VIEW from behind the plow

Rep. Adam Schiff, the point man in the effort by left-wing Democrats to impeach President Trump, is receiving great gobs of press these days. It’s something Schiff seems to thrive on. The more his tales unravel about President Trump, the more manic he acts. As a highly visible public figure, Schiff’s actions make him open to editorial comment. The mass media is quick to comment on President Trump’s mental state, so why don’t they take a peek at Schiff. A news article from Free Press International, a decidedly conservative source, relates that the impeachment spotlight shifts to the Intelligence Committee chairman’s (that’s Schiff’s) credibility. It writes the following: Those who aren’t fans have plenty of ways to describe Rep. Adam Schiff: Deceptive. Disingenuous. Eternal evangelist for the bogus dossier. The Jussie Smollett of Congress on steroids. Puppet of George Soros. Pencil neck. But as the Ukraine whistleblower saga unravels in real time, so, critics say, does the credibility of the California Democrat who is chair of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. In an Oct. 8 analysis for The Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough wrote that Schiff, who is leading the closed-door impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, “has left a trail of anti-Trump allegations that remain unproven or conflict with the official record.” In his most recent allegation, Schiff during a Sept. 26 nationally televised hearing said that Trump requested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fabricate evidence against Joe Biden. “In other words, Trump was asking Zelenskyy to commit a felony,” Scarborough wrote. Such a request isn’t in the transcript of the July Trump-Zelenskyy phone call. Challenged by Republicans, Schiff defended his version of the call as his own personal “parody.” Democrats claim Trump pressured Zelenskyy to investigate the Bidens by threatening to withhold approved military aid. Zelenskyy on Oct. 10 said that was not true. “There was no blackmail,” Zelenskyy said. ... Schiff “shifted his defense,” Scarborough noted. Two days after the so-called “parody” quote, Schiff tweeted that the unidentified anti-Trump whistleblower “confirmed” the quote. “He didn’t explain where. It isn’t in the nine-page complaint against Trump that the whistleblower, a CIA analyst and Democrat, sent the House and Senate intelligence committees,” Scarborough wrote. Republicans also accuse Schiff of lying about when he or his staff had contact with the whistleblower. Schiff at first said there was no contact. Now it turns out that the person consulted with committee Democrats. “You know what else Adam Schiff has been saying to you and the American public that was not true?” said Rep. Lee M. Zeldin, New York Republican. “That he had no contact with the whistleblower — he’d like to, but he didn’t have any contact. He lied.” Scarborough cited other examples of Schiff’s “dubious assertions” since early 2017:

The Steele dossier

At a March 2017 hearing with FBI Director James Comey at the witness table, Schiff repeatedly cited the discredited Christopher Steele dossier. He gave credence to a list of unverified felony charges against Trump. The allegations came straight from the Kremlin, creating the irony of Schiff using Moscow’s election-year allegations against Trump to investigate the Russians’ own U.S. election meddling. Since that hearing, Republicans forced the disclosure that it was Schiff’s Democratic Party that funded Steele. None of the 13 separate conspiracy allegations in the dossier proved true. Mueller found no Trump conspiracy in his report. Schiff fought efforts to find out who funded the dossier and how the FBI used it to target Trump.

Misleading a judge

In 2018, Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and then-chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a report on how the FBI used the dossier to persuade a judge to approve a year’s worth of wiretaps on Carter Page. Schiff issued a counter-memo that the established press accepted, labeling Nunes’ paper “debunked.” The column goes on for many paragraphs rebutting Schiff point by point. The point that seems so strange is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for an impeachment “inquiry.” The impeachment process requires a majority vote of the House of Representatives. It would appear House Democrats don’t have the votes to call for impeachment. President Trump annnounced he would not cooperate with the House in an unconstitutional process. The “inquiry” is a political trick to keep the left supplied with political talking points until the 2020 election.

The Schiff maneuver is purely political and normal Americans seem to be less and less interested in the charade designed to undo the 2016 election.

The left’s hope now seems to be convince voters that President Trump is unfit to serve.

His record indicates just the opposite. The economy is much improved, fair trade with other governments is being accomplished and the president is fulfilling his campaign promises including ending endless wars.

The left is furious because President Trump is putting America first after decades of America playing stooge in international affairs, padding the bank accounts of the elite in the process.

Americans elected President Trump because they were tired of being handed the bill for funerals for brave young men and women sent as policemen to far-off places where fighting has raged for thousands of years.

The elite scoff at the Trump doctrine that puts America first.

Voters can decide who is out of step next year.