Op-Ed: Adam Schiff Was Patient Zero for Rabid Trump Derangement Syndrome
He’s relatively quiet now, but it’s been nearly six years since Adam Schiff starred in nearly every woke newscast as prosecutor in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
However, as overplayed as his stagecraft was in that farcical theater, inciting and fueling the Russiagate hoax was his more polarizing role. And that portrayal cast him as the initial carrier, Patient Zero, of the political epidemic now known as Trump Derangement Syndrome.
There is little doubt that, as a smugly self-righteous critic of Trump, Schiff more than anyone else relentlessly promoted the narrative that the president conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election.
On that anti-Trump crusade, his hatred was so great, his need to be right was so all-consuming, that he pursued that fiction, whatever the damage and whatever the truth.
Almost daily, Schiff claimed that the proof of Russian interference was “more than circumstantial,” that he had “seen the evidence,” and that Russian attempts to aid Trump “had been borne out in the public record.”
Such assertions undoubtedly fueled public belief in a conspiracy that was never proven.
Ever the actor, Schiff made such claims so often and with such conviction that millions believed them, never realizing that no irrefutable evidence of collusion was ever presented to the public or to Congress.
Yet because of Schiff’s fabrications, Trump’s first term was undermined from the start in the fertile soil that sowed the Trump Derangement Syndrome.
That Schiff repeatedly lied — or at least grotesquely overstated — a Russian conspiracy to elect Trump in 2016 is beyond doubt. The Mueller probe in 2019 and the Durham Report in 2023 both reached the same exonerating conclusion that there was no direct evidence of criminality and indeed not any proof, as Schiff had asserted, that was “in plain sight.”
Moreover, after interviewing many key figures in the Obama Justice Department, the House Intelligence Committee arrived at the same exculpatory conclusion.
And equally damaging to Schiff’s credibility was his insistence that the “Steele Dossier,” which played an essential role in obtaining warrants to spy on Trump’s 2016 campaign, was “all too true.” Schiff made that claim despite it indisputably containing false and unverified oppositional research paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC.
But that’s not all. Even after it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Trump campaign did not engage in criminal collusion with Russia, Schiff shamelessly refused to admit his deceit or his defeat.
If anything, he doubled down on his mountain of lies and prejudicial opinions, such as Trump is a “danger to the Republic,” and is the “worst President we have ever had.” Not exactly the words of a thoughtfully unbiased public servant, which he likely claims to be.
Accordingly, after the Mueller Report failed to establish that members of the Trump campaign criminally conspired with the Russian government during the 2016 election, Schiff still claimed such coordination existed.
And after the Durham probe again debunked his conspiracy claims, the House censured Schiff for misleading the public by misrepresenting his “ample evidence in plain sight” claims of collusion, even after investigations found otherwise.
But, as ever defiantly saving face, Schiff labeled his censure as a “badge of honor.”
And more recently, there are claims — still unverified — that in 2017, Schiff instructed his staff to leak classified information to the media about Russia and Trump, aiming to smear the president.
That allegation was based on declassified FBI interview notes from a longtime Democrat staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, who refused Schiff’s request because doing so would be “illegal, unethical, and treasonous.”
In the end, Attorney General William Barr said, “Our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative.”
And to say that Schiff single-mindedly led that divisive narrative resonating yet today as Trump Derangement Syndrome’s Patient Zero is an understatement.
But Schiff was right about one thing: As the lead manager in Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2020, he said, “If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost.”
So before spreading more performative lies about the man he once sought to remove from office, he would be wise to heed that advice and resist again losing his way as the gaslighting lawmaker staring back in the mirror.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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