Schiff: I have ‘nothing’ to testify about if called for impeachment trial

Rep. Adam Schiff said there is “nothing for me to testify about” if he is called to appear before the Senate during an impeachment trial against President Trump.

“What would I offer in terms of  testimony, that I heard Dr. [Fiona] Hill in an open hearing say such and such?” Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“That’s not pertinent. The only reason for them to go through with this is to mollify the president, and that’s not a good reason to call a member of Congress as a witness,” Schiff (D-Calif.) told host Jake Tapper.

Trump and his Republican allies allege that Schiff and members of the Intelligence panel coordinated with the whistleblower who revealed the president’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he asked for an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had been on the board of a natural gas company in the country.

Asked directly by Tapper whether he would testify, Schiff said he wouldn’t comment.

But he said if Senate Republicans try to compel him, the whistleblower and Hunter Biden to appear, “it shows the fundamental lack of seriousness” and “willingness to turn this into a circus.”

In a tweet Saturday, Trump said Schiff “will be compelled to testify should the Democrats decide, despite the fact that my presidential conversations were totally appropriate (perfect), to go forward with the Impeachment Hoax.”