On behalf of many Republican Senators, including Hawley and Cruz, Ron Johnson submitted a question to both the House Managers and the President’s counsel regarding the Whistleblower and Sean Misko which Schiff didn’t like and refused to answer.
Watch:
.@RepAdamSchiff: "This question refers to allegation in a newspaper article which are circulating smears on my staff and ask me to respond to those smears. I will not dignify those smears on my staff by giving them any credence whatsoever." pic.twitter.com/femseSnEDJ
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 30, 2020
The question which is too long to transcribe, related to the early 2017 meeting between whistleblower Eric Ciaramella, Sean Misko and Vindman where they were all overheard saying they needed to take Trump out. Johnson also wanted to know why Schiff suddenly hired Misko the day after Trump’s phone call with Zelensky and what role Misko played in the investigation.
As you can see from the tweet, Schiff took umbrage at the question and refused to answer it, calling it smears against his staff. He also berated Republicans for attacking the whistleblower, something he said the statute protects against. That portion starts at 1:55 in the video.
Trump’s legal team responded at 4:44, pointing out that Schiff is the one who made the whistleblower relevant, claiming he would testify. They also pointed out that the whistleblower statute only protects against retribution in terms of job loss and has nothing to do with the relevance of the whistleblower.
Watch the video for more…