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ADAM SCHIFF secretly met with GLENN SIMPSON, founder of FUSION GPS last July. Glenn Simpson is one of the key and most controversial figures in the Russia collusion scandal and an important witness in the House Intelligence Committee probe who had given sworn (sometimes false) testimony in front of Congress. Simpson ran the firm hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party to find dirt on Trump in Moscow. He employed retired British intelligence operative Christopher Steele, whose infamous and unverified dossier became the main evidence for the FBI’s probe of the Trump campaign, particularly the illegally obtained surveillance warrant against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
And by the time of the meeting, the House Intelligence Committee had already received evidence from a senior Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr, that called into question Simpson’s testimony to lawmakers.
Specifically, Simpson claimed he had not begun meeting with Ohr until after Thanksgiving 2016, well after the FBI had begun investigating Trump-Russia collusion and after the presidential election in which Simpson's client, Clinton, lost to Trump.
But Ohr provided compelling evidence, including calendar notations, testimony and handwritten notes, showing that Simpson met with him in August 2016, well before the election and during a time when Steele was helping the FBI start an investigation into Trump.
When confronted with the Aspen conference photos of Schiff, in sport coat and open-neck dress shirt, and Simpson, wearing casual attire, representatives for both men tried to minimize their discussion, insisting nothing substantive about the Russia case was discussed.
“In the summer of 2018, Mr. Simpson attended a media-sponsored social event where he exchanged small talk with Rep. Schiff and many other people who were in attendance,” Fusion GPS said in a statement to me. “The conversation between the two was brief and did not cover anything substantive. There has been no subsequent contact between Mr. Simpson and Rep. Schiff.”
The congressman’s response was even more vague: “The chairman did not have any pre-planned meeting with Glenn Simpson, and any conversation with him at the Aspen conference would have been brief and social in nature,” Schiff spokesman Patrick Boland said.
Translation: This was just a Forrest Gump-like moment in which the Democrats’ chief defender of the dossier and the man whose firm produced it met serendipitously.
There is nothing illegal or technically improper about a congressman meeting, intentionally or unintentionally, with a witness in an investigation. At least not under the law or the House Intelligence Committee’s rules, BUT...Schiff created a far higher standard two years ago when he demanded that his Republican counterpart on the committee, then-Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), be investigated for having meetings with national security council officials at the Trump White House without telling the committee. Schiff’s attacks led Nunes to temporarily recuse himself from the Russia probe.
Schiff assailed Nunes’s contacts with a source outside the committee confines as “a dead-of-night excursion” and said it called into question the impartiality of the inquiry because the committee wasn’t informed.
“I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president’s campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman,” Schiff said at the time.
So how did Schiff meet his own standards? Boland declined to say if his boss told the committee about his Simpson contact.
But both GOP and Democratic officials on the committee, including some lawmakers, said there is no evidence that Schiff disclosed his contact with Simpson to committee members.
“I don't know if they’re under any obligation to disclose it but, certainly if we were conspiracy theorists the way that my Democrat colleagues appear to be, we could weave an awful tale into that and weave all kinds of nonsense about it,” Rep. Mike Conaway, the Texas Republican who took over the Russia probe when Nunes recused himself, told Hill.TV.
"Had the tables been turned and I had been seen at a circumstance like that, my guess is [Schiff] would have demanded I had a full conversation as to what I did,” he added.
Conaway touched on another observation.
Simpson has become a Gump-like character who keeps showing up in so many different places in the Russia scandal: He’s the owner of the company that was paid by Clinton for the Steele dossier, the guy who hired Steele to create the dossier, the one who met with Ohr at the Justice Department, who pitched reporters writing Trump dirt at the end of the campaign and who met with the Russian woman and an American lobbyist at the heart of the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
And then, he shows up with Schiff in Aspen.
“It’s interesting that Simpson is at the heart of the dossier and the dossier played a mighty role in not only going after Carter Page but in much of Adam’s and Eric Swalwell’s [D-Calif.] quest to find collusion, that [Schiff] would in fact in that exact same conversation, or time frame, be in conversation or appear to be in conversation with the guy who’s principally responsible for the dossier,” Conaway said.
Whatever happened in Aspen won’t stay in Aspen much longer. Expect Republicans in Washington to launch some questions at the House’s new Intelligence Committee chairman.
* John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He is The Hill’s executive vice president for video.
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Subject: Re: Adam Schiff Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:50 am
Schiff says he'll have Mueller testify if his report isn't made public
"We are going to get to the bottom of this," Schiff told ABC's "This Week." "We are going to share this information with the public."
