Bongino: Schiff Playing Role of the 'Joker,' He's Helping Trump
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Conservative commentator Dan Bongino believes California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is playing the role of the Joker in the Democrat-led impeachment saga and helping President Donald Trump’s re-election chances in the process.
In an exclusive interview, Bongino, author of the newly released best-seller “Exonerated: The Failed Takedown of President Donald Trump by the Swamp,” told The Western Journal that Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s push to impeach Trump is having the unintended consequence of shifting public opinion in the president’s favor.
“I think after this latest Adam Schiff implosion, they are shockingly creating a sympathetic figure,” Bongino said. “And that’s weird. I don’t think a lot of people see Trump that way. They see him as a fighter. That’s how I do.”
“But I think what Schiff and Pelosi and [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer have ironically done is they’ve created I think among some persuadable independents kind of a sympathy card.”
Bongino believes a lot of people see what is happening to the president as “BS” and are wondering when the Democrats are “going to actually produce evidence that’s real.”
A new Hill-HarrisX survey published earlier this week, in fact, found Trump with his highest approval rating of the year with the polling firm, at 49 percent.
That’s two points higher than its survey results in mid-September, before the Democrats announced their impeachment inquiry.
Further, it’s only two points off Trump’s all-time high with Hill-HarrisX in August 2018.
Schiff’s most recent implosion Bongino was referring to was his lying on national television about when he learned of the now-controversial whistleblower complaint against Trump.
The Washington Post awarded Schiff “Four Pinocchios” on Friday for his deception.
The congressman said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Sept. 17, “We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to.”
Both The New York Times and The Washington Post reported the whistleblower had reached out to his office and spoke to one of his staff members before filing the complaint in mid-August.
Schiff has also received criticism for his opening statement at an Intelligence Committee hearing last week, during which he offered what he later called a “parody” of what Trump said on his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“How many hoaxes is this guy going to perpetuate before people start to realize he’s a clown?” Bongino asked. “He’s just a joker.”
“He’s the best Joker out there,” the commentator continued. “They rate the Jokers. You know it’s usually like Jack Nicholson, Joaquin Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Cesar Romero. Well, Schiff’s number one.”
Bongino told The Western Journal that he sees the latest attempt to remove Trump from office as very similar to the rollout of the Russia collusion narrative in January 2017.
“It’s not like the ‘Empire Strikes Back’ sequel which was better,” he said. “This one’s even worse. At least the first one sounded damaging. This one sounded damaging until the transcript came out.”
The former Secret Service agent argued that just as the release of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications revealed the FBI used the Democratic National Committee/Hillary Clinton campaign-funded unverified Steele dossier as a primary source to gain permission to spy on a Trump campaign associate, so too the release of the Ukraine call transcript undercut the Democratic narrative the president engaged in a quid pro quo on his call with Zelensky.
Bongino charged that the establishment media is “fundamentally incurious” when it comes to ferreting out the truth in either of these stories.
“Thank God for people like [The Federalist’s] Mollie Hemingway, and [The Daily Caller News Foundation’s] Chuck Ross, and [The Wall Street Journal’s] Kim Strassel, and Jeff Carlson over at The Epoch Times, people who have done actually homework on this, because the rest of the folks have just embarrassed themselves,” he said.
One of the liberal narratives that particularly drives Bongino crazy, which he addresses in “Exonerated,” is that if the FBI truly launched its counterintelligence investigation to hurt Trump’s chances of getting elected, they would have leaked it before the election.
They did.
Bongino pointed to stories in both The New York Times and The New Yorker published a week before the November election revealing the FBI had launched an investigation against Trump campaign.
While The Times headline said the bureau established “No Clear Link” between Trump and Russia, The New Yorker’s headline was far more ominous: “Final ‘October Surprises’ Reveal FBI Probing Trump’s Alleged Russia Ties.”
In “Exonerated,” Bongino offers a narrative of actions taken not only by FBI officials, but also others in government both during and after the election to bring down Trump.
Bongino thinks Schiff is just the latest in a parade of shady characters to make the attempt, but the Fox News contributor believes that in the end, Schiff’s efforts to impeach Trump will also fail.
“I think this has imploded in just spectacular fashion,” he said. “How anyone can take Schiff seriously anymore is just completely puzzling me.”
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