House Intelligence Committee Chairman 59-year-old Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) turned yesterday’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony into a political charade. Schiff has spent most of his time serving not in Congress but appearing on left-wing TV and radio talks shows, claiming for over two years he had ironclad proof of 73-year-old President Donald Trump’s conspiracy with Russia. When Mueller released the Special Counsel’s Final Report to the Justice Department March 22, the report found now conspiracy or coordination with any Trump campaign officials or anyone else. Mueller’s finding upended Schiff’s fairytale that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 presidential election. Mueller insisted yesterday in the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees that Russia was continuing in 2020 to meddle with the U.S. election, something he said happened in 2016.
Yet, when push-came-to shove, Mueller could not provide any proof that even a single vote was changed because of what he called a determined Russian propaganda campaign. While it’s easy for U.S. intelligence officials or Mueller to claim that Russian impacted the outcome of the 2016 election, he can’t cite any evidence that it produced one vote. If anything, Russia propaganda helped former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton who piled up nearly 3 million more popular votes that Trump. How Mueller—or any Democrat—can say with a straight face that Russia changed votes is anyone’s guess. Schiff used his time as House Judiciary Chairman to stick it to Trump, even though he offered no proof of Russian collusion. Unable to show proof of collusion as he promised, Schiff instead spent his time slamming the president for “disloyalty” to the country.
Schiff failed to deliver the proof of Trump’s high-crimes-and-misdemeanors, confessing today that even if Trump committed no crimes, he still engaged in unethical behavior. “Disloyalty to the country. These are strong words, but how else are we to describe a presidential campaign which did not inform the authorities of a foreign offer of dirt on their opponent, which did not publicly shun it, or turn it away, but which instead invited it, encouraged it, and mad full use of it,” Schiff told the gallery. Schiff referred to the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Democrats and the press insist that the meeting showed Russian collusion, when, in fact, Veselnitskaya had no ties to the Kremlin, offering no real dirt on Hillary. Schiff continues to bring up old news items as if it confirms his Russian collusion theory.
Schiff couldn’t deliver on his promise to provide proof that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election. Instead, he decided to use Mueller’s testimony to slam Trump for what Schiff sees as acts of treason. “That disloyalty may not have been criminal,” admitted Schiff, after spending two years insisting Trump committed-high-crimes-and misdemeanors. “Constrained by uncooperative witnesses, the destruction of documents and the use of encrypted communications, your team was not able to establish each of the elements of the time of conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, so not a provable crime, in any event . . .” Schiff said. Since the Mueller Report came out March 22, Schiff and House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) insisted Trump committed a variety of impeachable crimes. Now Schiff wants to rewrite Department of Justice rules.
Democrats didn’t accept Mueller’s finding that Trump or his associates did not engage in a conspiracy with Russian to win the 2016 election. Schiff wants the public to think that if only the FBI or Special Counsel’s office had more time they could charge Trump with high-crimes-and-misdemeanors. Schiff hung on every word from Mueller stating to Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) yesterday under oath that he didn’t charge Trump because of a Department of Justice prohibition against charging a sitting president. Then, much to Democrats’ chagrin, he reneged in the afternoon session with the House Intelligence Committee, admitting that the Special Counsel probe could not develop sufficient evidence to charge Trump. But to Schiff’s warped thinking, that means Trump stymied the Special Counsel’s investigation, preventing Mueller from charging him with high-crimes-and-misdemeanors.
Mueller threw cold water on Schiff, Nadler and Democrat efforts to find grounds for impeachment. Mueller deviated from longstanding Department of Justice policy that when there’s insufficient evidence to charge a defendant, the DOJ does not move the goalposts. Mueller pulled the rug-out-from-underneath Democrats looking to impeach the incumbent president. Mueller had no right to exonerate or plan to exonerate any criminal defendant, including the president. If a prosecutor spends time investigating a crime and can’t find the evidence beyond-a-reasonable-doubt, no charges are filed, keeping the defendant’s identity unknown. Mueller’s office crossed that line saying in the March 22 Final Report that they could not exonerate Trump. Only juries, not prosecutors, exonerate defendants, even where prosecutors do not file charges. Schiff and Nadler had a hard time cleaning egg off their faces.
