Trump: Schiff 'made up my words'

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday intensified his attacks on a lawmaker leading the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry, suggesting that congressman Adam Schiff should be arrested for "treason."

Witnesses are due to testify in the House this week in hearings related to Trump's request that a foreign power investigate Joe Biden, one of the leading Democratic candidates seeking to challenge him in 2020.

A U.S. intelligence official filed a whistleblower complaint citing a July 25 telephone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

The whistleblower has not been publicly identified.

In a series of Twitter posts on Monday morning, Trump appeared to reference comments made by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff during a committee hearing last week.

In those comments, Schiff says the call to Zelenskiy "reads like a classic organized crime shakedown" and parodies the president's remarks.

"Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people. It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?" Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

A spokesman for Schiff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Intelligence Committee is leading the inquiry in the Democratic-led House which could lead to approval of articles of impeachment against the Republican president and a subsequent trial in the Republican-led Senate on whether to remove Trump from office.

Schiff said on Sunday he expects the whistleblower to appear before the panel very soon.