House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff claimed that a quid pro quo agreement between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not necessary for Trump's request that the foreign government investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden to be an impeachable offense.

Schiff, 59, has been one of the driving forces behind the impeachment inquiry that began last month after an unnamed CIA official filed a whistleblower complaint alleging wrongdoing by the president during his phone call with Zelensky. However, Schiff's ties to the whisteblower have given political opponents, including Trump, ammunition to question his actions.

"We have discovered in short order not only the contents of that call, but also the preparatory work that went into the call. The effort to condition something the Ukrainian president deeply sought, and that was a meeting with the president to establish that this new president of Ukraine had a powerful patron in the president of the United States that was of vital importance to Ukraine, was being conditioned on digging up dirt on the Bidens," Schiff stated on Sunday's episode of CBS's Face The Nation.

Margaret Brennan responded, "So, you see that as the quid quo pro, not just the military aid."

"Well, first of all, there doesn't need to be a quid pro quo. But it is clear already, I think, from the text messages that this meeting that the Ukrainian president sought was being conditioned on their willingness to intervene in the U.S. election to help the president," the California congressman responded. "That is a terrible abuse of the president’s power. Now whether that abuse goes further, that is the withholding of military aid also as leverage, there's certainly strong indication that’s true as well."

The release of the Trump-Zelensky call transcript countered concerns of an explicit quid pro quo in regard to military aid that had been approved for Ukraine. The Ukrainians were unaware at the time that the funds had been halted.