Congressman: Whistleblower Contacts with Schiff’s Office “Concealed from the Inspector General”

SAYS COMMUNICATIONS HAD “PROFOUND IMPACT” ON IG’S INVESTIGATION

by Sharon Rondeau

(Feb. 9, 2020) — On Sunday morning’s “Fox & Friends,” Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX4) told co-hosts Jason Chaffetz and Pete Hegseth that a “resolution of expungement” of President Trump’s impeachment may occur if Republicans gain a majority of the House of Representatives in November.

A video replay of the segment begins at 19:06 here.

That would happen, Ratcliffe said, because of information not yet made public regarding contacts between the “whistleblower,” whose complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) in August initiated and “impeachment inquiry” against President Donald Trump the following month, and members of the House Intelligence Committee’s majority staffers.

Adam Schiff (D-CA28) is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and led the impeachment effort first in the House and later in the U.S. Senate, which became the trial court. Following two weeks of presentations by the House Impeachment Managers and rebuttals by Trump’s defense team, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday acquitted Trump on both Articles of Impeachment.

On October 2,  The New York Times reported that Schiff “Got [an] Early Account of Accusations as Whistle-Blower’s Concerns Grew.”  Schiff has insisted that he does not know the identity of the whistleblower, although several sources have reported him to be an Obama “holdover” at the National Security Council who was acquainted with two of Schiff’s current committee staffers.

“I do think that as more details come out about how the origins of this impeachment really began, I think there’s every possibility that will happen,” Ratcliffe said, referring to an expungement.  “The record has not been put in public view about the contacts between Adam Schiff, his staff and the whistleblower and the profound impact that their contacts with one another had on the inspector general’s investigation of this matter – the fact that those contacts were concealed from the inspector general.  I think as that becomes more public, and I think it will, I think the perception that this was an unfair impeachment will move to one that it was perhaps a coordinated, planned impeachment or even a fraudulent impeachment, and if that happens, there is every possibility that there could be an expungement action taken in the House.”

In the recent past, Ratcliffe, a former federal prosecutor and a member of Trump’s defense team, has been a frequent guest on “Sunday Morning Futures” hosted by Maria Bartiromo in which he has suggested that the transcript of the Intelligence Community Inspector General’s closed-door testimony on October 4 contains information damaging to the Democrats’ case for Trumps impeachment.

On December 15, Ratcliffe told Bartiromo that Schiff “helped start” the complaint “by meeting with the person who walked out of Adam Schiff’s office and became the whistleblower…”

On January 26, Ratcliffe said that the whistleblower improperly failed to divulge his interactions with Congress prior to filing his complaint.

On January 29, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NT21), who also served on Trump’s defense team, tweeted that Schiff’s staffers “helped write” the complaint.

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