Feb. 24, 2019, 8:58 AM MST By Allan Smith | nbcnews
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says he's got a plan ready if special counsel Robert Mueller's full report isn't made public.
And it includes bringing Mueller himself before his committee.
On Sunday, Schiff, a California Democrat, was asked on ABC's "This Week" about what Democrats will do should Attorney General William Barr decide to keep the highly anticipated report mostly under wraps.
"Well we will obviously subpoena the report, we will bring Bob Mueller in to testify before Congress, we will take it to court if necessary," Schiff said. "And in the end, I think the department understands they're going to have to make this public. I think Barr will ultimately understand that as well."
Schiff said that if Barr, who was recently confirmed as attorney general, tried "to withhold, to try to bury any part of this report, that will be his legacy, and it will be a tarnished legacy."
"So I think there’ll be immense pressure not only on the department, but on the attorney general to be forthcoming," he said.
It was widely reported last week that Mueller's report could be submitted to Barr within a matter of days. But by Friday, new reporting suggested that the report is not expected to be delivered by the end of this week. In December, NBC News reported it could be submitted as soon as mid-February.
Late last week, several Democratic House committee chairs sent a letter to Barr stating "in the strongest possible terms, our expectation that the Department of Justice will release to the public the report Special Counsel Mueller submits to you — without delay and to the maximum extent permitted by law."
Speaking with reporters last week, President Donald Trump said he had not spoken with Barr about the Mueller report.
Schiff pledged Sunday that his committee will "get to the bottom of this," adding "if the president is serious about all of his claims of exoneration, then he should welcome the publication of this report."
Mueller was hired as special counsel after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 to take over the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials. The probe was later expanded to include whether Trump had obstructed justice in the Russia probe through moves such as his firing of Comey.
Several Trump associates and former campaign officials have been indicted or convicted as part of Mueller's investigation, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone. In a separate investigation that stemmed from Mueller's work, Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen was convicted of a series of felonies, including campaign finance violations for hush-money payments he made to two women just prior to the 2016 presidential election to silence them about alleged past affairs with Trump.
So far, Mueller has not charged any Trump associates with crimes related to direct collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Trump has repeatedly blasted the investigation as a "witch hunt."
Asked what should be expected from Mueller's report, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe — another frequent target of Trump's attacks — told "This Week" on Sunday, "I think first and foremost what you can expect from Robert Mueller is an honest, independent assessment of the work that they’ve done. How much detail he chooses to go into to convey to the Department of Justice is a great question. I hope they lean on the detailed side. This is not a normal investigation by any evaluation. It's one that I think the department, Congress and the public have enormous interest in finding out just exactly what they learned."
In calling for the full report to be released, Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "everything about" the Mueller probe "has become political," and the only "way to end that is for the truth to be out there."
"The question of the Russian interference and the possibility of collusion by the president and his people has twisted our politics into something unrecognizable for the last two years, including behavior on the part of the president — attacking the FBI, attacking Bob Mueller,” said Himes, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.
In an interview with CBS News, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said 2019 "is going to be quite vitriolic" in American politics, which he said would be "triggered by the release of the Mueller report here in the next couple of weeks."
Bannon said he expects the report to contain "very little on Russian collusion."
"I think the bulk of the report will be obstruction of justice," he said. "And like I said, that depends on what your decision is about what the authority is of the president of the United States to make some of these decisions. I have a lot of respect for Bob Mueller. I will have to see how this report turns out."
During his grudge-airing, redemption-seeking spectacle on Wednesday, Michael Cohen admitted he was in cahoots with Democratic lawmakers prior to giving his congressional testimony.
“We spoke with Chairman [Elijah] Cummings and the [Democratic] Party,” Trump’s former lawyer confessed to Representative Jody Hice (R-Ga.). “We spoke with Chairman [Adam] Schiff and his people as well.”
Under further questioning by Rep. James Jordan (R-Ohio), Cohen acknowledged he “spoke to Mr. Schiff about topics that were going to be raised at the upcoming hearing.” Jordan clarified that rather than simply discuss the logistics of the hearing, Schiff coached the witness on “what [he was] going to talk about.”
It wasn’t the only attempt by Schiff to influence Cohen’s testimony: In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” last Sunday, the Southern California congressman signaled that he expected Cohen to disclose information about alleged crimes committed by the president, including money-laundering and obstruction of justice.
