SCHIFF TO O’DONNELL: CALLING HUNTER BIDEN AS WITNESS WOULD BE AN “ABUSE” OF THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

SCHIFF TO O’DONNELL: CALLING HUNTER BIDEN AS WITNESS WOULD BE AN “ABUSE” OF THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

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CBS EVENING NEWS anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell sat down exclusively with a group of House Impeachment Managers (Chairman Schiff, Rep. Demings, Rep.Lofgren and Rep. Crow) as the Senate trial gets underway. More of the interview will air tonight on the CBS EVENING NEWS WITH NORAH O’DONNELL (6:30-7:00 PM, ET) on the CBS Television Network. The first clip aired today on CBS THIS MORNING. Read more here and a transcript below.

*Mandatory credit to the CBS EVENING NEWS WITH NORAH O’DONNELL*

REP. JASON CROW: The president of the United States has privileges and powers that no other person has. So the abuse of those very unique powers and privileges is exactly what the framers had in mind when they drafted the impeachment procedures.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Let me ask you about the question of witnesses. Presumably, you would want to call John Bolton. But are you prepared then for who the Republicans want to call as witnesses? Would that be fair?

CHAIRMAN ADAM SCHIFF: It would certainly be fair for the president and his team to be able to call witnesses that can provide material information on the charges. It would not be appropriate for the president to seek to call witnesses merely to try to perpetuate the same smear campaign that was foiled when his plot was discovered. Hunter Biden, for example, can’t tell us anything about whether the president withheld military aid, whether he withheld that aid to coerce Ukraine to conduct political investigations. Or why he wouldn’t meet with the president of Ukraine.

The only purpose in putting him on their list is they wish to trade material witnesses, like Mr. Bolton and Mulvaney and others, for immaterial ones that will allow them to continue to attack a political opponent. That’s an illegitimate abuse of the trial. And the chief justice, who may have an opportunity to rule on materiality of witnesses, as well as the senators, should not permit that kind of abuse.