Lead impeachment manager Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff says President Trump's lawyers made a "powerful case" on the Senate floor today as to why John Bolton ought to be called to testify.

Asked about the repeated attacks against him personally by Trump's team, Schiff called it "tactic" meant to distract from a "weak" case by the defense.

"I mean, this is again, a criminal defense tactic which is when the evidence is damning against your client, you attack the prosecution. So, there's nothing new or notable about that. Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't done more of that because the case is so weak," he said.

Asked by CNN if there's any situations where he would appear as a witness, Schiff said, "I don't have anything to add." 

He added: "Why is it that the President can't call anyone who worked around him in his defense? And the answer is they know he's guilty. And so they want to throw up this false choice. Well, we're just going to seek to inflict pain on the other side by calling Hunter Biden or irrelevant people like Adam Schiff. The American people can see through that." 

See Also: Meghan McCain Addresses her Fight with Abby Huntsman: “It’s cruel, it’s very cruel and this has been a really, really, rough few weeks for me."

On behalf of many Republican Senators, including Hawley and Cruz, Ron Johnson submitted a question to both the House Managers and the President’s counsel regarding the Whistleblower and Sean Misko which Schiff didn’t like and refused to answer.

Rep. Adam Schiff: "This question refers to allegation in a newspaper article which are circulating smears on my staff and ask me to respond to those smears. I will not dignify those smears on my staff by giving them any credence whatsoever."

Watch:

The question which is too long to transcribe, related to the early 2017 meeting between whistleblower Eric Ciaramella, Sean Misko and Vindman where they were all overheard saying they needed to take Trump out. Johnson also wanted to know why Schiff suddenly hired Misko the day after Trump’s phone call with Zelensky and what role Misko played in the investigation.

As you can see from the tweet, Schiff took umbrage at the question and refused to answer it, calling it smears against his staff. He also berated Republicans for attacking the whistleblower, something he said the statute protects against. That portion starts at 1:55 in the video.

Trump’s legal team responded at 4:44, pointing out that Schiff is the one who made the whistleblower relevant, claiming he would testify. They also pointed out that the whistleblower statute only protects against retribution in terms of job loss and has nothing to do with the relevance of the whistleblower.

Watch the video for more…