It all amounted to the latest ethical misstep by the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; unfortunately, none of Schiff’s bad behavior has caught the attention either of the media or congressional watchdogs. Unlike his predecessor, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who was subjected to a fruitless, eight-month House Ethics Committee investigation in 2017, Schiff continues to escape scrutiny for lying to Congress, misleading the public about imaginary crimes related to Russian collusion, and now, witness-tampering.
A Big Talker
Two years ago this month, Schiff announced that he had “more than circumstantial evidence” to prove Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and perhaps the president himself, had colluded with the Russians to influence the election. “I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial, and is very much worthy of investigation,” Schiff told a shocked Chuck Todd on March 22, 2017.
It was the first time a Democratic leader had made such an accusation and it immediately conferred legitimacy to the collusion ruse.
“He is both the ranking member on the intelligence committee, and is also not seen as the type of politician prone to hyperbole,” wrote David Graham at The Atlantic. “He is also a former federal prosecutor. The top Republican and Democrat on the committee investigating Russian collusion have erupted into a round of bitter recriminations. One of them is almost certainly overplaying his hand. Which man that is remains to be seen.”
We now know which one was overplaying his hand: Schiff. Two years later, despite Schiff’s repeated warnings, there is no solid evidence to substantiate his claims.
The nine-term congressman catapulted from obscurity to fame based on the still unproven claim of Trump-Russia collusion. He has conducted countless interviews where he’s made baseless and inflammatory accusations about the president, his family members, and his associates. While he’s become a darling of #TheResistance—HBO’s Bill Maher called him a “liberal icon” during a 2017 interview—Schiff continues to inflame the public discourse as he seeks to destroy the Trump presidency.
He has insisted, without evidence, that the president is somehow “compromised” by the Russians; Schiff is fixated on taking down Donald Trump, Jr. and alleges that a brief June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower between Russian lobbyists (we’ve since learned are tied to Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson) and the Trump campaign team, including Don Jr., is evidence of a criminal conspiracy. The president’s son suspects that Schiff leaked to the press details about his closed-door testimony in December 2017, which led to an embarrassing fake news story at CNN that cited the wrong date on an email that Don Jr. submitted to the committee.
House Republicans also suspect that Schiff and his staff have disclosed other classified or unauthorized information to the press in “serious violation of committee and House rules,” wrote Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) in December 2017.
Attacking Nunes
Schiff has smeared his predecessor relentlessly ever since Nunes first exposed the origins of the so-called FISAgate scandal; Schiff attempted to block the release of Nunes’s explosive February 2018 memo that outlined how the Obama Justice Department misled a secret court to obtain an order to spy on a Trump campaign aide. Calling the memo a “corruption of the process,” Schiff demanded that Nunes permanently step aside as chairman of the committee. (Nunes had voluntarily stepped aside during the 2017 House ethics investigation that resulted in no charges.)
In response, Schiff filed a memo of his own that defended the Justice Department’s actions and called the Nunes memo a “transparent effort to undermine” the DOJ, the FBI, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
But new evidence now contradicts much of what Schiff claimed in his counter-memo, including a crucial timeline of contacts between the Justice Department and dossier author Christopher Steele, yet he has not corrected the record. Schiff’s failure to correct this record amounts to lying to Congress—his counter-memo was addressed to all members of the House of Representatives—as well as misleading Americans since the memo is a public record. Further, it’s now evident that the Nunes memo is accurate and that Schiff engaged in a deceitful campaign against his colleague in order to discredit and derail a crucial congressional investigation. How was that not an attempt by Schiff to obstruct justice?
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also has expressed alarm at the recent news that Schiff met with Fusion GPS owner Glenn Simpson last summer. Fusion GPS was hired by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 to dig up Russia-related dirt on candidate Trump; this led to the production of the infamous Steele dossier, the catalyst for the collusion ruse. Simpson is under investigation for his role and has testified to Congress twice, including last October.
Schiff and Simpson were pictured together in July 2018 in Aspen. McCarthy wants more information about their encounter and has asked for Schiff to step aside as chairman.
Republicans in both the House and Senate should push for an ethics probe into Schiff; Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas), the ranking member of the House Ethics Committee, should urge the chairman of that committee immediately to investigate Schiff for witness-tampering, obstruction of justice, illegal leaks of nonpublic information and misleading Congress among other acts of malfeasance. As Schiff now promises to continue an unending stream of investigations into the president, it’s past time for him to be held accountable for his own misconduct instead.
