Politics

Rep Adam Schiff: Whistleblower Has Agreed To Testify

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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff announced Sunday that the whistleblower who filed a complaint regarding President Donald Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president has agreed to testify before the committee, adding that it will likely happen “very soon.”

A whistleblower complaint filed in August accused Trump of pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, during a July 25 phone call. Following the news, the House of Representatives opened up an impeachment inquiry into Trump.

Schiff said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that the whistleblower will likely testify “very soon,” confirming that an agreement has been reached. How soon the whistleblower can testify depends on how quickly Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire clears “the security clearance process” for the whistleblower’s lawyers, Schiff said.

Maguire testified Thursday in front of the House Intelligence Committee.

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“And, as Director Maguire promised during the hearing, that whistleblower will be allowed to come in and come in without a ‘minder’ from the Justice Department or from the White House to tell the whistleblower what they can and cannot say,” Schiff said. “We will get the unfiltered testimony of that whistleblower.”

Schiff added that they will be taking precautions to ensure that the whistleblower can provide full testimony while keeping his identity a secret.

“As you can imagine, with the president issuing threats like ‘we ought to teach these people who exposed my wrong-doing as we used to treat traitors and spies, we used to execute traitors and spies,’ you can imagine the security concerns here,” he said. “We’re ready to hear from the whistleblower as soon as that is done.”

The complaint includes allegations that White House officials “intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call.” Although the complaint notes that the whistleblower never heard any of the allegations first-hand, the White House has reportedly confirmed that this specific claim happened.