Rep. Steve Scalise: Trump impeachment inquiry requires the truth – America must hear from whistleblower
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Trump was elected by the American people. Now Democrats, with the help of an unknown person, with questionable motivations, and almost exclusively second-hand knowledge of the events in question, are obsessed with reversing that election through impeachment. Americans deserve the truth: the whistleblower must testify.
The whistleblower is the origin of the entire impeachment inquiry. Speaker Pelosi announced her impeachment inquiry based solely on the whistleblower’s complaint -- before the House collected so much as a single piece of evidence to verify the allegations.
In fact, since the whistleblower filed his or her complaint, key facts have emerged that only further disprove this narrative. The transcript of the phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was released and contains no reference to the 2020 presidential election.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Zelensky confirmed he felt no pressure from President Trump, was not aware of any conditions on the military aid, and was happy with the call.
The Ukrainian government took no actions to initiate any investigations, and the military aid ultimately flowed to Ukraine after certifying that Ukraine was cleaning up corruption, which is required by law.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}So the whistleblower filed a complaint that contained not only second-hand rumors but also information that turned out to be false. And yet, Speaker Pelosi chose to use this disproved information as the basis for her entire impeachment witch-hunt.
The truth is that Washington liberals have wanted to impeach President Trump since the day he took office. For them, the facts don’t matter. All that mattered was that Pelosi supported impeachment for some reason, for any reason. Once she was on board the impeachment train, there was no stopping it.
It’s no wonder Pelosi wants to pretend the whistleblower isn’t important, doesn’t matter, doesn’t exist. We cannot allow Democrats to simply sweep the whistleblower under the rug.
That’s why Pelosi’s lieutenants have been sure to rig the rules of the impeachment inquiry against President Trump. During both the Nixon and Clinton impeachment inquiries, Republicans and Democrats had co-equal subpoena power.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Under Pelosi’s partisan rules, Chairman Schiff can unilaterally veto any of the Republican witnesses, and he has already begun to do so.
Schiff has indicated he will deny Republicans’ request to call witnesses like Hunter Biden, whose suspicious appointment to the board of a Ukrainian oil and gas company raised concerns in the State Department back in 2015, and Alexandra Chalupa, a Democratic National Committee operative who worked with Ukrainian officials to dig up political dirt against the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
Remember, Schiff himself promised that the whistleblower would testify before Congress. Then Schiff flip-flopped when media outlets reported the whistleblower had a political bias against President Trump and had coordinated with House Democratic staff before even filing a complaint. Did Schiff inappropriately orchestrate the whistleblower’s actions? What role did Schiff play in pushing a false media narrative about President Trump? Unless the whistleblower testifies, we may never know.
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It’s no wonder Pelosi wants to pretend the whistleblower isn’t important, doesn’t matter, doesn’t exist. We cannot allow Democrats to simply sweep the whistleblower under the rug.
With less than a year to go before the 2020 elections, the American people should be the ones who decide who the president will be, not Pelosi and Schiff through a sham impeachment witch-hunt.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}If the so-called whistleblower complaint is Pelosi’s basis for impeaching the president of the United States, shouldn’t the American people at least have the opportunity to hear from the whistleblower and assess his or her sources and motivations?
The whistleblower needs to testify.