The ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said Sunday that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff should testify in this week’s impeachment hearings, calling it “problematic” that Schiff has not yet released his committee’s report detailing its findings from the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
“The first person who needs to testify is Adam Schiff,” Rep. Doug Collins (R., Ga.) told Fox News. “Adam Schiff has been the author of many things, a lot of them found to be false over the past couple years, but he’s going to be the author of this report.”
The Intelligence Committee, which concluded its impeachment hearings last month, is expected to release a report this week summarizing its probe of the allegations against Trump that sparked the impeachment inquiry.
“He’s compared himself in the past to a special counsel,” Collins said of Schiff. “Well, if we go back to Clinton, and even back to Nixon, but in Clinton, Ken Starr was the special counsel. He presented a report that we’re going to get as Judiciary. He came and sat and testified under oath and took questions from all sides including the White House.”
Starr, the independent counsel in the impeachment proceedings against former president Bill Clinton, delivered his report on the allegations against Clinton to lawmakers in September, 1998 and testified two months later before Congress.
Collins added that Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s deadline for House Republicans to say whether they wish to subpoena any witnesses to testify on Trump’s behalf is “arbitrary” since Republicans have not yet seen the Schiff report.
“If you have a case going forward, you want to know exactly what you’re facing,” the top House Republican said. “My first and foremost witness is Adam Schiff.”
Democrats have said they hope to hold a full House vote on impeachment this month before Congress leaves for the holiday break.