic.twitter.com/J3KqgXcuOp
— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) October 31, 2019
Collins wants to know what Schiff’s relationship is with the whistleblower, who kicked this process into high gear. This is why:
Transparency to the American public is critical to our democracy. Transparency among our colleagues in Congress is also critical to effectively conducting committee work. House Intel rank and file Members had access to whistblower complaint from 4-6:30 pm on Wed September 25th.
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) September 27, 2019
🚨 🚨IMPT question – when did Adam Schiff have access to the complaint or any related information? The letter to Schiff and Burr was dated August 12th. Did Schiff have ANY access earlier than Committee & if yes, why did he not immediately share this with his Committee? 🚨🚨
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) September 27, 2019
Schiff received the whistleblower complaint, which was addressed to him, on August 12. Schiff didn’t share it with fellow members of the Committee until more than a month later. During that period he tweeted out, almost verbatim, information from the complaint, indicating he was secretly working closely with the whistleblower on substance and talking points.
According to the impeachment resolution passed on the House floor Thursday morning, which simply lays out the rules for how committee chairmen can proceed, Schiff is in charge of which witnesses are approved for testimony. Therefore, chances he’ll testify are slim-to-none.