Rep. Andy Biggs: Adam Schiff deserves House censure – Trump-hating Dem unfit to lead impeachment inquiry
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}I have introduced a motion in the House of Representatives to censure Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., because he has disqualified himself to lead any impeachment proceedings against President Trump by his outrageous statements and conduct, and deserves no sympathy.
While Trump-hating House Democrats are backing Schiff in partisan solidarity, anyone taking a fair look at his actions over the past two years must conclude that he is unfit to lead the Democrats’ never-ending pursuit of the impeachment of the duly elected president of the United States.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has done Schiff no favor by giving him the high-profile assignment of spearheading the Democrats’ anti-Trump crusade to overturn the results of the 2016 election.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MCCARTHY SIGNS ON TO RESOLUTION TO CENSURE SCHIFF FOR 'PARODY' READING OF UKRAINE CALL
Schiff has no credibility to lead impeachment proceedings in the House over Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., for at least three reasons.
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First, Schiff has spent much of the last three years falsely proclaiming to the world that there was clear and unequivocal evidence that the 2016 Trump campaign colluded, conspired, cooperated and coordinated with Russians to bring about Trump’s election victory and Hillary Clinton’s defeat.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Oops. Turns out that not even the highly partisan investigators of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team agreed with Schiff’s absurd claim. Schiff had gone way out on a limb, then sawed it off with his erroneous predictions. His single-minded intense focus to remove Trump from office trumped his ability to view the evidence.
Later, Schiff was spoofed by a couple of comedians into admitting that he would love to receive dirt from the Ukrainians about President Trump. The YouTube video of that faux pas is making the rounds again thanks to my colleague Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
This leads us to the inevitable conclusion that the impeachment inquiry will be unfair, without due process, and presided over by an individual who is so biased that he has made impeachment his No. 1 goal since the day after Trump was elected president in 2016.
Schiff was punked, but nevertheless, he demonstrated that his blind hatred of President Trump has blinded him to the truth about the president’s innocence regarding the many baseless accusations against him.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The latest of Schiff’s many mistakes and untrue claims was his complete fabrication while presiding over a recent House Intelligence Committee hearing. In that hearing, he pretended to read from a transcript of a telephone conversation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump. In his rendition, he made totally false claims.
Schiff later defended his slander by asserting that he was engaged in parody. His lame attempt at comedy was the final piece of evidence proving his unworthiness to preside over the informal and unauthorized impeachment hearings being foisted upon the country by House Democrats.
As my resolution of censure against Schiff states, his phony version of the Trump-Zelensky phone call was “an egregiously false and fabricated retelling” that “had no relationship to the call itself.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}My resolution goes on to state that “these actions of Chairman Schiff misled the American people, bring disrepute upon the House of Representatives, and make a mockery of the impeachment process, one of this chamber’s most solemn constitutional duties."
Schiff simply does not have the gravitas that a weighty procedure such as impeachment requires. He has repeatedly shown incredibly poor judgement. He has persistently and consistently demonstrated that he has such a tremendous bias and animus against Trump that he will say anything and accept any proffer of even bogus evidence to try to remove the president from office.
It is likely that Schiff wouldn’t have received his leading role except that the House Judiciary Committee has proven to be an even bigger disaster in the highly partisan efforts of Democrats to take down the president and overturn the will of the American voters.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Exhibit A was the devastating hearing at which former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski testified last month. In that hearing, Lewandowski embarrassed the Democrats on the committee. Their fellow Democrats, who watched that train wreck, acknowledged the disaster.
Added to the lightweight efforts of the Intelligence Committee chairman are the strictures left on him by Speaker Pelosi. She has decided to keep the impeachment inquiry informal, rather than asking for and receiving a majority vote of the House to allow a formal impeachment investigation.
An informal impeachment inquiry requires that Chairman Schiff must comply with standard oversight rules instead of more expansive rules under impeachment precedents. That should limit how he can use subpoenas.
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This informal inquiry is a departure from the impeachment proceedings against Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. In those hearings, the minority party could subpoena witnesses and the president was allowed to have attorneys represent him and participate in the hearings.
It is obvious that Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats are so invested with the notion of impeaching President Trump that they will not abide by the formalities of process and clearly established precedent.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This leads us to the inevitable conclusion that the impeachment inquiry will be unfair, without due process, and presided over by an individual who is so biased that he has made impeachment his No. 1 goal since the day after Trump was elected president in 2016.
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As President Trump told reporters Wednesday, the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is “a fraudulent crime on the American people.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The American people should make it clear to House Democrats that the will of the voters must not be negated in the heavy-handed and unfair manner that is driven by Trump Derangement Syndrome rather than the facts.