House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) knocked down the idea of an impeachment trial witness “trade” of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s testimony for the testimony of former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Schiff said, “This isn’t like some fantasy football trade, as I said yesterday. ‘We’ll offer you this if you’ll give us that, we’ll offer you a witness that is irrelevant in material, that has no relevant testimony, but a witness that will allow us to smear a presidential candidate if you want to get a legitimate witness.”

He continued, “That’s not a trade. Trials aren’t trades for witnesses. We offered last night to have the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court rule on a question of materiality for any of the witnesses, and you know something? Not surprisingly, the president’s team was vehemently opposed. Not because the president’s team doesn’t trust the chief justice to make an impartial decision, but because they do trust the chief justice to make an impartial decision about materiality.”

He added, “That’s not what they want. They want to smear Biden. They want to effectuate the scheme that they were unable to do when they tried to get Ukraine to smear the Bidens. They want to use this trial to smear the Bidens. That’s not the purpose of the trial, and the senators should not allow it to be abused in that way.”

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