House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s impeachment report on what he calls President Trump’s “scheme” with “agents” to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in 2020 was exactly what you’d expect if you watched the hearings on TV. But then came the footnotes.
Way back in the footnotes were records of phone calls, helpfully produced and highlighted, between Trump’s private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Congressman Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intel Committee, Schiff’s colleague. You read that right. Schiff appears to have spied on Devin Nunes.
Schiff got the phone records of Giuliani’s calls with the White House.
And then there were the call records of Lev Parnas, a Giuliani associate, who’s fighting campaign finance charges, and a number of people, including former Hill reporter John Solomon; attorneys Victoria Toensing and Jay Sekulow, both of whom have represented President Trump; along with Nunes.
Schiff didn’t divulge phone calls between Parnas and any other reporters, congressional representatives, or attorneys but claims the dates on which the phone calls happened reveal multiple conversations in advance of Trump’s sacking his Ukrainian Ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, which, by the way, isn’t against the law.
Schiff claims the people and phone calls showed that there was an orchestrated effort to investigate Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s dealings in advance of the 2020 election.
Reporter John Solomon was also highlighted for talking to Parnas, an apparent source, with the fruits of the conversations perhaps being the following stories:
April 1: Solomon publishes op-ed titled "Joe Biden's 2020 Ukrainian Nightmare"
April 1 to 7: Parnas on the phone with Giuliani about 16 times and with Solomon about 10 times.
April 7: Follow-up opinion piece by Solomon smearing Yovanovitch pic.twitter.com/4shuUldTK7
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) December 3, 2019
Schiff has repeatedly gone after Solomon, accusing him of peddling “conspiracy theories.” The political pressure on The Hill by Schiff and his acolytes prompted Solomon to leave. Editor in Chief Bob Cusack said on Twitter that he would “meticulously” go over all of Solomon’s Ukraine opinion columns.
What's there to review in an opiniom column? It's an opinion. Take it or leave it. cc @jsolomonReports
— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) December 3, 2019
Schiff described Solomon in the “key people” part of the impeachment report as the “author of articles promoting debunked conspiracy theories about the Bidens, Crowdstrike, and the 2016 U.S. election.”
Schiff succeeded in issuing his report the day before Congressman Jerry Nadler’s Judiciary Committee gavels in its impeachment hearings and before next week’s release of the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the Obama FBI and DOJ in its investigation into President Trump’s campaign.
Nunes responded to the Schiff Show with a show of his own. He tweeted this link:
Goodnight Vienna! Enjoy https://t.co/9LmOAszkQ3
— Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) December 4, 2019
Which led to this Instagram posting of an arcane by song Ringo Starr and John Lennon entitled, “Goodnight Vienna.”
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