Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) joined a chorus of Republicans who are calling for the release of call records that show contact between the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
Republicans have claimed that Schiff improperly surveilled Republicans in Congress as part of the impeachment inquiry, among them Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking member on Schiff’s committee.
“Where’s Adam?” is what a poster board displayed by House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee read on Monday.
“I think the whole thing is just sickening, but he did it to one of my current staff members and one of my former staff members who he doesn’t like,” Nunes said before denying working with President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani to get former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired.
“If I wanted an ambassador fired, I’d pick up the phone, and I’d call the president. And I’m quite sure the president would take my call, and I’m quite sure the president would probably listen to me,” he said. “I would have no reason to work it through staff, work it through people I don’t know, work it through Rudy Giuliani. The whole thing is absurd on its face,” he added.
Nunes said the release begged the question of whether “just one member because he doesn’t like someone and he’s a political opponent of someone, can that member just subpoena records and then release just to embarrass or to create a distraction or to build whatever fantasyland narrative that they continue to build?”
But on Sunday, Schiff denied issuing a subpoena for Nunes’ phone records.
“Every investigator seeks phone records to corroborate, sometimes to contradict, a witnesses’ testimony. And here we had testimony that the president charged Ruly Giuliani with carrying out this plot, that he told Ambassador Volker...and others to talk to Giuliani.”
