Under normal circumstances, the House Intelligence Committee would not have jurisdiction over the string of witnesses who have filed into the impeachment proceedings in the Capitol basement or the subject matter they are talking about.
None of the material is classified, and those who have appeared before the panel are mostly diplomats whose testimony about a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would more suitably be scrutinized by the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Both the Foreign Affairs and Oversight panels have been invited to participate in the closed-door meetings, but it is Schiff and the Intelligence Committee staff Democrats who run the proceedings and who will write the final report that will determine whether the House votes on articles of impeachment.
Republicans say the mismatch raises questions about how Democrats are proceeding with the impeachment process and why Schiff, and Intelligence, was chosen to run it.
“There is absolutely nothing whatsoever in the whistleblower complaint that has any kind of intelligence component at all,” a top GOP aide told the Washington Examiner. “A presidential phone call with a foreign leader is not an intelligence matter.”
The whistleblower complaint shifted the impeachment proceedings to the control of Schiff and away from the Judiciary Committee and Chairman Jerry Nadler who had declared he was running impeachment proceedings without the blessing of Pelosi.
While the Judiciary Committee has traditionally handled the impeachment process and has held those hearings in public, Nadler had run afoul of Pelosi over his handling of the investigation and his decision to hold a series of highly partisan public hearings that were criticized by both parties.
Republicans believe Democratic leaders were looking for a way to transfer control to Schiff, who is more closely aligned with Pelosi and runs a committee that traditionally holds hearings behind closed doors.
Schiff, an outspoken Trump critic, first accused him of colluding with the Russians ahead of the 2016 election and appears determined to impeach the president.
“Soon, the American people will see new evidence of the President’s abuse of power,” Schiff tweeted Friday. “Every Member of Congress will have to answer: is soliciting foreign interference in our elections acceptable? The answer must be no. Americans decide American elections.”
The whistleblower complaint prompted Pelosi to give Schiff total control over impeachment proceedings that he has so far conducted mostly out of the public’s view.
“This is a different set of rules that Chairman Schiff and Speaker Pelosi have embarked upon, but why?” Rep. Mark Meadows, a member of the Oversight Committee, said. “Because it wasn’t working with Jerry Nadler when everybody go to view it.”
In the coming weeks, Schiff will be tasked with completing a report on the findings from the impeachment investigation, which began in late September after an anonymous whistleblower complained about the Trump-Zelensky call. Details of his report to an inspector general were leaked to the media.
Schiff first told reporters his office had no prior contact with the whistleblower but acknowledged through a spokesman in an Oct. 2 in a New York Times article that “the whistle-blower contacted the committee for guidance on how to report possible wrongdoing within the jurisdiction of the intelligence community.”
Republicans suspect Schiff or his committee staff directed the whistleblower to file his complaint specifically with the inspector general of the Intelligence Community, Michael K. Atkinson.
The move would ensure Schiff maintained jurisdiction over the whistleblower testimony and ultimately the impeachment process, Republicans believe.
Democrats have positioned Schiff to act as a special investigator, akin to former special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated alleged Trump-Russia campaign collusion, or Independent Counsel Ken Starr, whose investigation of Bill Clinton led to his impeachment.
“I call it faux impeachment,” Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told the Washington Examiner recently. “By running it in the House Intelligence Committee, they’re trying to keep all of the information from the American public. And I understand why, because every witness we have that comes in bombs out for them.”
A spokesman for Schiff has not responded to questions about the role committee Democratic staff played, if any, in funneling the whistleblower complaint to Atkinson.
Schiff has since declared he will not seek testimony from the whistleblower, which Republicans believe is aimed at preventing GOP lawmakers from asking the whistleblower about his coordination with the intelligence panel.
According to the New York Times and other media reports, the whistleblower is a CIA officer who was at one point detailed to work at the White House. While the contents of the call might not fall under the Intelligence Community, the whistleblower’s employment with the agency justified reporting the complaint to Atkinson and ultimately authorizing the oversight of the intelligence panel, Democrats have argued.
Democrats believe Republicans are attacking Schiff’s role because they do not want to talk about the underlying complaint that Trump sought Ukraine’s help investigating his chief political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
“I don’t think there is any process we could propose that Republicans, who prefer to circle the wagons around the president, would accept,” said Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern.
