Tipsheet

'Caught Lying Again': Report Calls Out Schiff For Mischaracterizing Parnas Evidence

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  January 22, 2020 8:15 AM

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) appears to have “mischaracterized” a piece of evidence used in the Democrats’ impeachment investigation, Politico reports.

The problematic evidence stems from a letter the House Intelligence chairman sent to House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler (D-NY) last week.

“In one section of the letter, Schiff claims that Parnas ‘continued to try to arrange a meeting with President Zelensky,’ citing a specific text message exchange where Parnas tells Giuliani: ‘trying to get us mr Z.’ The remainder of the exchange — which was attached to Schiff’s letter — was redacted,” Politico's Melanie Zanona writes. “But an unredacted version of the exchange shows that several days later, Parnas sent Giuliani a word document that appears to show notes from an interview with Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma, followed by a text message to Giuliani that states: ‘mr Z answers my brother.’ That suggests Parnas was referring to Zlochevsky not Zelensky.”

A Democratic official “didn’t dispute the suggestion,” according to Politico, but that source said the single letter "z" was most commonly used as a reference to Zelensky. A GOP aide interviewed for the story, meanwhile, called the assumption Schiff made “sloppy oversight work at best.”

Other Republicans were less charitable.

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