Trump on impeachment: ‘I want a trial’

President Trump said Friday that he wants an impeachment trial in the Senate if the House votes to impeach him.

“I want a trial,” Trump said during an interview on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning. “There’s nothing there.”

Trump also cast doubt on whether the House would vote to impeach him, insisting his phone call with Ukraine’s president was “totally appropriate” and saying House Democrats would be “crazy” to put impeachment to a vote.

“There should never be an impeachment, that phone call was totally appropriate,” Trump said.

“If they do put it up, they’re crazy,” Trump continued. “[House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Adam Schiff is a nut job.”

Trump’s remarks came a day after a group of senators met with White House counsel Pat Cipollone to discuss the strategy going forward on impeachment and the timing of a potential Senate trial.

Trump said Friday that he wanted Schiff, a California Democrat and one of the president’s fiercest critics in Congress, to testify at an impeachment trial as well as the anonymous whistleblower who filed a complaint raising concerns about his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump also said he wanted Hunter Biden, whom he asked Ukraine to investigate on the July 25 call with Zelensky, to testify.

“Well, there’s only one person I want more than Where’s Hunter,” Trump said, mocking Vice President Joe Biden’s son. “And that person is Adam Schiff.”

“I want to see Adam Schiff testify about the whistleblower who was a fake whistleblower,” Trump said, adding that the whistleblower complaint “bore no relationship to his call.”

“The whistleblower in my opinion is a political operative,” Trump continued, without providing specific evidence to back up his claims. Trump said he knew the identity of the whistleblower, who remains anonymous, and asserted “everybody knows it.”

A rough transcript of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky and the whistleblower complaint, which alleged that Trump was soliciting interference in the 2020 presidential election, have been released publicly. The whistleblower did not witness Trump’s call with Zelensky first hand, but the person’s description of the call in the complaint matched up closely with the rough transcript of the conversation released by the White House. 

House Democrats heard from a dozen witnesses in connection with the impeachment inquiry this week. The House is expected to draft and then vote on articles of impeachment by the end of next year.