Rep. Jim Banks Calls On Lindsey Graham To Subpoena Schiff & Biden’s Phone Records

Here's what Jim Banks had to say about his desires for Schiff's records to be brought to public light on Twitter:

Here's more details on Banks' request via The National Review:

Representative Jim Banks (R., Ind.) sent a letter to Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) on Wednesday asking the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman to subpoena the call records of House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), a day after Democrats revealed they subpoenaed AT&T phone records showing contact between Representative Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) and Lev Parnas.

Banks also called for the phone records of Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and the whistleblower’s lawyer Mark Zaid, in order to determine the extent of communication between Schiff and potential Republican impeachment witnesses. On Wednesday, House Democrats quickly shut down Republicans’ request during the first Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing on to have Schiff testify.

“The public has a right to know with whom Rep. Adam Schiff has coordinated his impeachment effort and if America’s national security is at risk in any way as a result of Rep. Schiff’s actions,” Banks’s letter reads. “ . . . This quixotic impeachment inquiry must be shelved, Mr. Chairman. And Rep. Adam Schiff should be held to the same standard to which he holds others. It is time to see his phone records.”

The Hill has more to say on this:

A House Republican is pressing Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to subpoena the call records of top Democrats and a whistleblower lawyer, signaling a new GOP line of defense amid the impeachment inquiry examining President Trump’s ties to Ukraine.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), one of Trump’s House allies, asked Graham in a letter Wednesday to subpoena AT&T for the call records of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as the attorney for Ukraine whistleblower, Mark Zaid.

“Chairman, I urge you to utilize your subpoena power as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and obtain call records for the following individuals: Rep. Adam Schiff, The whistleblower’s lawyer Mark Zaid, Former Vice President Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden,” Banks wrote to Graham.

“This quixotic impeachment inquiry must be shelved, Mr. Chairman. And Rep. Adam Schiff should be held to the same standard to which he holds others. It is time to see his phone records,” he continued.  

Banks framed his request as an act of transparency, arguing that the public should know with whom Schiff worked to coordinate Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. The impeachment inquiry was opened to examine allegations that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to commit to opening two investigations that would benefit him politically, including into one of his top 2020 political rivals.

“The public has a right to know with whom Rep. Adam Schiff has coordinated his impeachment effort and if America’s national security is at risk in any way as a result of Rep. Schiff’s actions,” Banks said, adding that they “already know that our national security is threatened by pursuing impeachment.” 

The move comes after Schiff released call records that included phone calls certain individuals had with ranking member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who is a key defender of the president in the lower chamber.

A committee official, in response to the request, pushed back against Banks’s request by highlighting that Democrats did not subpoena the call records of Nunes or John Solomon, a conservative columnist formerly with The Hill, who published a series of articles pushing unfounded theories about U.S.-Ukraine relations. Their call records, however, were obtained through a subpoena seeking the phone records of other witnesses tied to the investigation.

“The Republican Minority of the three committees has had access to these subpoenaed records and even the subpoenas themselves, and knows full well that neither Mr. Nunes nor Mr. Solomon were subpoenaed, nor were their call records,” the official said in a statement to The Hill.

Banks’s letter comes as Republicans have stepped up their calls in recent weeks for Schiff to be brought before the House Judiciary Committee as an impeachment witness. The demand took off following revelations weeks ago that the Ukraine whistleblower approached a Democratic staff member on the Intelligence Committee prior to the start of the panel’s Ukraine investigation.