Trump Says Whistleblower ‘Must Testify’ to Congress, Calls for Identity to be Revealed

President Donald Trump speaks to media before departing the White House on Marine One on Oct. 11, 2019. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

President Donald Trump said he wants the person who filed a complaint against him to testify to Congress.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) suggested over the weekend that the whistleblower will not testify to Congress, a shift from Schiff’s earlier statements.

Since the transcript of the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the whistleblower’s complaint largely rested on has been released, the person doesn’t need to testify, Schiff said during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“Given that we already have the call record, we don’t need the whistleblower, who wasn’t on the call, to tell us what took place during the call,” Schiff said. “We have the best evidence of that.”

Trump pushed back early Oct. 14, writing in a statement: “Adam Schiff now doesn’t seem to want the Whistleblower to testify. NO! Must testify to explain why he got my Ukraine conversation sooo wrong, not even close. Did Schiff tell him to do that?”

Schiff initially claimed that “we have not spoken directly with the whistleblower.” He later said he regretted the statement after admitting a staffer with his House Intelligence Committee had spoken with the person.

“I should have been much more clear,” Schiff added on Sunday.

Trump also said that the identity of the whistleblower should be made public.

“We must determine the Whistleblower’s identity to determine WHY this was done to the USA,” he said.

“Democrat’s game was foiled when we caught Schiff fraudulently making up my Ukraine conversation, when I released the exact conversation Transcript, and when Ukrainian President and the Foreign Minister said there was NO PRESSURE, very normal talk! A total Impeachment Scam!” Trump wrote.

Zelensky has repeatedly said Trump did not pressure him during the phone call. Based on the whistleblower complaint, Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry in late September. The call transcript and complaint were released soon after.

Schiff during a committee hearing that week fabricated portions of the transcript. Confronted by members of the committee, he later said what he did was “not okay.”

“But also my summary of the president’s call was meant to be, at least part, in parody. The fact that that’s not clear is a separate problem in and of itself. Of course, the president never said ‘if you don’t understand me I’m going to say it seven more times,’” Schiff said.

“My point is that that was the message that the Ukrainian president was receiving in not so many words.”