President Trump suggested that Adam Schiff and his fellow Democrats were opposed to doing a witness swap because it would harm their argument for impeachment.
Several Republicans had floated the idea of allowing impeachment testimony in the Senate trial from John Bolton in exchange for testimony from witnesses the GOP wanted to hear, including Hunter Biden or Joe Biden. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, also called for testimony from Eric Ciaramella, a 33-year-old career CIA analyst who has been reported to be the whistleblower.
On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that there were no negotiations over witnesses taking place between Republicans and Democrats. The New York senator said, “We want these four witnesses and these sets of documents. Not a single Republican has approached me and said, ‘What about this? What about this one? What about that?'”
Trump claimed that such deals are not taking place because Democrats would not want to risk allowing the Bidens or other Republican-picked witnesses to testify. He tweeted, “The Democrats don’t want a Witness Trade because Shifty Schiff, the Biden’s, the fake Whistleblower(& his lawyer), the second Whistleblower (who vanished after I released the Transcripts), the so-called ‘informer’, & many other Democrat disasters, would be a BIG problem for them!”
The Democrats don’t want a Witness Trade because Shifty Schiff, the Biden’s, the fake Whistleblower(& his lawyer), the second Whistleblower (who vanished after I released the Transcripts), the so-called “informer”, & many other Democrat disasters, would be a BIG problem for them!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2020
Many Republicans believe testimony from Hunter Biden could validate Trump’s request for an investigation into corruption between the Bidens and Burisma, the largest natural gas firm in Ukraine. Democrats, including Schiff, argued that the Bidens are not at all involved in the impeachment and are not valid witnesses. Schiff claimed it would be an “illegitimate abuse of the trial” to call either Biden to testify.
