House Republicans want former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden to testify in an open impeachment inquiry hearing, according to a list House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) sent to House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Nov. 9.
The other witnesses the GOP requested include Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner Devon Archer, the person who filed a complaint against President Donald Trump over Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s president, and the “more than half a dozen sources” the whistleblower cited in the complaint, which relied on secondhand information and media reports.
“Moreover, given the multiple discrepancies between the whistleblower’s complaint and the closed-door testimony of the witnesses, it is imperative that the American people hear definitively how the whistleblower developed his or her information, and who else the whistleblower may have fed the information he or she gathered and how that treatment of classified information may have led to the false narrative being perpetrated by the Democrats during this process.”
Nunes told Schiff that Alexandra Chalupa, a Democratic National Committee consultant who Ukrainian officials said met with them before the 2016 presidential election to try to obtain dirt on Trump’s campaign, should testify.
“Given President Trump’s documented belief that the Ukrainian government meddled in the 2016 election to oppose his candidacy, which forms the basis for a reasonable desire for Ukraine to investigate the circumstances surrounding the election and any potential Ukrainian involvement, Ms. Chalupa is a prime fact witness who can assist Congress and the American public in better understanding the facts and circumstances surrounding Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election,” Nunes wrote.
Nellie Ohr, a researcher at Fusion GPS, which commissioned and helped spread the dossier that made salacious claims, without evidence, about Trump and his campaign, was also on the GOP’s list.
“In a 2018 interview with the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, Ms. Ohr stated that, during her work with Fusion GPS that ultimately assisted in the production of the Steele Dossier—comprising false allegations against then-candidate Trump—Fusion GPS used information from sources in Ukraine, including Serhiy Leshchenko who recently lost his post from the Ukrainian parliament,” Nunes wrote, noting that Ohr is a “prime fact witness.”
Republicans also want to call several former or current White House officials that have testified behind closed doors, including recently departed National Security Council official Tim Morrison, former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker, and State Department official David Hale.
If he does so, the requests would go to the full House Intelligence Committee for a vote. Because Democrats control the House, the party chairs each committee and also has the majority on each committee.
“As the American public is now aware, in August 2019, you and/or your staff met with or talked to the whistleblower,” Nunes wrote.
“Although you publicly claim nothing inappropriate was discussed, the three committees deserve to hear directly from you the substance and circumstances surrounding any discussions conducted with the whistleblower and any instructions you issued regarding those discussions. Given that you have reneged on your public commitment to let the committees interview the whistleblower directly, you are the only individual who can provide clarity as to these conversations.”
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