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Donald Trump calls for Adam Schiff’s resignation, as Nancy Pelosi says Attorney General William Barr has ‘gone rogue’

Fallout continued Friday from an explosive whistle-blower complaint about Trump's July phone call with the leader of Ukraine.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., questions Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire on Thursday.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., questions Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire on Thursday.Read morePablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump called Friday for the resignation of the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Attorney General William Barr of having "gone rogue" and said she's praying for God to "illuminate" Trump.

The fallout from a whistle-blower's complaint about Trump's July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky played out on Twitter and television Friday, as the number of Democrats supporting the impeachment inquiry launched by Pelosi continued to grow.

Trump fired off a series of midmorning tweets, once again claiming his conversation with Zelensky was “perfect” and taking aim again at House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Shortly afterward, he renewed his call from earlier Friday for Schiff to resign for what Trump contended was embellishing Trump’s conversation with Zelensky during remarks during a hearing Thursday hearing with acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire.

"Rep. Adam Schiff totally made up my conversation with Ukraine President and read it to Congress and Millions," Trump wrote. "He must resign and be investigated. He has been doing this for two years. He is a sick man!"

Following Thursday's hearing, Schiff explained that his summary of Trump's call "was meant to be at least part in parody."

In his midmorning tweets, Trump also declared that, "The Democrats are now to be known as the DO NOTHING PARTY!"

Schiff took to Twitter on Friday morning to respond to Trump's call for him to resign for offering an embellished account of Trump's phone conversation with Zelensky during Thursday's House Intelligence Committee hearing.

"You engaged in a shakedown to get election dirt from a foreign country. And then you tried to cover it up," Schiff tweeted. "But you're right about one thing — your words need no mockery. Your own words and deeds mock themselves. But most importantly here, they endanger our country."

Trump also speculated on Twitter on Friday morning that the whistle-blower might have received information from "a leaker or spy" or a "partisan operative." He offered no evidence for his suggestions.

"Sounding more and more like the so-called Whistleblower isn't a Whistleblower at all," the president tweeted. "In addition, all second hand information that proved to be so inaccurate that there may not have even been somebody else, a leaker or spy, feeding it to him or her? A partisan operative?"

Earlier Friday, Trump personal attorney Jay Sekulow claimed that the whistle-blower complaint wasn't written by the whistle-blower.

"Look at the phraseology, the endnotes and the footnotes," Sekulow said during an appearance on Fox News's "Fox & Friends. "This wasn't drafted by this individual. This was written by a law firm."

During a morning television appearance, Pelosi said she is praying for Trump and accused Barr of have "gone rogue" in his handling of the fallout from Trump's call with Zelensky.

In the midst of a discussion about her decision to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump, Pelosi said: "I pray that God will illuminate him to see right from wrong. It's very problematic."

At other points during her appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Pelosi also accused Trump of "being disloyal to the oath of his office" and having used taxpayer dollars to "shake down" Zelensky.

Pelosi was referring to the fact that Trump had suspended military aid to Ukraine at the time of the phone conversation with Zelensky, in which he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens.

Trump has said repeatedly that there was "no quid pro quo."

During the interview, Pelosi was also highly critical of Barr's handling of the episode.

Barr's Justice Department played a central role in holding up the disclosure of the whistle-blower complaint to Congress.

As acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire testified Thursday, he consulted the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which overruled the inspector general's determination that the complaint was of "urgent concern," a legal threshold that would have required disclosure to Congress within seven days.

“He’s gone rogue,” Pelosi said of Barr, adding: “I think where they’re going is a cover-up of the cover-up.”

Meanwhile, nearly 300 former U.S. national security and foreign policy officials have signed a statement warning that Trump's actions regarding Ukraine are a "profound national security concern" and supporting an impeachment inquiry by Congress to determine "the facts."

"To be clear, we do not wish to prejudge the totality of the facts or Congress' deliberative process," said the statement, released Friday. "At the same time, there is no escaping that what we already know is serious enough to merit impeachment proceedings."

The collection of signatures was set in motion by National Security Action, an organization founded and largely populated by officials from the Obama administration to call attention to Trump's "reckless leadership."

Many of the signers are former Obama officials. But the list includes others who served as career officials in both Democratic and Republican administrations, including Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s national security division under President George W. Bush and director of the National Counterterrorism Center under President Barack Obama.