RATCLIFFE: Schiff’s involvement in the whistleblower complaint is shocking

Joining me right now is Republican Congressman from Texas, John Ratcliffe. He sits on the House Judiciary, Intelligence, and Homeland Security Committees. He is a former federal prosecutor, and he was in the room behind the closed doors on Friday with Kurt Volker's testimony. Congressman, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks so much for joining us. Good morning, Maria. On Friday, the testimony Friday, just so the record's clear, was Michael Atkinson, the ICIG, and I was in the room. In fact, I led the questioning for the first 45 minutes for Republicans. Special Envoy Volker was Thursday. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Can you tell us about the testimony that you heard on Friday, and tell us whatever you can behind what happened behind closed doors? I'm looking at a Federalist article this morning that says testimony from Ukraine Envoy Kurt Volker directly contradicts the Democrats' impeachment narrative. What can you tell us? So I would love to tell your viewers everything about both of those interviews. The reason that I can't is because the person in charge of this investigation, Adam Schiff, has made the decision that he doesn't want those transcripts to be out there publicly. He made that decision because those transcripts aren't good for the Democrats and for the narrative. What I can tell you is that I promise you that the inspector general's testimony on Friday will shock you with respect to his investigation into the contacts between Adam Schiff and his staff on the Intelligence Committee and the whistleblower. And when you see the transcript and you see what investigation was performed, I think any fair person is going to agree with me that Adam Schiff is a material witness. His staff are material witnesses, and the only way we can get good answers is to put them under oath about the type of contact, the extent of which they had with the whistleblower. Bottom line is Adam Schiff is a material fact witness in the investigation. He shouldn't be running the investigation. So do we know that he met with the whistleblower? Initially, he said, we haven't spoken to the whistleblower. We want to speak to the whistleblower. But then we learned after that, in fact, his staff has met with him. And there are there's speculation this morning that, in fact, Adam Schiff met with the whistleblower directly. Can you confirm that? Well, think about this, Maria. Washington Post, of all newspapers, had to give Adam Schiff four Pinocchios for when he said that they had not had any direct contact with the whistleblower. That wasn't true. So what I can tell you is that there was contact between the whistleblower and either Adam Schiff and his team on the Intelligence Committee. And the details of that, we all I think the president who is there attempting to remove from office on on the basis of this impeachment deserves to know what type of contact there was between Adam Schiff and his team and this whistleblower. And we shouldn't have to take Adam Schiff's word for it with a wordsmith press release or tweet that there's not much and we don't really need to look at that. He needs to be put under oath. He needs to answer the questions. And again, that is the reason that he should not be allowed to run the investigation where he and his team are central fact witnesses. So let's go through that, because House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy responded to Pelosi's refusal to answer questions about more information about this impeachment. And he's sending a letter. He sent a letter to her last week basically saying you need to get Adam Schiff out of that leadership position. And you you've talked to me about several reasons why you believe Adam Schiff cannot run this investigation. One of them is the fact that this is being done in the Intel Committee as opposed to the Judiciary Committee. Any impeachment process, the jurisdiction is judiciary, right? In the 240 plus years of of our history, those rare times where we have had impeachment process, it's always gone through the House Judiciary Committee because the House Judiciary Committee is the Committee of Jurisdiction over the Constitution and over impeachment. It's not the Intelligence Committee. So why would you go to the Intelligence Committee? Then why would she go to the Intel Committee that Adam Schiff runs? Well, I think I think two reasons. One, I think Nancy Pelosi has so little confidence apparently in Jerry Nadler to run this the way that she wants it. The other reason is by moving it to the Intelligence Committee, she can accomplish what they did this week. Adam Schiff can say, gosh, this all has to be done behind closed doors, unlike any other impeachment in our country, which is public. He's conducting this behind closed doors, making up the rules as it goes, as he wants them, as it suits his purpose. And so, you know, you have you have a jurisdictional problem. You have a problem with transparency. And then worst of all, the guy who's in charge of running the investigation is a central witness in the investigation, something that we don't allow anywhere in this country and never have. I mean, third world countries are are shocked at the kangaroo court, banana republic. Make it up as you go. Impeachment inquiry that the Democrats are running in this country, which is why Kim Strassel from The Wall Street Journal this past week did an op ed in the journal titling What did the House Intel Committee chairman know? And when did he know it? Because as I just spoke with Lindsey Graham about, if he did, in fact, meet this whistleblower and help the whistleblower craft the complaint the way we understand he did with Christine Blasey Ford, there will be a lot of pushback on this. Congressman, stay with us. We want to take a short break.