House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff promised on Sunday that the legislative body will move forward with writing its report on the findings of the impeachment inquiry, although he didn’t rule out the possibility that there would be more depositions and more public hearings.
As NBC News reports, Schiff stopped by the network’s stalwart Meet The Press show on Sunday morning, where he gave an update about what’s going to happen within the House of Representatives in regards to the impeachment inquiry, now that two weeks of public testimony have concluded.
Schiff said that the next step for the committee is writing a report on its findings, following private depositions and public testimony. That report will inform the House’s decision on whether or not to file Articles of Impeachment against Donald Trump. He did not give a timeline as to when that report would be completed, presented to the House, and whether or not it would be presented to the general public as well.
And though the public hearings have concluded and no more are scheduled, Schiff did not rule out the possibility of more public hearings and depositions, should new information come to light.
“We’ve already accumulated quite overwhelming evidence that the president, once again, sought foreign interference in an election — conditioned official acts of a White House meeting that Ukraine desperately wanted as well as $400 million of bipartisan taxpayer funding — to get these political investigations that he thought would help his re-election,” Schiff said.
The evidence of Trump’s misconduct is already overwhelming, despite his effort to block every witness from testifying and obstruct every document request.
The facts are not contested. The President violated his oath of office.
The question now is: will we observe our own? pic.twitter.com/DUvxkuC4Al
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 24, 2019
Schiff also said that he has no intention of continuing to “play rope-a-dope” with the Trump administration over witness testimony. The administration has forbidden several individuals from cooperating with the impeachment inquiry. Several have defied that order and testified anyway, while others have abided by the order and not testified.
And at least one witness, as reported by The Inquisitr , has asked a court to decide whether he must abide by the House’s subpoena and testify, or abide by the administration’s order and not testify. A decision on that matter isn’t expected until December, at the earliest. As of this writing, it appears as if the House is moving forward, absent a decision from the court and the testimony of the individual or individuals who are waiting on the court decision.
One person who won’t be testifying is the whistleblower, whose complaint about Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky started the impeachment inquiry. Schiff says that the administration has effectively put his or her life in danger, and that the House doesn’t need his or her “secondhand” testimony anyway.
