Schiff Confronted in Explosive House Hearing: We ‘Urge Your Immediate Resignation’…
BY GRACE SEGERS, OLIVIA GAZIS
Every Republican on the House Intelligence Committee is calling on Chairman Adam Schiff to resign Thursday, accusing the California Democrat of weaving a “demonstrably false” narrative of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and “undermining” the credibility of the panel.
At a hearing Thursday, Republican Rep. Mike Conaway read a letter that argued that Schiff has been “at the center of a well-orchestrated media campaign claiming, among other things, the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government.”
A visibly emotional Schiff, who did not know this broadside from Republicans was coming, had a strident response. At times raising his voice, he listed a litany of known and controversial interactions between the Trump campaign and Russia – including Donald Trump, Jr’s involvement in the Trump Tower meeting and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort‘s sharing of polling data with a Russian associate.
“You might think it’s okay,” Schiff said. “I don’t.”
Since special counsel Robert Mueller did not find that Trump campaign associates had colluded with the Kremlin, according to a letter sent to Congress by Attorney General William Barr, Republicans believe that Schiff’s continued investigation of Mr. Trump and his associates is an example of congressional overreach, and they accused him of abusing his position to “knowingly promote false information.”
“Your willingness to continue to promote a demonstrably false narrative is alarming,” said the letter read by Conaway. “The findings of the Special Counsel conclusively refute your past and present assertions and have exposed you as having abused your position to knowingly promote false information, having damaged the integrity of this Committee, and undermined faith in U.S. government institutions.”
The letter also says that Republicans have “no faith in your ability to discharge your duties in a manner consistent with your Constitutional responsibility and urge your immediate resignation as Chairman of this Committee.” The letter was signed by all nine Republican members of the committee, including moderate Reps. Elise Stefanik and Will Hurd.
President Trump is also picking a fight with Schiff, echoing the call on him to resign.
The committee has been riven by infighting since before Democrats took the majority in the 2018 midterm elections. The Republican-led Russia probe broke down along party lines — Republicans concluded there was no evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded, coordinated or conspired with the Russian government. Democrats decried the investigation as superficial and vowed to continue pulling threads they said Republicans ignored.
Asked about the sudden push by Republicans for him to step aside, Schiff told CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe Wednesday, “I’m used to attacks from the president and his allies in Congress. This is really nothing new and nothing unexpected.”
Emily Tillett contributed to this report
WATCH: USC STUDENTS REACT TO MUELLER’S TRUMP-RUSSIA CONCLUSIONS
Even in one of the most liberal areas of the country, the collusion myth is dead
MARCH 26, 2019
Austen Fletcher of Fleccas Talks interviewed students on the University of Southern California campus to find out if they’re happy the Mueller report concluded President Trump did not collude with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
The majority of students felt Mueller’s findings were positive for America and that those who pushed the false narrative are now exposed as fake news.
With an already decaying trust in mainstream media, the public’s increasing skepticism will presumably help Trump lock-in a 2020 election victory.
DEMS: PLAN B… TAX RETURNS!
By Billy House
(Bloomberg) — Robert Mueller’s final report robbed Democrats of what they hoped would be a devastating blow to President Donald Trump. And, after defending the special counsel’s integrity for more than a year, they have little room to challenge his conclusion there was no conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.
Yet, even before the special counsel’s 22-month probe ended, Democrats were already working under a Plan B to undermine Trump going into the 2020 presidential race, through investigations led by House committees now under their control.
“We’re going to move forward with our investigations of obstruction of justice, abuses of power, corruption, to defend the rule of law, which is our job,” House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said Sunday at a news conference in New York. “It’s a broader mandate than the special prosecutor had.”
The strategy poses risks for the Democrats, particularly if voters prove tired of talk of investigating Trump now that Mueller has completed his work. In addition, the probes could overshadow their agenda, particularly on issues like health care that helped the party take back the House in 2018.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the Mueller report a “two-year waste of taxpayer time and dollars” in an appearance Monday on NBC’s “Today” program. “We are all very glad it’s over and we can move forward and focus on things that really matter,” she said.
Within an hour of Attorney General William Barr delivering a summary of Mueller’s report to Congress, Nadler said his panel will call the attorney general to testify about “very concerning discrepancies and decisions at the department” in its interpretation of Mueller’s findings, particularly the decision not to pursue an obstruction of justice prosecution.
‘More Questions’
Barr’s “conclusions raise more questions than they answer given the fact that Mueller uncovered evidence that in his own words does not exonerate the president” on obstruction, Nadler said.
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Fox Monday morning that Americans should breathe a “sigh of relief” at Mueller’s report.
