GOP Rep. Stefanik Demands Schiff Release Call Logs

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) questions Ambassador Kurt Volker in Washington on Nov. 19, 2019. (Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/Getty Images)

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) joined a chorus of Republicans who are calling for the release of call records that show contact between the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

“Every American should be outraged by this unprecedented abuse of power by [House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Adam Schiff,” Stefanik wrote in a tweet.

Stefanik, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, called on Schiff (D-Calif.) to “immediately release HIS personal phone records so the American people will be able to see his coordination with the whistleblower.”

Republicans have claimed that Schiff improperly surveilled Republicans in Congress as part of the impeachment inquiry, among them Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking member on Schiff’s committee.

“Where’s Adam?” is what a poster board displayed by House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee read on Monday.

Nunes, speaking on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Features,” said that it is “sickening” Schiff obtained his phone records.

“I think the whole thing is just sickening, but he did it to one of my current staff members and one of my former staff members who he doesn’t like,” Nunes said before denying working with President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani to get former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired.

“If I wanted an ambassador fired, I’d pick up the phone, and I’d call the president. And I’m quite sure the president would take my call, and I’m quite sure the president would probably listen to me,” he said. “I would have no reason to work it through staff, work it through people I don’t know, work it through Rudy Giuliani. The whole thing is absurd on its face,” he added.

Nunes said the release begged the question of whether “just one member because he doesn’t like someone and he’s a political opponent of someone, can that member just subpoena records and then release just to embarrass or to create a distraction or to build whatever fantasyland narrative that they continue to build?”

But on Sunday, Schiff denied issuing a subpoena for Nunes’ phone records.

The criticism of the move has “only come from the far-right,” he told CBS' “Face the Nation.“

“Every investigator seeks phone records to corroborate, sometimes to contradict, a witnesses’ testimony. And here we had testimony that the president charged Ruly Giuliani with carrying out this plot, that he told Ambassador Volker...and others to talk to Giuliani.”