by Luke Rosiak
President Donald Trump accused Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff in February of “stealing” away people who had worked in the White House at its National Security Council by hiring them.
Schiff’s committee hired two people who worked at the NSC in the Obama and Trump administrations: Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018 and was hired in February with a stop in between at a think-tank founded by Obama officials, and Sean Misko, who departed the NSC in 2017 and joined Schiff’s staff in August, the Washington Examiner reported.
Also in August, the “whistleblower” who had worked at the NSC reportedly made contact with an unnamed aide to Schiff — the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — who provided guidance about his next steps to blow the whistle about a July phone call, leading him to retain an attorney and approach an inspector general.
That interaction took on added intrigue because Schiff said “we have not spoken directly” with the whistleblower, when in fact his aide had. A Washington Post fact-checker wrote his statement was “flat-out false.” Schiff knew details about the whistleblower’s complaint before it was filed, according to the Examiner.
Chris Farrell, director of investigations at Judicial Watch, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Schiff wasn’t so much stealing Trump’s people, but rather there were people in the Trump administration who never agreed with his policies.
“The Trump administration continues to be riddled with political operatives bent on sabotaging the president. These data points need to be brought into context, and when they are, they raise further questions about the identity and roles of these so-called whistleblowers,” he said.
Trump asked Ukraine’s president in a July phone call to investigate CrowdStrike, the private security group the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hired to analyze the Russian hacks on its servers, and the firing of a prosecutor who had allegedly looked into matters related to a company with which Biden’s son had business dealings.
The transcript does not include any mention of tying military aid to his request.
Democrats in the House reportedly considered masking one of the whistleblower’s voice and appearance in an effort to convince him to testify, according to The Washington Post, citing three officials familiar with the matter.
Yet New York Times reporters wrote he was a CIA officer who had been detailed to the White House’s NSC.
“If the president is worried about our hiring any former administration people, maybe he should work on being a better employer,” Schiff said in February.
An aide told CNN that month: “We have hired people with prior experience on the National Security Council staff for oversight of the agencies, and will continue to do so at our discretion. We do not discriminate against potential hires on the basis of their prior work experience, including the administration.”
A spokesperson for Schiff did not immediately return the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Luke Rosiak is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
