The most senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee last night accused Democrat panel chair Adam Schiff of coaching a Trump impeachment inquiry witness during closed-door testimony.

Republicans and Democrats clashed angrily during Tuesday's deposition of by Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official overseeing Ukraine policy.

Representative Devin Nunes told Fox News: 'I have never in my life seen anything like what happened today.'

Nunes claimed: 'I mean, they've been bad at most of these depositions, but to interrupt us continually to coach the witness, to decide... what we're going to be able to ask the witness,' he described the conduct as 'unprecedented.'

Scroll down for video.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) leaves a hearing with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman as part of the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry

Representative Devin Nunes said: 'I have never in my life seen anything like what happened today' (pictured: Nunes at a previous hearing)

Nunes gave stinging praise to Schiff for being 'very good at coaching witnesses' and slammed the Democrat chair for so far refusing Republican demands to call their own witnesses.

CNN reported there was a 'shouting match' as Vindman was questioned by Republicans in a way which Schiff stopped, suggesting they were trying to find out the original whisteblower's identity.

Vindman said in his opening statement on Tuesday he does not know the whistleblower's identity.

'I am not the whistleblower who brought this issue to the CIA and the Committees' attention. I do not know who the whistleblower is and I would not feel comfortable to speculate as to the identity of the whistleblower,' he said.

Nunes also told Hannity last night that Schiff's staff had met with the unnamed whistleblower, another aspect which he called 'unprecedented.'

Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the Republicans at Vindman's deposition were trying to get him to reveal the identity of the whistleblower.

'What the Republicans are trying to do very clearly in their questioning is try to front door or back door Lt. Col. Vindman into revealing who the whistleblower is, even though in his testimony he says he doesn't he didn't know,' Wasserman Schultz said.

Questioned: Purple Heart Iraq veteran Lt. Col Alexander Vindman was in the middle of a partisan shouting match as Republicans were stopped asking him questioned Democrats say were intended to out the whistleblower

'They are trying to through the back door and through process of elimination by their questions, they are attempting to get him to reveal that, and they have been unsuccessful,' she added.

Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch agreed that seemed to be the case but said the efforts were averted.

'I'm not sure what the intent was but the direction of some of their questions might have led to that,' he said, 'but again it was averted.'

Republicans denied they were trying to reveal the whistleblower's name during their turns as questioning witnesses in the inquiry.

'Adam Schiff continues to talk about the whistleblower and, by the way, he's the one who knows who he is. But that's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to get information we're entitled to get,' GOP Congressman Jim Jordan told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

Asked if he wanted to know the whistleblower's name, Jordan responded: 'The American people want to know. I want to get to the truth.'

And Jordan accused Schiff, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, of subverting their questions.

Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz accused Republicans of trying to reveal the whistleblower's name

'Our counsel was asking questions and Adam Schiff tells the witness not to answer our questions, which is extremely ridiculous and that's why it should be in public,' Jordan charged.

Meanwhile an aide to top Rep. Nunes is accused of working on a way to reveal the name of the whistleblower who sparked the impeachment inquiry.

Derek Harvey, an aide to Nunes, who is the senior Republican on the House intelligence committee, has given GOP lawmakers the whistleblower's name ahead of witness depositions in the impeachment inquiry, the Daily Beast reported.

The purpose is to get the whistleblower's name in the transcripts of the proceedings.

Schiff has pledged to release the transcripts of the interviews at a later date, meaning the whistleblower's name would become public.

Nunes office did not respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.

Republican lawmakers and staff have said the name of the person suspected to be the whistleblower in the closed-door hearings, The Washington Post reported earlier this week.

They have not accused said person of being the whistleblower but their questions were seen as an attempt 'to unmask the whistleblower,' whose identity is shielded under federal law, several officials told the newspaper.

Rep. Devon Nunes is the top Republican on the Intelligence panel and a key Trump ally

Harvey, the Nunes staffer who worked on the National Security Council early in the Trump administration, was passing notes to Republicans when Fiona Hill, a former deputy National Security adviser to the president, was being questioned in the inquiry.

Harvey is a former U.S. Army officer who worked with retired General David Petraeus during the U.S. troop surge in Iraq.

President Trump has repeatedly pushed for the whistleblower to be unmasked.

'Where's the Whistleblower? Just read the Transcript, everything else is made up garbage by Shifty Schiff and the Never Trumpers!,' he tweeted Tuesday morning.

Seeking to blunt Republican criticism that the inquiry does not give Trump due process, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi laid out legislation that could be voted on this week setting up a two-stage process for the inquiry (pictured on Sunday night in Washington DC)

Seeking to blunt Republican criticism that the inquiry does not give Trump due process, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi laid out legislation that could be voted on this week setting up a two-stage process for the inquiry.

In the first, the House Intelligence Committee would continue its probe, including via public hearings, with the right to make public transcripts of depositions taken in private.

The intelligence panel would then send a public report on its findings to the House Judiciary Committee, which would conduct its own proceedings and report on 'such resolutions, articles of impeachment, or other recommendations as it deems proper.'

A lawyer for Trump would be allowed to participate in proceedings in the Judiciary Committee, which eventually could vote on formal charges against the Republican president. House passage of articles of impeachment would trigger a trial in the Republican-led Senate on whether to remove Trump from office.

At a news conference before the measure was unveiled, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said the entire process remained a 'sham.'

Referring to closed meetings and depositions held by the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs panels over the past few weeks, McCarthy said: 'You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Due process starts at the beginning.'

The White House adopted a similar stance.

'The resolution put forward by Speaker Pelosi confirms that House Democrats' impeachment has been an illegitimate sham from the start as it lacked any proper authorization by a House vote,' White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said.

Impeachment is much different from a judicial process, however, and is not governed by the same rules.

The U.S. Constitution gives the House broad authority to set ground rules for an impeachment inquiry and Democrats say they are following House rules on investigations.