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Subject: Re: Adam Schiff Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:29 pm
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Subject: Re: Adam Schiff Sat Apr 27, 2019 2:57 am
Published 2 hours ago Schiff hedges on Trump impeachment, says instead, 'Vote his ass out of office' By Victor Garcia | Fox News
Democrats have issued a subpoena for the full unredacted Mueller report and are calling on Attorney General Barr and special counsel Robert Mueller to testify before Congress; reaction from California Congressman Adam Schiff, Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a vocal critic of President Trump, said Friday night that he had “no expectations” that Trump would be indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller at the conclusion of the Russia investigation.
“Even if the evidence supported it, because [Mueller] is fundamentally conservative -- and I don’t mean left-right conservative -- but he was going to follow the established policy. He was not going to make new ground," Schiff said during an appearance on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher.
"So I didn't think it was realistic to expect that [Mueller] would indict the president," Schiff continued, "and those that did, I think, were unrealistic in their expectations."
Last week Attorney General William Barr released a redacted version of the full Mueller report that cleared the president of collusion with Russia. Nevertheless, House Democrats are continuing their investigations into the president's actions -- while Republicans want answers about how the investigation began.
Schiff argued that the report ultimately did prove that Trump was “unfit for the presidency.”
“I do think [Mueller] laid out what we needed to see, which is that the Russians were engaged in a systemic effort to interfere in our election, that the Trump campaign welcomed it, embraced it, built it into their plan, made full use of it, lied about it, covered it up and then obstructed the investigation into it,” Schiff said.
“And if we had any doubt before about this president's fitness for office there was no doubt remaining. He is unfit for the presidency.”
Maher pressed Schiff on the Democratic Party’s continued focus on the Mueller report.
"Now, it looks like you’re stalking him,” before bringing up impeachment, Maher said.
Schiff hesitated to commit to impeachment, focusing instead on the 2020 election.
“”I’m not there yet on impeachment. I may get there. He may get me there,” Schiff said. “At the end of the day, Bill, there's only one way to deal with this problem, whether we impeach him or not. And that is to vote his a-- out of office.”
"At the end of the day, Bill, there's only one way to deal with this problem, whether we impeach him or not. And that is to vote his ass out of office." — U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
Schiff told Maher he is advising his colleagues as well as the Democratic Party's presidential candidates to not talk about Russia. He also began making his case for whom he'll support in 2020 -- anyone except President Trump.
“And I'll tell you who I'm behind in 2020 and I'm behind them the heart and soul," Schiff said. "Any living adult 2020. Anyone who gets the nomination. We all need to get behind them whether we were for them or not for them."
Subject: Re: Adam Schiff Sun Dec 15, 2019 11:31 am
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Subject: Re: Adam Schiff Fri Dec 20, 2019 10:05 pm
Did You Know Schiff Won His 1st House Race Campaigning Against Impeachment? By C. Douglas Golden Published December 14, 2019 at 9:50am
Rep. Adam Schiff pretty much owns impeachment at this point.
The House Intelligence Committee chairman presided over the first committee to hear accusations against President Donald Trump and also set the tone of the hearings. He broke it, he bought it.
Now, much like his counterpart on the House Judiciary Committee — Rep. Jerrold Nadler — Schiff is coming under fire for his hypocrisy on impeachment, particularly given that he won his first race for the House of Representatives by campaigning against another impeachment.
That impeachment, of course, was against Bill Clinton — a president who everyone agreed had committed perjury.
First running for Congress in California 20 years ago, Schiff used frustration over impeachment against his opponent, incumbent Republican Rep. James Rogan.
“I think impeachment for most people in this district is only the most graphic illustration of an incumbent who has put the national partisan, ideological fights ahead of representing his district,” then-state Sen. Schiff told NBC back then, as Fox News reported.
“People want to decide this on the basis of who’s going to serve our community.”
Although he ran on impeachment, he didn’t want people to think that’s what he was running on.
“Jim Rogan is in trouble for reasons that have nothing to do with impeachment,” he told The Boston Globe in 1999.
“I think a lot of people are unhappy that Jim Rogan has ignored the district for five years.”
Yeah, no change from then to now, when he’s saying that free and fair elections in 2020 depend on the president being impeached.
Back in 2000, meanwhile, Schiff made impeachment of Clinton an issue in what was then the most expensive House race in American history.
As The Washington Post pointed out at the time, “Schiff’s campaign literature hammers away on Rogan’s role in the impeachment proceedings” and argued “that Rogan is too wrapped in the partisan politics of Washington.”
According to The Daily Caller News Foundation, another article said Schiff argued that “in the partisan impeachment hearings that polarized our nation for so long, the right-wing Rogan stood out.”
