House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff accused Vice President Mike Pence of refusing to declassify information “directly relevant” to the impeachment inquiry in order to conceal his role in the quid pro quo scheme for which President Trump is being impeached.
Pence’s Russia adviser Jennifer Williams testified last month about the vice president’s September 18 phone call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Schiff requested ten days later that Pence declassify her testimony, contained in a November 26 letter from her lawyer, but Pence last week declined to do so in a letter to Schiff.
The testimony “raises profound questions about your knowledge of the President’s scheme to solicit Ukraine’s interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” Schiff wrote in a Tuesday letter to Pence, adding that Pence’s letter refusing to classify Williams’s testimony is “deeply troubling.”
“Without prompting, the letter volunteers that ‘the Vice President never raised the Bidens, Burisma, or Crowdstrike in his conversations with President Zelensky,’” Schiff wrote, referring to Pence’s letter. “The Committee neither asserted that, nor asked whether, you specifically used those words.”
WATCH: Dem senators excuse Platner’s conduct at crisis huddle with embattled Maine candidate
Trump-backed candidate ‘confident’ Republicans will have great night in California: ‘Very excited’
Jill Biden Claims Joe Would Have Beaten Trump If Democrats Hadn’t Forced Him Out
Trump Signs Modified AI Executive Order Behind Closed Doors
Graham Platner makes Senate Democrats squirm with blitz through DC
Blanche says Garland ‘didn’t own up’ to involvement in Trump cases
Platner Self-Destruction Worsens: Dem Now Caught Bragging on Prices He Got for Cocaine, Doing Drugs in Military
Watch: Harold Ford Jr. Comes Out Guns Blazing Against Dems on Anti-ICE Riots – Brilliant 1 Min Monologue from ‘The Five’
Newsom slams MAGA for its ‘melt down’ over Pride Month
Acting AG Blanche reveals fate of Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization fund’ under pressure from House lawmakers
Illegal immigrant flashes courtroom grin after allegedly killing baby, mother and grandmother
Dr. Oz unveils Medicaid overhaul, clamps down on $2B for illegal immigrants and mandates work for able-bodied
Trump reveals new WHCA Dinner venue after shooting chaos derailed gala
Don’t Forget: Key Platner Staffer Talked About His Penis in Book for 10-Year-Old Boys, Said He Wanted Them to See Images of It
Obama judge clears left-wing group to fly ominous flag aimed at Trump on his own turf
Williams’s testimony directly conflicts with Pence’s statements, Schiff said, raising concerns that Pence could have been “purposefully misleading” the Intelligence Committee about his conversation with Zelensky.
“Your unwillingness to declassify the Supplemental Submission raises the serious question of whether your continuing efforts to obstruct the House’s impeachment inquiry are intended not just to protect President Trump, but yourself as well,” Schiff stated in his letter.
Pence’s office has declined to comment.
The House is set to hold a full House vote to impeach President Trump on two articles of impeachment, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The nearly three-month impeachment inquiry investigated whether Trump engaged in a quid pro quo with Ukraine by temporarily delaying U.S. military aid to the NATO ally while pressuring the country to announce an investigation into his political rival, former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Story cited here.