“It’s quite clear that this group was hardly a group of Trump fans,” Giuliani said during n appearance Monday on Fox News. “It was thorough and it was conducted by people who had a bias to get him.”
Another Trump lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said on MSNBC, “It’s very hard to complain when you’ve got this letter from the Department of Justice.”
Investigations in the Democratic-controlled House stretch across six committees, including Nadler’s Judiciary panel along with the Intelligence, Financial Services and Oversight Committees. The topics for investigation include alleged public corruption, presidential abuses of power, Trump’s banking relationships, his tax returns and efforts to quash embarrassing stories about the president in coordination with the National Enquirer.
One benefit for Democrats is that it may ease pressure for now from a faction of House members who’ve been pressing to begin impeachment proceedings. With polls showing most of the public didn’t support impeaching the president even before Mueller’s findings, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been trying to tamp down that talk. Barr’s description of Mueller’s report as finding no criminality makes her caution appear savvy.
Political Attack
Republicans dismiss the House investigations as a fall-back strategy long planned in case the Russian collusion narrative collapsed, as it did, under Mueller’s conclusions. They accuse Democrats of undertaking a wide-ranging congressional fishing expedition simply to wound Trump politically heading into the 2020 elections.
The House Judiciary panel’s top Republican, Doug Collins of Georgia, said Sunday he hopes Nadler “recognizes that what may be political fodder for Democrats may not be good for our country.”
Top Oversight Committee Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio added, “I hope this will put an end to the partisan and political investigations in Congress aimed at undermining President Trump.”
Democrats argue that oversight of the executive branch is a basic and important congressional role.
Previous Probes
“Apparently the Republican definition of oversight is harassment,” responded Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia, chair of the Oversight subcommittee on government operations. “And that’s a brand new definition.”
Connolly pointed to multiple, sustained investigations undertaken by Republicans when they controlled the House and Senate and Democrat Barack Obama was in the White House.
Those cited by Connolly include the long-running probes of the deadly 2012 attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, and scrutiny of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, as well as investigations into whether the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative or GOP-aligned political groups.
“If you’re going to be a phony, at least be sincere about it,” said Connolly of Republican complaints about politically motivated Democratic congressional oversight.
‘Fight and Win’
However, there was a political element to those investigations. Then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy boasted on Fox News in 2015 that the lengthy Benghazi investigation of Clinton, who went on to be the Democrats’ 2016 presidential nominee, was part of a “strategy to fight and win” by portraying her as untrustworthy. He said Clinton’s poll numbers dropped as a result.
Even before Barr’s letter on Sunday, Democrats were underscoring that they will fight — in court if necessary — to get Mueller’s full report, including its underlying documents. They say that material will help their probes.
“It will greatly facilitate our own investigation not to have to reinvent the wheel,”said Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, whose panel will be looking into any foreign influence over Trump. He said it would be “enormously time-consuming, and not entirely possible,” to retrace all of Mueller’s steps.
He, like other Democrats, called for public release of the entire Mueller report.
“I trust Mueller’s prosecutorial judgment, but the country must see the evidence,” Schiff said in a tweet.
Close Scrutiny
Schiff’s committee and other panels also are planning to hold public hearings to scrutinize Trump’s administration, and his personal business and finances, daring Trump to fight turning over documents and other material.
The House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment, has already sent out 81 requests for documents from the Trump administration, his family, associates, businesses and other entities. And that’s likely just the start of the demands for Trump-related materials.
Nadler said the focus won’t be limited to impeachable crimes and misdemeanors. Along with Intelligence and Judiciary, the Oversight and Reform, Financial Services, Foreign Affairs and Ways and Means committees also are pursuing Trump-related investigations and hearings.
For Trump’s allies and supporters, the continuing investigations may turn into a rallying point.
“Democrats took us on a frantic, chaotic, conspiracy-laden roller coaster for two years, alleging wrongdoing where there was none,” said Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale. “Their dirty tricks have not ended. Even today Democrats have picked up the disgraceful mantle of investigating, obstructing, and destroying the will of the American people at any cost.”
“They failed once and they will fail again,” he said.
(Updates with Sanders, Giuliani quotes starting in fifth paragraph.)
–With assistance from Erik Wasson and Terrence Dopp.
To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Joshua Gallu
‘LOSER’ JERRY NADLER HECKLED FOR REFUSING TO ACCEPT NO COLLUSION
‘You guys lose again. You lose again, Nadler!’
MARCH 25, 2019
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) was heckled while announcing new House probes into President Trump during the Democrats’ press conference reacting to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s findings of no collusion.
“Executive privilege must be asserted by the president personally –” Nadler began before getting cut off.