Schiff, in other words, ran on the fact that impeachment of a president who had lied under oath wasn’t called for, but now believes that impeaching Trump is.
“Adam Schiff is a total hypocrite,” Eric Early, one of Schiff’s GOP challengers in 2020, told Fox.
“He first ran for Congress opposing impeachment and saying he would fix problems in the district. Now, two decades of completely abandoning our district later, Schiff thinks this impeachment outrage is a good idea, and he still hasn’t fixed a single problem in the district.”
Yes, but here’s the thing: It depends on what the impeachment can do for Adam Schiff.
In 2000, he ran against impeachment because it made news.
He’s now the chairman of the powerful House Intelligence Committee — which puts him at the fore of the impeachment debate. He believes the case against Trump rises to impeachment even though there’s been no independent counsel recommending crimes, no significant impeachment inquiry and no fair process.
In short, impeachment is a very useful tool for him. He’s going to wield it as such. Don’t expect him to notice how differently he’s using it.
Like Jerrold Nadler, who railed against party-line impeachment votes and said the “effect of impeachment is to overturn the popular will of the voters” when it involved Clinton, he’s not going to develop a sense of shame — even if it’s how Schiff got elected to the House in the first place.
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Subject: Re: Adam Schiff Sat Dec 28, 2019 12:12 pm
Schiff Goes for Total Coup, Now Targeting Pence in Impeachment Effort By Jared Harris Published December 27, 2019 at 11:19am
It’s beginning to look like Rep. Adam Schiff isn’t content with simply ousting the president, instead hinting that he’s going for a total sweep of the White House by involving the vice president as well.
The move would seemingly put his ally and fellow California Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in charge of the United States.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee hinted at the bombshell turn in a Dec. 18 talk with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Maddow asked Schiff about his continuing role in the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
“You seem to still be pulling on some threads here, including some potentially provocative and consequential ones,” she said. “I’m thinking specifically about a letter that you sent to the vice president’s office this week in which you raise questions as to what the vice president knew about the president’s behavior, the president’s scheme in Ukraine, and thereby essentially his potential involvement in any coverup of that behavior by the president.
“Are you actively looking at Vice President Mike Pence and his role in this scandal, and should we expect further revelations either related to the vice president or related to the other core parts of these allegations that have resulted in this impeachment tonight?”
Schiff, in his usual habit of claiming to have overwhelming and damning evidence against his political enemies, said he now has something on Vice President Mike Pence.
“We have acquired a piece of evidence,” he said, “a classified submission by [Pence aide] Jennifer Williams, something that she alluded to in her open testimony that, in going back and looking through her records, she found other information that was pertinent to that phone call that we had asked her about and made that submission. …
“That submission does shed light on the vice president’s knowledge.”
Williams testified in Trump’s impeachment hearing about the president’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, drawing his ire on Twitter.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Tell Jennifer Williams, whoever that is, to read BOTH transcripts of the presidential calls, & see the just released ststement from Ukraine. Then she should meet with the other Never Trumpers, who I don’t know & mostly never even heard of, & work out a better presidential attack!
68.6K 12:57 PM - Nov 17, 2019
It remains to be seen whether the “piece of evidence” Schiff mentioned exists, given the congressman’s record on such assertions.
Pence previously shut down an attempt by Schiff to access sensitive documents for no reason.
“It just goes to show that there is a body of evidence,” Schiff later continued, “documentary and otherwise, that administration figures from the president on down to include the vice president do not want the American people to see or know.
“The question is, will they succeed? Will the coverup succeed? Or will the Senate insist on what we were not able to obtain in the House, and that is a White House that will comply with lawful process.”
If the Democrats were to succeed in impeaching and removing both Trump and Pence, this would constitute a virtual clean slate in the White House. Pelosi, who as speaker would be next in line for the presidency after the vice president, would become the nation’s highest executive.
With impeachment stalled because of Pelosi’s refusal to send articles of impeachment to the Senate, it looks like Schiff’s apparent plan at a total coup is now in limbo.
Although wrapping up Pence in impeachment proceedings might win the approval of the Democrats’ more extreme base, it would likely only serve to turn even more Americans against the attempt to oust Trump.
Even now, the decidedly partisan impeachment effort has given Republicans record-breaking fundraising hauls as everyday citizens rally around their rightfully elected officials.
While Democrats can now say they’ve voted to impeach Trump, as some of them had long promised, it remains to be seen what effect this will have on the party in the 2020 elections.
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