Adam Schiff, who famously claimed to have evidence of collusion and recently fabricated Trump quotes during a congressional hearing says that House Democrats are determined to get more transcripts of Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders over “concerns” of national security.
Appearing on NBC’s Meet The Press, Schiff said, “I think the paramount need here is to protect the national security of the United States and see whether in the conversations with other world leaders and in particular with Putin that the president was also undermining our security in a way that he thought would personally benefit his campaign.”
So, to put this another way: Schiff, without evidence or proof of a breach of national security, wants to break down the separation of powers in order to access transcripts between Trump and various foreign leaders. Schiff’s specifically mentioning Putin is particularly interesting since collusion with Russia was spectacularly disproven by the Mueller report. Schiff clearly still holds on to the belief that collusion occurred—which makes sense Schiff lied about having evidence collusion and lied about what was in the Trump/Zelensky transcript.
Schiff knows very well that they are not going to get transcripts of phone calls without any legitimate reason. It seems clear that such a request violates the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. But, getting the transcripts of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders likely isn’t Schiff’s goal. Schiff knows Congress has no right or expectation to have access to those transcripts. But, refusal to provide them gives Schiff and other members fuel to charge Trump and the White House of a cover-up. Schiff is hoping the optics will benefit his party’s longstanding dream of impeachment.
Later on Meet The Press, Hugh Hewitt said Schiff “I believe he destroyed his credibility this morning on this show as a fair arbitrator of this process.”
Hugh Hewitt: Adam Schiff has “destroyed his credibility”https://t.co/PbdKvXucOp pic.twitter.com/pMqRSvkT1q
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 29, 2019
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