House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has been offering some interesting interpretations of both the transcript of the call between President Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky in July and the whistleblower complaint about it.
The transcript disproved Democrats' theory that Trump was guilty of quid pro quo, but on Wednesday Schiff still said the president's phone call was "damning." Schiff had a similar reaction to reading the whistleblower complaint, calling it "deeply disturbing."
On Thursday, as the chairman was kicking off an Intelligence Committee hearing with Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, he decided to improvise some parts of the phone transcript.
Rep. Schiff re-writes the call transcript for added drama: "I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good, I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand, lots of it, on this and on that, I’m going to put you in touch with people" pic.twitter.com/1rV7BpEN6o
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2019
Schiff later explained that his version of events was simply a "summary of the president's call was meant to be, at least part, in parody."
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was having none of it. She didn't wait to call the chairman out until their proceedings had finished. She took him to task right there.
Today’s @HouseIntel hearing with Acting DNI Maguire is extremely important for Americans to hear. I focused on the whistleblower complaint itself & did not recklessly improvise a fake dialogue for parody purposes like Adam Schiff—the head of this committee—did. Watch part 1 ?? pic.twitter.com/5MBeV7XNCd
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) September 26, 2019
"On page one - and I'm not going to improvise for parody purposes, like the chairman of this committee did," Stefanik said when she began to read the whistleblower complaint. "I'm going to quote it directly."
She went on to read the whistleblower's confession that he or she "was not a direct witness to most of the events described." Still, officials concluded that even though the complainant was relying on secondhand knowledge, it was "credible" enough to investigate.
Nothing she saw in the document convinced her that impeachment is necessary, she noted on Twitter. But the Democrats made it official earlier this week, before they even laid their eyes on the phone transcript. An impeachment inquiry is happening.
President Trump seems to know what's really going on.
Liddle’ Adam Schiff, who has worked unsuccessfully for 3 years to hurt the Republican Party and President, has just said that the Whistleblower, even though he or she only had second hand information, “is credible.” How can that be with zero info and a known bias. Democrat Scam!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2019