House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Friday told Fox News' Jeanine Pirro Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) is the "common denominator of all the lies" surrounding President Trump.
Ever since President Trump took office, Schiff has made it his personal mission to make sure Trump was impeached. For more than two years he kept telling us he had "evidence" that Trump colluded with Russia. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the very guy Democrats wanted to investigate the allegations, came back and said no collusion took place. Schiff's "smoking gun" was gone.
Now we have a whistleblower who filed a formal complaint alleging Trump threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky investigated former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, for corruption. Hunter Biden was receiving $50,000 a month from a Ukrainian gas company, despite having no natural energy experience, while his dad was also handling international relations with Ukraine on behalf of the Obama administration. Smells pretty swampy, right?
It turns out Schiff knew about the whistleblower complaint a month before it became public. He didn't even bring it to his colleagues at the Intelligence Committee. And the icing on the cake: he even had direct contact with the whistleblower.
According to McCarthy, if Democrats' impeachment inquiry was legitimate, they would put it to the House floor for a vote.
"When you say due process, you are essentially saying if there were a real, official impeachment inquiry, that was voted on by 218 members of the House then there would be due process. You would be able to subpoena witnesses. The president's attorney would be there. You could cross-examine. It becomes a real official due process hearing. But this is not," Pirro said. "The interesting part under part of this is that it's in Intel [Committee], which is closed-door. Am I correct about that?"
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If Democrats really wanted to follow the impeachment guidelines laid out before them in the House rules, Schiff would have nothing to do with this. The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Jerry Nadler (D-NY), would handle it. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) changed the rules.
"You are correct, and in the House rules it's supposed to be in the Judiciary [Committee]. She [Pelosi] pulled it out and put it with Adam Schiff, the individual who we know is a common denominator of all the lies," McCarthy said.
"That's why you did not get the transcripts in that hearing that took place this week, because if you did, you would’ve heard there was no quid pro quo. But they [the Democrats] want to control everything," he explained. "The other thing, when you look at this, why can’t the president have fairness? Why can't the minority party have subpoena power just like the minority had when Bill Clinton was going forward, what Newt Gingrich had set up?"
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