Deeply Hostile Comrade Schiff: His Credibility Falls To ZERO

A year ago, two Russian comedians, Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, using master troll-level skills pranked the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee by offering to give him “compromising” dirt on Donald Trump which included nude photos of the President and a Russian reality show star.

The two cooked up an elaborate story claiming the President had an affair with Russian glamour model Olga Buzova after a Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and naked pictures of him were passed to Vladimir Putin by his 'goddaughter' Ksenia Sobchak.

So desperate is Adam Schiff (D-CA) for a means to take down this president (and I hope you’ll pardon my grotesquery) if you gave him a whiff of Trump’s ass he’d crawl right in it.

The Daily Mail exclusive reveals:

“Schiff began the call by thanking the 'chairman' Andriy Parubiy for his time and warning him that Russian spies were likely listening in. 'I would caution that our Russian friends may be listening to the conversation, so I wouldn't share anything over the phone that you wouldn't want them to hear,' said Schiff.”

“I don't think that will impact on our investigation,” Kuznetsov told Schiff in an attempt to reassure him.

“The fake Parubiy claimed the Ukrainian government had obtained recordings and documents that proved Vladimir Putin was blackmailing Trump with naked photos taken during an affair between the president and a Russian glamour model.”

“Kuznetsov also claimed the Ukrainians recorded secret meetings between a Trump campaign aide and a famous Russian singer-turned-spy that took place at a non-existent mafia hangout in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach.”

“A spokesperson for Schiff confirmed he was on the call but claimed the congressman had suspicions that the caller might not be Parubiy and reported it to law enforcement last April.”

“The spokesperson declined to address on the record why a staff member pursued the ‘politician” after the call if the congressman thought it was fake.”

The Daily Mail has copies of three emails from Schiff aide Rheanne Wirkkala demonstrating Schiff had taken the bait hook, line and sinker.

"We wanted to talk to someone who specifically works on intelligence and give him a completely insane version of events," Kuznetsov told The Atlantic of the call to Schiff. Stolyarov added that the pair had given Schiff "a bunch of disinformation" and described the call as "completely absurd."

And if being thoroughly hosed by two Russian comedians wasn’t embarrassing enough for Schiff, yesterday there emerged a story of him appearing on the Kremlin-funded media outlet RT America in 2013─a channel he criticized for being a Russian propaganda network.

Schiff's RT interview in 2013 came on the heels of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's massive leak of classified information on U.S. surveillance systems and methods, touching off an explosive debate on privacy and security and whether Snowden was a whistleblower or a traitor.

"I think they'll have the cumulative impact of making the FISA court much more transparent, so the American people can understand what's being done in their name in the name of national security, so that we can have a more informed debate over the balance between privacy and security," Schiff said. "I think this can be accomplished while also maintaining sources and methods, and not compromising some of the very real national security concerns at stake."

His comments on Russia Today stand in stark contrast to his crybaby lamentations of Rep. Devin Nunes’ memo on FISA abuses released last week.

He branded the GOP memo "a political hit job" and has questioned whether Nunes  had coordinated with the White House in drafting the document seized on by the president to vent his grievances against the nation's premier law enforcement agencies.

"The goal here is to undermine the FBI, discredit the FBI, discredit the Mueller investigation, do the president's bidding," Schiff said. "I think it's very possible his staff worked with the White House."

All this should finish Schiff’s career as a politician, but we all know it won’t. 

Schumer Shutdown: The State Of Play

After a continuing resolution to keep the government open was passed in December of 2017, Democrats signaled they would not support future spending bills, even clean ones, until the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) were addressed. FISA is a done deal. CHIP was funded for six years with the House spending bill that passed on January 18th and DACA permits won’t expire until March 5th. 

President Trump issued a six-month enforcement delay on DACA when he decided to wind down the program gradually last September, citing the Obama-era program as constitutionally questionable. The delay was meant for Congress to get the DACA legislation right. 

The mantra from the Left when the government shutdown became effective was Republicans control the White House, the House and the Senate.  The Senate make-up is comprised of 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats.  The Democrats do not control the Senate, but they can obstruct any and all bills due to the 60-vote threshold required to pass legislation.  Majority Leader McConnell asked to take up the Continuing Resolution that would have prevented the shutdown, but Sen. Schumer objected.

During the 2013 debt ceiling negotiations, Sen. Schumer noted tying immigration to budgetary matters was an exercise in chaos. “You know, we could do the same thing on immigration. We believe strongly in immigration reform. We could say, ‘We’re shutting down the government, we’re not gonna raise the debt ceiling, until you pass immigration reform.’ It would be governmental chaos.”

As Congressional leaders and White House officials ran around Capitol Hill like chickens with their heads cut off during a rare Saturday session, Chuck Schumer spoke with a poster strategically placed in the background as he spoke from the floor.  The poster read:  Trump Shutdown.

Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) spoke from the well of the House with a poster behind him as well which had a photo of Schumer and his 2013 quote:  “A government shutdown is the politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis.”  This rankled the Democrats who objected to the poster’s presence on the floor.  There was a vote and The Great Poster War of 2018 was settled allowing Byrne to continue his speech.

On Saturday evening, McConnell said he would force another vote on a short-term funding bill at 1 a.m. Monday, unless there's an agreement before then. That will ramp up the pressure on both sides to come up with a deal over the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the Twitterverse rightly mocked the Schumer Shutdown.  The graphic above uses an image from the 2009 film The Road.  Within the graphic I took a tweet from Jonah Goldberg I found most amusing.  His tweet was a perfect smackdown of a tweet from CNN’s Jim Acosta lamenting a “completely empty” snack machine in the White House.

5:55 in DC. Dusk falls. GAO and CBO have devastated the Botanical Garden with their pitiless battle for control over the Rayburn Office Building. Corpses lie amidst shattered glass, illuminated by the burning piles of draft legislation. Look away, someone says, but you cannot.

— (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) January 20, 2018