GOP wants Hunter Biden, whistleblower to testify in impeachment probe, Schiff seeks to shield them

House Republicans are on the offensive demanding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian phone call whistleblower to testify for the impeachment inquiry. The idea did not sit well with Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democrat who leads the process.

Representative David Nunes (R-Ca) has revealed a list of witnesses the Republicans would like to see giving their testimonies at the upcoming public hearing on the impeachment inquiry against Trump. It includes  includes among others Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president and one of the Democratic frontrunners at the upcoming presidential elections, Joe Biden, as well as an anonymous whistleblower, whose account kick started the whole process in the first place.

"President Trump should be afforded an opportunity to confront his accusers, the anonymous whistleblower should testify," Nunes argued in this letter to Schiff (D-Ca) while pointing at "multiple discrepancies between the whistleblower's complaint and the closed-door testimony of the witnesses."

"Americans see through this sham impeachment process, despite the Democrats' efforts to retroactively legitimize it last week," Nunes added.

Schiff was visibly displeased with the initiative as he said that it is the House Republicans seek to turn the process into "sham investigation" – this time against his fellow Democrats – Bidens.

"This inquiry is not, and will not serve ... as a vehicle to undertake the same sham investigations into the Bidens or 2016 that the President pressed Ukraine to conduct for his personal political benefit, or to facilitate the President's effort to threaten, intimidate, and retaliate against the whistleblower who courageously raised the initial alarm," the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee responded in a statement.

Yet, he still said that his committee was "evaluating" the request and vowed to "give due consideration to witnesses within the scope of the impeachment inquiry, as voted on by the House." Nunes, meanwhile, questioned in the very idea of the minority party suggesting a witness list to the majority, arguing that they should be able to call their own witnesses independently instead. Republicans also want to question Alexandra Chalupa, a DNC contractor who tried to get dirt on Trump campaign from the Ukrainian embassy and Nellie Ohr, the wife of a DoJ official and a contractor with for Fusion GPS, the research and intelligence group paid by Hillary Clinton's campaign to produce the notorious Steele dossier.

Nunes also wants to Schiff himself to testify under oath on his relations with the whistleblower. Trump himself also added fuel to the fire by tweeting on Saturday that the mysterious whistleblower somehow disappeared and should be on the witnesses list for the hearing.

The House impeachment inquiry that has since been dubbed Ukrainegate was launched in September and focuses on a claim by a still unidentified person that Trump used $400 million in military aid to pressure Ukraine's leader Volodymir Zelensky into opening an investigation into corruption allegations against Joe Biden.

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