Schiff: Blowback to obtaining phone records ‘has only come from the far right’

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday defended obtaining phone records in the House’s impeachment inquiry, saying only “the far right” has raised objections.

“The blowback has only come from the far right,” Schiff told CBS’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.” “Every investigator seeks phone records to corroborate, sometimes to contradict, a witness’s testimony.”

{mosads}Schiff also clarified that the committee had not subpoenaed call records for ranking member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), saying, “That is simply false information being pushed by the president’s allies.”

“The fact that Mr. Nunes or [Rudy] Giuliani or others show up in this scheme doesn’t make them irrelevant, doesn’t give them a pass,” he added.

Schiff declined to say exactly what articles of impeachment the House would file but said, “As a former prosecutor, it’s always been, you know, my strategy in a charging decision — and an impeachment in the House is essentially a charging decision — to charge those that there is the strongest and most overwhelming evidence and not try to charge everything, even though you could charge other things.”

The Intelligence Committee chairman declined to say whether information from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report would be included in articles of impeachment, saying, “There is overwhelming evidence that the president sought to coerce Ukraine into interfering in our election, essentially sought to cheat in our next election by getting a foreign government to weigh in. That is a very serious business, and it imperils our national security. It’s a gross abuse of his office.”

“I think we should focus on those issues that provide the greatest threat to the country, and the president is engaged in a course of conduct that threatens the integrity of the next election,” he added.