Schiff Impeachment Report Only Mentions One Crime And It Has Nothing To Do With The Whistleblower
The House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) released the Democrats’ report on impeachment Tuesday and the only crime it mentioned had nothing to do with the whistleblower.
The report is a fact-finding document traditionally handled by the House Judiciary Committee that will start its own hearings on Wednesday.
One part of the report focuses on the substance of the allegations against the president, the other claims President Trump obstructed the committee’s investigation.
There is not one mention of “bribery,” nor any crime except witness intimidation. Breitbart News reports:
The report never spells out any precise grounds for impeachment, though it appears to argue that Trump abused his power. (As former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein wrote in 2017, “abuse of power” is an insufficient basis for impeachment because it would apply to every president, all of whom arguably overstepped the bounds of their authority.)
In the first part of the report, Schiff and his committee use the term “political favor” to desribe President Trump’s request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he investigate possible interference in the 2016 election, as well as possible corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who was appointed to the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian company suspected of corrupt practices. The report appears to ignore the fact that Democrats’ own witnesses acknowledged that Ukraine “bet on the wrong horse” in 2016, and that the Obama administration itself had been concerned about Joe Biden’s self-evident conflict of interest.
In the second part of the report, Democrats accuse Trump of obstructing the impeachment inquiry, without noting that it began without congressional authorization, was largely handled in closed-door sessions, and departed from well-established precedent by denying the White House legal representation.
Schiff’s report claims that the White House tried to stop witnesses from testifying, though there were several members of the administration who did so, and who testified that no one had told them not to. The report also accuses Trump of witness intimidation through public criticism of several witnesses, as well as tweets criticizing some of those who testified against him, including claims that they were “Never Trumpers.”
So after all that the whistleblower doesn’t even end up playing any significant role in the Democrat’s attempt to impeach the President. You can read the full report here.