Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., told Newsmax TV on Friday that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, should testify in a Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump because "this whole thing smells."
"I want to know what Adam Schiff knew," Lesko, 61, a member of the House Judiciary Committee who is in her first full term, told hosts Bob Sellers and Alison Maloni on the new Newsmax TV program "America Agenda."
"His staff met with the whistleblower before the whistleblower even filed the complaint," Lesko explained. "I wanted to know how much coordination there was going on there."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that she would send over the two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — once Senate Republicans outline the trial process.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said later Thursday that the sides remained at an impasse, insisting that Pelosi was "too afraid" to follow through because of the "weak" House case and due to prosecutors developing "cold feet."
In addition, Lesko told Newsmax TV that the whistleblower, "who apparently started at least this last episode of impeachment," should testify in a Senate trial — "and I'd like to hear from Hunter Biden.
"There's a real concern that Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma, which was a known corrupt company in Ukraine, while his father was the vice president and the point person for Ukraine."
Hunter Biden worked for Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian natural gas company, from April 2014 to April 2019, overlapping with his father's White House term and his oversight of the Obama administration's policy toward the Eastern European nation.
Hunter Biden was paid a salary for his Burisma work.
Lesko continued: "And, then, Joe Biden, on video, brags about how he held up $1 billion to Ukraine in order to get the prosecutor fired."
The former vice president bragged in an interview at an event for Foreign Affairs magazine in Washington last year that he threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine in 2015 if officials did not fire a prosecutor involved in a probe of the state-owned company.
The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was fired — and the investigation was dropped six months later.
"This whole thing smells," Lesko told Newsmax TV. "It's very fishy."
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