You have to take his threats seriously
by digby
Here’s Schiff on why they feel so strongly about protecting the whistleblower.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) said on Sunday that one reason the whistleblower at the heart of the impeachment inquiry hasn’t been called by the House to testify is that President Donald Trump called the person a spy and threatened the whistleblower with the “death penalty.”
With the Intel Committee wrapping up its public impeachment hearings last week, Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd asked Schiff on Sunday whether Schiff was going to be the House manager for impeachment.
“That’s up to the speaker,” Schiff answered, adding that he didn’t want to get ahead of the process as they haven’t filed articles of impeachment yet.
After Schiff said that the facts surrounding whether the president sought foreign interference in an election are not even being contested by Republicans, Todd then wondered aloud about Schiff’s position on having the whistleblower come forward.
“I know where you are with the whistleblower and the belief that you don’t need to hear from the whistleblower anymore,” the NBC News host stated. “You did pledge that the Intelligence Committee would hear from the whistleblower in some form or another? Are you going to fulfill that pledge?”
“We had a deep interest in having them testify,” Schiff told Todd. “Two things happened. One we were able to prove it with witnesses that had first-hand information and second the president and his allies effectively put that whistleblower’s life in danger.”
[…]
In late September, after the whistleblower’s complaint was made public, the president told a group at a private event that the whistleblower was “close to a spy” and wanted to know who gave the information to the whistleblower.“You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right?” Trump added. “We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
Keep in mind that Bill Barr did just reinstate the federal death penalty and Trump’s pardoning murderous war criminals.
I think his message is clear. He isn’t playing by the rules.
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