Schiff: “So Here’s The Thing, Chuck, We Don’t Need The Whistleblower Secondhand Evidence Anymore”

“You did pledge that the intelligence committee would hear from the whistleblower in some form or another,” Todd said. “Are you going to fulfill that pledge?”

“We had a deep interest in having the whistleblower testify until two things happened,” Schiff said. “One, we were able to prove everything in the whistleblower complaint with witnesses that had firsthand information; and second, the president and his allies effectively put that whistleblower’s life in danger.”

He continued: “The president said the whistleblower and others should be treated as a traitor or a spy and we ought to use the penalty we used to use for traitors and spies, and that’s the death penalty."

“So here’s the thing, Chuck, we don’t need the whistleblower secondhand evidence anymore,” Schiff added. “It would only serve to endanger this person and to gratify the president’s desire for retribution and that is not a good enough reason to bring in the whistleblower.”