“You guys are a bunch of losers!” a man shouted to Nadler as he was laying out Democrats’ “Plan B” against Trump.
“–and, um, and as the Nixon case in front of the Supreme Court was decided nine to nothing pointed out –” Nadler tried to continue.
“You guys lose again. You lose again, Nadler!” the heckler shouted. “Good job, dirtbags, good job!”
The heckler continued interrupting Nadler after a reporter asked how his party would “move forward.”
“You’re behind, Nadler! You’re not gonna move forward!” the heckler shouted.
Nadler is among the Democrat leadership choosing to ignore Mueller’s “no collusion” findings because they don’t find it politically useful.
“You. Have. Been. Exposed,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) told House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Twitter.
“Stop the charade. There was no collusion. You used your unique position on the Intel Cmte to convince the American people that you had access to evidence of collusion. You lied and misled in order to pursue your political agenda.”
“Move on,” he added.
MAXINE MELTDOWN: ‘THIS IS NOT THE END OF ANYTHING!’
“This is the— well, it’s the end of the report and the investigation by Mueller. But those of us who chair these committees have a responsibility to continue with our oversight.”
Maxine Waters still believes the “Kremlin Klan” won the White House for President Trump, despite the evidence indicating otherwise.
But no one can convince her that just because Special Counsel Robert Mueller found there was no collusion with Russia, that it’s over.
“This is not the end of anything!” Waters told MSNBC’s Joy Reid as they realized the report was a giant nothing burger for Democrats.
“This is the— well, it’s the end of the report and the investigation by Mueller. But those of us who chair these committees have a responsibility to continue with our oversight,” Waters said.
“There’s so much that, uh, needs to be, you know, taken a look at at this point,” she claimed,” and so it’s not the end of everything.”
Reuters reports:
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election did not find that any U.S. or Trump campaign officials knowingly conspired with Russia, according to details released on Sunday.
Attorney General William Barr sent a summary of conclusions from the report to congressional leaders and the media on Sunday afternoon. Mueller concluded his investigation on Friday after nearly two years, turning in a report to the top U.S. law enforcement officer.
Barr wrote to congressional leaders that “the investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president,” according to the Daily Mail.
Democrats aren’t giving up.
House Intel Committee chairman Adam Schiff insisted on “This Week” that there is “significant evidence of collusion”.
SCHIFF WILL ‘HAUL PEOPLE BEFORE CONGRESS’ IF NECESSARY; WON’T RULE OUT IMPEACHMENT
“There’s a difference between compelling evidence of collusion and whether the special counsel concludes that he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt the criminal charge of conspiracy.”
By Susan Jones | March 25, 2019
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the head of the House intelligence committee, said on Sunday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller may not have had enough evidence to prosecute President Trump, “but that doesn’t mean, of course, that there isn’t compelling and incriminating evidence that should be shared with the American people.”
And he intends to “haul people before the Congress” to get answers.
Schiff, a leading congressional critic of President Trump, told ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos that “there’s a difference between compelling evidence of collusion and whether the special counsel concludes that he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt the criminal charge of conspiracy.
“And as I’ve said before, George, I leave that decision to Bob Mueller, and I have full confidence in him. And I think, frankly, the country owes Bob Mueller a debt of gratitude for conducting the investigation as professionally as he has.
“So I — I have trust his prosecutorial judgment but that doesn’t mean, of course, that there isn’t compelling and incriminating evidence that should be shared with the American people.”
Schiff said that six people “close to the president” have been indicted: “That hardly looks like vindication to me. But again, let’s see what the report has to say. If they’re so confident that the report is going to exonerate them, they should fight to make that report and the underlying evidence public and available to Congress.
“But I suspect that we’ll find those words of transparency to prove hollow, that in fact they will fight to make sure that Congress doesn’t get this underlying evidence,” Schiff said.
“But we are going to take it as far as necessary to make sure that we do. We have an independent obligation to share the facts with the American people. We in the intelligence committee have a particular obligation to determine whether there is evidence, whether the president may be compromised in any way, whether that is criminal or not, and of course there are indications he was pursuing money in Russia through Trump Tower and other potential real estate that could be deeply compromising.”
Schiff said his committee will ask administration officials — presumably Attorney General William Barr and others– to appear before his committee. “If the request is denied, subpoena,” he said. “If subpoenas are denied, we will haul people before the Congress. And yes, we will prosecute in court as necessary to get this information.”
Schiff said it was a “mistake” to allow President Trump to respond in writing to the special counsel. “If you really do want the truth, you need to put people under oath. And that should is have been done, but the special counsel may have made the decision that, as he could not indict a sitting president on the obstruction issue, as it would draw out his investigation, that that didn’t make sense.”
