House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) outlined three questions that Democrats and members of the media “don’t want asked or answered” during his opening statement for Tuesday’s public impeachment hearing featuring Vice President Mike Pence aide Jennifer Williams and White House National Security (NSC) Director of European Affairs Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.

Nunes used his opening statement to blast the fake news media, providing a brief flashback to its “biased misreporting on the Russia hoax.”

“And because they refused to acknowledge how badly they botched the story, they’ve learned no lessons and simply expect Americans will believe them as they try to stoke yet another partisan frenzy,” he said.

He took his remarks further, outlining three specific questions that he says neither Democrats nor the media want answered.

“First, what is the full extent of the Democrats’ prior coordination with the whistleblower, and who else did the whistleblower coordinate this effort with?” Nunes asked, noting that the media have “fully accepted the Democrats’ stunning reversal on the need for the whistleblower to testify to this committee” — a point Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) highlighted during last week’s hearing.

Nunes said Democrats do not want to answer that question, in part, because it would force them to address the extent of the so-called “whistleblower’s” coordination with Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) as well as the “whistleblower’s” contact with the media, which “appears to be ongoing.”

“The media have joined the Democrats in dismissing the importance of cross-examining this crucial witness,” Nunes said.

“Now that the whistleblower has successfully kickstarted impeachment, he has disappeared from the story — as if the Democrats put the whistleblower in their own Witness Protection Program,” he added.

“What was the full extent of Ukraine’s election meddling against the Trump campaign?” Nunes listed as the second question Democrats and media do not want answered:

In these depositions and hearings, Republicans have cited numerous indications of Ukrainians meddling in the 2016 elections to oppose the Trump campaign. Many of these instances were reported, including the posting of many primary source documents, by veteran investigative journalist John Solomon. Since the Democrats switched from Russia to Ukraine for their impeachment crusade, Solomon’s reporting on Burisma, Hunter Biden, and Ukrainian election meddling has become inconvenient for the Democratic narrative, and so the media is furiously smearing and libeling Solomon. In fact, the publication the Hill told its staff yesterday it would conduct a review of Solomon’s Ukraine reporting. Coincidentally, the decision came just three days after a Democrat on this committee told a Hill writer that she would stop speaking to the Hill because it had run Solomon’s stories, and she urged the writer to relay her concerns to Hill management. So now that Solomon’s reporting is a problem for the Democrats, it’s a problem for the media as well.

“And my third question: Why did Burisma hire Hunter Biden, what did he do for them, and did his position affect any U.S. government actions under the Obama administration?” Nunes asked, noting that diplomats “were concerned about a conflict of interest involving Hunter Biden” and noting that the younger Biden secured a position on the board of Burisma despite a stunning lack of qualifications.

Members of the media are in lockstep with Democrats, Nunes argued, calling them “Democrat puppets.”

“The media, of course, are free to act as Democrat puppets, and they’re free to lurch from the Russia hoax to the Ukraine hoax at the direction of their puppet masters. But they cannot reasonably expect to do so without alienating half the country who voted for the president they’re trying to expel,” Nunes said.

“Americans have learned to recognize fake news when they see it, and if the mainstream press won’t give it to them straight, they’ll go elsewhere to find it — which is exactly what the American people are doing,” he added.