House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) hired a friend and former co-worker of the alleged Ukraine whistleblower one day after the call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky that is now the focus of an impeachment inquiry, the Washington Examiner reported.

Sean Misko, a former National Security Council aide who worked closely with former NSC adviser and current CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, was officially hired as a House Intelligence Committee staffer on July 26. Ciaramella is widely believed to be the whistleblower, although that has not been officially confirmed.

Misko was the Gulf States director, and Ciaramella was the Ukraine director on the NSC during the latter part of the Obama administration and the early part of the Trump administration.

The whistleblower complaint focused on the call between Trump and Zelensky, during which the president requested Zelensky investigate alleged 2016 election interference by Ukrainians, and potential corruption involving Burisma and Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden.

The call took place July 25. Misko was hired July 26. The whistleblower complaint was filed Aug. 12. The whistleblower is known to have met with unnamed members of Schiff's staff before he filed the complaint, sometime between July 25 and Aug. 12.

The connections between a Schiff staffer and the whistleblower are of note because Schiff has been somewhat deceptive regarding his prior knowledge of the complaint and his contact with the whistleblower.

Schiff denied having contact with the whistleblower, before later admitting that his staff had been in contact with the whistleblower while still maintaining that he does not know the whistleblower's identity.

During public impeachment hearings, Schiff would not allow witnesses to answer questions that he believed could lead to outing the whistleblower. That led some Republicans to question how Schiff could determine which questions were off limits if he didn't know who the whistleblower was.