Sen. Rand Paul has not been allowed to ask questions at the Senate impeachment trial that would have named the alleged Ukraine whistleblower.
The Kentucky Republican made a submission, but Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts informed senators that he refuses to read any question that names the alleged whistleblower, according to reports.
The questions submitted by Paul, which are now effectively blocked, name members of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s staff and also the CIA analyst believed to have filed the complaint that sparked the impeachment proceedings.
“It’s still an ongoing process; it may happen tomorrow,” Paul told reporters Wednesday evening.
A representative for Paul did not immediately return a request for comment.
The whistleblower complaint, which the intelligence community inspector general determined to be urgent and credible, raised concerns about a July phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which the American leader pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate the Bidens and other Democrats.
Republicans have accused Schiff, a California Democrat who is now the lead impeachment manager, of being “complicit” with the whistleblower because the whistleblower met with a House Intelligence Committee aide seeking guidance before filing a complaint with the Intelligence Community inspector general and because Schiff recruited two former National Security Council aides who worked alongside the CIA whistleblower at the NSC during the Obama and Trump administrations.
Trump now faces two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The questions being asked by senators at the impeachment trial are directed at the House managers or Trump’s defense team.
Democrats are pushing for witnesses in the Senate trial. They particularly want to hear testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton after reports about his upcoming book containing fresh allegations of Trump leveraging nearly $400 million in security aid to Ukraine to pressure Kyiv to help with investigations into his political rivals.
With centrist Republican senators on the fence, Trump’s staunchest allies warn that if they vote to call witnesses, former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, Schiff, and the whistleblower will be among those they seek. But Democrats have argued that witness testimony and documents have moved the impeachment case beyond the whistleblower. Lawyers for the whistleblower have warned that identifying their client would put that person’s life in danger.
Republicans and conservative media figures believe CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, a former official on the National Security Council, is the whistleblower. Paul has encouraged the press to name the alleged whistleblower and named Ciaramella as the alleged whistleblower in an interview with Washington, D.C.-based WMAL in November, calling for him to testify as part of the impeachment hearings.
