Things reportedly got ugly during National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s deposition in the House impeachment investigation on Tuesday.
According to CNN, Democrats and Republicans got into a brawl over the identity of the whistleblower who had first triggered the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
Five unknown sources told CNN the clash began when House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) accused his Republican colleagues of using the hearing to sniff out the whistleblower’s identity, a charge the Republicans denied.
That’s reportedly when Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) got into a shouting match, which snowballed as others jumped in.
During a break in the hearing, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) told CNN that Republicans were trying to wheedle Vindman into revealing the whistleblower’s identity, even though he had testified that he didn’t know who the whistleblower was.
“They are trying to, through the back door and through process of elimination by their questions, they are attempting to get him to reveal that, and they have been unsuccessful,” said Wasserman Schultz.
An anonymous GOP lawmaker didn’t deny the Democrats’ accusations in an interview with CNN.
“I think we would like to know — with whistleblower protections in mind — we would like to hear from the whistleblower and we would also like to know who the whistleblower talked to,” they said.
