(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Color me shocked, just shocked, that Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the most underhanded, dishonest Congressional members in modern history, would stoop to such levels.
This relates to Kurt Volker’s testimony, which turned out to be a major dud for Schiff and his gang. While Volker, being a former John McCain staffer, was expected to come in and fillet Trump, it turned out that he didn’t have much to add to the impeachment fury. Trump, for whatever problems one might have with him talking about Biden in the first place, simply didn’t engage in a quid pro quo, threaten aid, or pressure the Ukrainians.
As I wrote at the time, it was reported that Schiff got so frustrated with how things were going that he sidelined his MSNBC lawyer to question Volker himself. Now, we know why he did that and we’ve got the transcript to illustrate what happened.
BREAKING: In a secret interview, Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff pressured former U.S. special representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker to testify that Ukrainian officials felt pressured by Trump to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter https://t.co/nzZBILnTpy
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 16, 2019
This per the Washington Examiner.
Democrat House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff reportedly pressed U.S. special representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker in a secret meeting on October 3 to say that President Donald Trump pressured Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President and current Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
“Volker denied that was the case, noting that Ukrainian leaders did not even know the aid was being withheld, and that they believed their relationship with the United States was moving along satisfactorily, without them having done anything Trump mentioned in his notorious July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,” The Washington Examiner reported. “When Volker repeatedly declined to agree to Schiff’s characterization of events, Schiff said, ‘Ambassador, you’re making this much more complicated than it has to be.’”
For someone who likes to mock the President for supposedly sounding like a mob boss, that last line sounds rather mob bossy to me. Schiff wasn’t getting the answer he wanted so he lashed out and berated the witness. Seems normal, right?
Here’s the rest of the exchange in question, where you can see Schiff continuing to press him to say something he clearly doesn’t think is actually true.
[Schiff] asked Volker whether he would agree that the President of the United States should ever ask a foreign leader to help intervene in a U.S. election.
“I agree with that,” said Volker.
“And that would be particularly egregious if it was done in the context of withholding foreign assistance?” Schiff continued.
Volker balked. “We’re getting now into, you know, a conflation of these things that I didn’t think was actually there.”
Schiff wanted Volker to agree that “if it’s inappropriate for a president to seek foreign help in a U.S. election, it would be doubly so if a president was doing that at a time when the United States was withholding military support from the country.”
Again, Volker did not agree. “I can’t really speak to that,” he said. “My understanding of the security assistance issue is — ”
Schiff interrupted. “Why can’t you speak to that, ambassador? You’re a career diplomat. You can understand the enormous leverage that a president would have while withholding military support from an ally at war with Russia. You can understand just how significant that would be, correct?”
Volker tried to go along without actually agreeing. “I can understand that that would be significant,” he said.
Schiff persisted. “And when that suspension of aid became known to that country, to Ukraine, it would be all the more weighty to consider what the president had asked of them, wouldn’t it?”
“So again, congressman, I don’t believe — ” Volker began.
“It’s a pretty straightforward question,” Schiff said.
“But I don’t believe the Ukrainians were aware that the assistance was being held up — ”
“They became aware of it,” Schiff said.
“They became aware later, but I don’t believe they were aware at the time, so there was no leverage implied,” Volker said.
If this were a Republican and this was the Benghazi hearing, it’d be front page news. As it stands, Schiff appears to be bulletproof in the legacy media. His actions are just ridiculous at this point. He’s holding secret hearings, kicking Republicans out of testimony, and selectively leaking lines he thinks can help his impeachment case.
This isn’t justice. It’s not even proper in the political arena. It’s just plain gross.
Enjoying the read? Please visit my archive and check out some of my latest articles.
I’ve got a new twitter! Please help by following @bonchieredstate.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member