The White House’s response to the Democrat-led impeachment articles sent last week to the Senate names House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff as a “fact witness.”
In addition, the impeachment brief written by President Donald Trump’s legal team mentions Schiff more often than Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden and the leading 2020 Democratic presidential contender.
The president’s legal team, in fact, made Schiff a focal point of their 110-page brief, which was filed on Monday ahead of the impeachment trial which is scheduled to begin Tuesday.
Reports noted that the legal team mentioned Schiff, California Democrat, nearly 100 times — far more than other key figures in the impeachment drama, including Hunter Biden.
President Trump’s lawyers made House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff a focal point of their 110-page brief they filed Monday for the impeachment trial.
A quick search for Schiff’s name yields 97 results, whereas Hunter Biden, who President Trump has said should be a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, only surfaces about half that many times, the Washington Times reported.
Hunter Biden was at the center of a corruption probe Trump wanted the government of Ukraine to look into as a board member for an energy company being probed for corruption.
The younger Biden landed a high-paying job on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company, while his father, Joe Biden, was leading Obama administration policy at the time.
Trump was impeached by the House last month on two articles — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
As for Schiff, the White House legal team argues he is a “fact witness” because they say Schiff, who oversaw the House’s impeachment inquiry into the president, had communicated with the whistleblower whose complaint launched the investigation into the president’s July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart.
A subsequent complaint filed by the whistleblower is what Democrats say led them to impeach the president.
Republicans note that Democrats