Schiff's Proof of 'Coordination' Has an Embarrassingly Obvious Flaw
So-called proof of what House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff referred to as “considerable coordination” between the White House and other parties regarding Ukraine was published by the committee this week in a 300-page impeachment report.
But now, it appears the lawmaker failed to perform even a basic fact check.
Schiff’s report, which dropped Tuesday, was a shockingly authoritarian document that listed phone records of Giuliani, Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes and even journalist John Solomon.
One of the numbers that called Giuliani’s phone belonged to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the impeachment report said.
This office played an integral part in the freeze on military aid to Ukraine. Linking Giuliani to this office was seemingly a major win in the case against President Donald Trump.
“The phone records show that there was considerable coordination among the parties, including the White House,” Schiff said at a news conference Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.
The Democratic lawmaker used the call logs to paint a picture of a far-reaching conspiracy in the Trump administration.
The supposed scheme, according to Schiff, is an impeachable offense.
But Schiff should have at least referenced a phone book when putting his report together.
The phone number the report claims belongs to the OMB is actually just a basic White House switchboard contact, according to The New York Times, which cited “people familiar with the phone records.”
“A review of budget office call logs showed that no one spoke with Mr. Giuliani around the times of the calls in April and August, an O.M.B. official said,” The Times reported.
“Mr. Giuliani did not speak with Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff and director of the budget office, whose name has come up in testimony about the aid freeze, a White House official said.”
Considering a glaring factual error like this made its way into Schiff’s report, there’s no telling what other sort of misinformation is hiding within it.
Whether the mistake is malicious or the result of sloppy work, it shows that Democrats are not giving impeachment the gravity or concern the dire matter deserves.
This became painfully obvious during the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on impeachment earlier this week.
During the televised hearing, a host of biased expert witnesses took their time tearing into Trump and laying out why they thought the president should be impeached. Of the four present, only one rejected the case against Trump.
The hatred for Trump reached such a fever pitch that one witness even took a shot at young Barron Trump.
Despite Democrats repeatedly claiming they are handling impeachment with the seriousness it deserves, their actions thus far seem to prove the complete opposite.
Schiff’s error is only the latest in a chain of mistakes that should embarrass his entire party.
With a few more slip-ups like it, this impeachment attempt may simply collapse on its own.
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