While Appearing On The View, Schiff Gets Pressed On Whether He Would Testify If Subpoenaed: “I’m Not A Fact Witness”

[Image source: The View Youtube video screenshots. Swamp Drain compilation].

Posted By: Lindsey Michelle January 13, 2020

House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Adam Schiff (D-CA), spoke with the hosts of “The View” Monday amid a Senate impeachment trial against President Donald Trump, and he was pressed on the possibility of the Senate wanting to call him as a witness to testify.

Co-host Abby Huntsman displayed a tweet from the President, who wrote on Twitter Sunday: “Why did Nervous Nancy allow corrupt politician Shifty Schiff to lie before Congress? He must be a Witness, and so should she!”

Asked if he would testify if subpoenaed, Adam Schiff claimed he is “not a fact witness”: “Look, I’m not a fact witness so other than mollifying the president, I’m not sure why the Senate would call me or Nancy Pelosi as a witness,” he said.

The New York Times broke the story on October 2, 2019, that Schiff knew about “the outlines” of the whistleblower’s concerns before the Aug. 12 complaint was filed. The whistleblower had contacted an intelligence committee aide after passing along concerns to the CIA’s top lawyer and being “[c]oncerned about how that initial avenue for airing his allegations through the C.I.A. was unfolding,” the Times reported.

Schiff had stated that his committee had no contact with the whistleblower before receiving the complaint and claimed, “We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower,” when the whistleblower had in fact reached out to a committee aide before filing a complaint.

Huntsman then asked Schiff: “If it is a fair trial though, you could very well see the case where the Bidens would have to be there. Do you think that is a good thing politically? Do you think that’s a good thing for impeachment as a whole?” (Continued Below)

“I think what the Senators would have to evaluate is do the Bidens have any relevant testimony? And I think the answer is they don’t,” Schiff presumed while defending the Bidens. “What is at issue here is whether the president withheld military aid, withheld officials acts like a White House meeting in order to coerce a country to announce investigations– not even conduct them, but just announce them to help smear his opponent.”

“And there’s not much light that Joe Biden or Hunter Biden can shed on the president’s conduct,” he added, without admitting that President Trump has a duty to look into possible corruption and to see what took place with Burisma and the prosecutor, that former Vice President Joe Biden had pressured to be fired.

When asked why not have the Bidens show up if they have nothing to hide, Schiff claimed, “Because it would convert the Senate trial into the same kind of sham proceeding that the president sought to have Ukraine undertake. There’s been no factual basis for these allegations against Joe Biden– no factual basis for the allegation Ukraine, not Russia interfered in the 2016 election. That is a Russian propaganda talking point.” (Video Below)

“And to ask the Senators to look into these investigations that the president fraudulently sought to get Ukraine to conduct, would merely turn the Senate into a trial on its head. Now that’s something the president would love. But that’s not a fair trial, that’s a sham trial,” Schiff said, without mentioning that he did not allow the GOP’s witnesses to testify before lawmakers in the House hearings.

Politico reported in January 2017, that Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.

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“I’m hoping that the public pressure to have a fair trial will mean that these moderate Republican members in the Senate will insist on hearing from people like John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney and others, who have first-hand information about the president’s effort to shake-down a foreign leader to help him cheat in an election,” Schiff said without admitting that he didn’t go to the courts or subpoena the witnesses himself.

“If we had merely rushed the articles over and given McConnell the chance to sweep it under the rug before the country could be informed about the kind of non-trial he wanted to have, I think it might’ve led to a different result. At least we have the prospect now of holding Senators accountable on insisting on a trial with witnesses,” he said admitting to what the Democrats plan was. [Emphasis added].

“If McConnell succeeds in dismissing this case without witnesses it will be the first impeachment case– not just involving a president– but involving anyone in the nation’s history in which a trial went forward without witnesses,” he added, giving away the Democrats’ plot to smear Republican Senators so they can try to win the Senate back.

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Schiff also said the House is “considering whether to subpoena [John Bolton]“: “If we’re approaching this rationally though, the senators will be the triers of fact… the Senate ought to hear from him quite directly,” he said.

Schiff further claimed impeachment was strategically a good move for Democrats: “Even if the Senate won’t do their constitutional duty, we in the House need to do ours,” he stated.

(Related: Rep. Elise Stefanik Humiliates Schiff, Cites His Own Interviews About Whistleblower Testimony)