Schiff rejects GOP requests for Hunter Biden, whistleblower to testify

Request denied.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Saturday rejected House Republicans' request to bring Hunter Biden and the anonymous whistleblower, whose complaint about President Trump's phone call in July with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spurred the House impeachment inquiry, to the witness stand in the inquiry's upcoming public hearings. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, had included Biden and the whistleblower in a letter proposing the GOP's preferred witnesses sent Saturday to Schiff.

In bringing Biden and the whistleblower to Capitol Hill, Nunes was aiming, he said, to treat Trump with more "fairness" during the investigation. But Schiff said the committee will neither "facilitate efforts" to "threaten, intimidate, and retaliate against the whistleblower," nor serve as "a vehicle to undertake the sham investigations into the Bidens."

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Schiff did say, however, that the committee is reviewing the other possible witnesses proposed by Nunes. Among those names are Kurt Volker, a former U.S. envoy to Ukraine, and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale. Read more at Axios and Fox News.