How Did That Hole Get There?

Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment inquisitor, Adam Schiff, gave opening remarks on September 26, 2019 during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on the whistleblower complaint against President Trump as it pertained to his congratulatory phone call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky that did not square with the facts.

Schiff said in his opening statement, and in numerous TV interviews, that Trump had asked Zelensky to “make up” or “manufacture” dirt on Trump’s potential 2020 opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. That is patently false. Trump asked Zelensky to investigate, not provide false information.

Here’s the transcript of his remarks:

“It reads like a classic organized crime shakedown. Shorn of its rambling character, and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the President communicates. ‘We’ve been very good to your country, very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what? I don’t see much reciprocity here. I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you though. And I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of it. On this and on that. I’m going to put you in touch with people, not just any people, I am going to put you in touch with the Attorney General of the United States, my Attorney General Bill Barr. He’s got the whole weight of the American law enforcement behind him. And I’m going to put you in touch with Rudy. You’re going to love him. Trust me. You know what I’m asking. And so I’m only going to say this a few more times. In a few more ways. And by the way, don’t call me again. I’ll call you when you’ve done what I asked.’” 

“This is in sum and character what the President was trying to communicate with the President of Ukraine. It would be funny if it wasn’t such a graphic betrayal of the President’s Oath of Office. But as it does represent a real betrayal, there’s nothing the President says here that is in America’s interest after all.”

Andrew McCarthy, who served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is currently a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Director of the FDD’s Center for Law and Counterterrorism and served as an adjunct professor at New York Law School and Fordham University School of Law recently opined, “Adam Schiff is a smart guy. He did not idly dream up a “make up dirt” parody. He framed it because he knows that’s the kind of misconduct you would need to prove to warrant impeachment and removal of a president. In fact, Schiff could never prove that, but he figured parody is good enough for 2020 campaign purposes—and that’s what this [impeachment] exercise is all about.”

That is the gigantic sinkhole the Democrats have fallen into and from which they cannot extricate themselves.  If collusion with Russia had been a fact rather than a flight of fancy, the votes to impeach President Trump would have been overwhelming and he would have had to resign.  We’d be talking about President Mike Pence’s upcoming State of the Union Address and the Democrats would be shitting skittles and rainbows rather than clambering to find someone to “take out Donald Trump.”