(Notably, the FBI did not put Hillary Clinton under oath when agents questioned her about her “extremely careless” handling of emails, as former FBI Director James Comey put it.)
Schiff refused to rule out impeaching Trump, despite the fact that the Mueller report contained no bombshells, such as additional indictments.
He again pointed to the Justice Department opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted: “That’s their policy,” Schiff said.
“And therefore, there could be overwhelming evidence on the obstruction issue. And I don’t know that that’s the case, but if this were overwhelming evidence of criminality on the president’s part, then the Congress would need to consider that remedy (impeachment) if indictment is foreclosed.
“So, it’s really too early to make those judgments. We need to see the report. And then I think we’ll all have a factual basis to discuss what does this mean for the American people? What risks are we running with this president? What steps does Congress need to take to protect the country, but in the absence of those facts, those judgments are impossible to make.”
Schiff also said Congress’s responsibility is different from that of Robert Mueller:
“It’s our responsibility to tell the American people, these are the facts. This is what your president has done, this is what his key campaign and appointees have done, these are the issues that we need to take action on, this is potential compromise.
“There is evidence, for example, quite in the public realm, that the president sought to make money from the Russians, sought the Kremlin’s help to make money during the presidential campaign while denying business ties with the Russians.
“That is obviously deeply compromising,” Schiff said. “And if it’s this president’s view that he still wants to build that tower when he is out of office, that may further compromise his policy towards Putin, towards Russia and other things. It’s our duty to expose that and take corrective action.”
Liberals Turn On Mueller, Accuse Him Of Being Too Stupid To Find Trump Guilty Of Everything
By Joseph Curl
Special Counsel Robert Mueller was the darling of the liberal intelligentsia for the past two years, but as soon as he released his long-awaited report that ended up clearing President Trump of all charges that he colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 election, liberals turned on him. Hard.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who has made a career of appearing on liberal cable stations alleging all kinds of criminal activity by Trump and his campaign team, quickly said Mueller was wrong.
“It was a mistake to rely on written responses by the president,” Schiff said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “That’s generally more what the lawyer has to say than what the individual has to say.” Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, said Mueller should have interviewed Trump under oath.
MSNBC host Chris Matthews, the guy who always got a thrill up his leg whenever he saw former president Barack Obama, also thought Mueller must be kinda dumb.
“Maybe he missed the boat here,” Matthews said of Mueller. “Why was there never an interrogation of this president? We were told for weeks by experts, ‘You cannot deal with an obstruction-of-justice charge or investigation without getting the motive.’ … How could they let Trump off the hook?”
Well, Chris, a few days ago you were singing the praises of the special counsel, now he’s “missing boats”?
Uber liberal Cenk Uygur, host of online news show The Young Turks, wasn’t going to let some stinkin’ report color his world. “Let me be clear, I CONCEDE NOTHING!” he wrote on Twitter. “If #MuellerReport didn’t look into Trump’s business ties with the Russians before the elections and didn’t look into his secret meetings with them after the election, then this is an epic debacle that looked into the exact wrong things.”
HBO talk show host Bill Maher agreed. “Did the Democrats put too much trust in the Mueller report? Because I don’t need the Mueller report to know he’s a traitor. I have a TV,” Maher told his panel of guests on his show — apparently referring to Trump (although by now, liberals are beginning to consider Mueller a traitor to their cause).
“Comedian” Chelsea Handler said: “I will admit my feelings for Mueller are conflicted now and my sexual attraction to him is in peril, but I still believe there is a lot more to come, and we must all march in the streets if we don’t see that report.”
The Washington Post detailed the back-biting in a piece headlined, “For Democrats, the Mueller report turns their politics upside down.”
Democrats put their faith in Mueller. Now they are questioning how and why he did what he did. Should he have forced the president to answer questions in person, rather than in writing? Why didn’t he make a judgment on obstruction, rather than turning it over to the attorney general to make perhaps the most important call of the investigation? Did he interpret his mandate too narrowly? The second-guessing, still at a low level, reflects the frustration among Democrats and opponents of the president who already had connected dots that Mueller found not conclusive.
Soon, the charges will emerge that Mueller, who was once appointed head of the FBI by (gasp) George W. Bush, was in the bag for Trump all along. And of course, after the Mueller report was released, exonerating Trump of all those collusion allegations, Democrats simply moved on, joining together to collectively demand the full release of the report and all evidence gathered.
Which is what made the tweet by former FBI director James Comey‘s tweet so fantastic.
Uh, Jimbo, you gotta back up a bit. A little more. There, don’t you see it? It’s not just trees, it’s a forest!
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