Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) argued Thursday that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) will not release Michael Atkinson’s transcript even though President Trump took the unprecedented step of releasing his July phone call transcript “so everyone could see the truth.”
The congressman said that the reason Democrats are holding on to the transcript is because it exposes both the so-called “whistleblower” and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff in a lie.
After a late night of speechmaking, members of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday debated the specific language of the impeachment articles accusing President Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Ratcliffe pointed out that Democrats keep using the word “demand” do describe Trump’s suggestion to the Ukraine president that corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden should be looked into.
“Guess which word isn’t anywhere in the transcript?” Ratcliffe asked before informing the committee that the word is “demand.”
“Nowhere in that transcript does the president make a ‘demand,'” he declared. “Do you know where the word ‘demand’ came from? It came from the whistleblower. That’s the first time we heard the word demand,” Ratcliffe explained.
When he notified the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community, he said President Trump made a demand! He thought he could do that because he thought no one would ever be able to prove that because what president would take the unprecedented step of releasing a transcript with a foreign leader. This president did! Something that the whistleblower never expected.
President Trump, we keep hearing, got caught. President Trump, we keep hearing, is obstructing justice. The president that took the unprecedented step of releasing a transcript so that everyone could see the truth is not obstructing congress. The president didn’t get caught. The whistleblower got caught. The whistleblower made false statements. The whistleblower got caught with Chairman Schiff!
Ratcliffe noted that rather than run the impeachment inquiry out of the House Judiciary where it belonged, Democrats put the highly conflicted chairman of the Intelligence Committee in charge of the case.
“The person who got caught with the whistleblower!” Ratcliffe exclaimed.
The Texas Republican recalled how Schiff had initially denied having any contact with the anti-Trump complainant identified online as Eric Ciaramella (seen below shaking hands with former president Barack Obama).
Screenshot, courtesy of the Washington Examiner:
Ratcliffe recalled how Schiff had initially claimed that he and his staff had not had contact with the “whistleblower,” but that they would have liked to.
“Well, that wasn’t true,” said the congressman shaking his head ruefully. He then reminded the committee of Schiff’s serial mendacity on the Russia collusion hoax.
The person who said he had evidence of the first fake impeachment scam—collusion with Russia—and didn’t have it—the person who in the course of that, read into the record the Steele Dossier—because the people needed to know the truth about what happened! Well we heard about the truth about the Steele Dossier this week when the inspector general told us it was all garbage, rubbish, all made up. Yeah, that Chairman Schiff.
And now he got caught not being truthful about a whistleblower who as I told you the other day, didn’t tell the truth verbally and in writing—and that’s in a transcript.
You know what we didn’t get in this one-week impeachment summary in the House Judiciary Committee? We didn’t get that transcript. Chairman Schiff didn’t send that one over. Only if you’re in the Intelligence Committee did you see that transcript. I’ve seen it. I’d like everyone to see it.
https://twitter.com/RepRatcliffe/status/1205179494748827648?s=20
When questioned by Ratcliffe during his closed door testimony on October 4, Atkinson revealed information about a potential link between Schiff or his staff and the whistleblower.
Responding to a question about the transcript on Twitter last month, Ratcliffe said: “It’s because I asked IG Atkinson about his ‘investigation’ into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower. The transcript is classified ‘secret’ so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions.”
https://twitter.com/RepRatcliffe/status/1200799511381233664?s=20
That transcript is the only one that the Intelligence Committee has not released.