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.”
Kid Rock Opens Up About What Inspired His New Gospel Album, and It’s Quite the Story
Ukraine drone strikes and Iran war split blame on skyrocketing diesel prices
CBS Tried to Trash Trump Again, Now They’re Facing Another Multimillion Suit, This Time from a 15-Year-Old They Trashed
Tish James confronted on camera over Trump’s accusation of bias in Cornell rape case
Democrats’ latest gun-control push runs into inconvenient fact about how school killer was stopped
Obama’s star power gets a reality check from Black voters in crucial Senate race: ‘It’s a turn-off’
Trump says he doesn’t know who ordered Starshield throttle in Ukraine
Biden judge rejects Obama CIA chief’s legal bid against Trump over one key problem
Bryan Kohberger fights to remove judge who called him ‘worst of the worst,’ questioned his honesty
Former University of Kentucky cheerleader sentenced to 10 years in prison for infant’s death
Watch: Dem Nominee Troy Jackson Tells Sen. Susan Collins to ‘Shut Up’ as Heckler Causes Debate Chaos
Breaking: Katie Zacharia Out as White House Press Secretary
Black civic group blasts Talarico campaign over canceled event: ‘Deeply disappointed’
Americans back Trump’s decision against livestreaming Nidal Hasan’s firing squad execution
Where to Get American-Made Ivermectin at a Price You Can’t Beat
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.
