Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that when Trump called for Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, he knew that Russia had the emails.
Video:
Adam Schiff lays out a key piece of illegal Trump/Russia coordination. https://t.co/g0bK9L6yAI #AllIn #Russia pic.twitter.com/9NOkxfq7Q1
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) February 27, 2018
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Schiff said, “I think it’s the first time the public has been able to see one of the links here. And that is we knew from the Papadopoulos plea that the Russians had told the Trump campaign very early on in April of 2016 that they were in possession of these stolen e-mails. We now know that the Department of Justice presented to the FISA court information that the Russians previewed what they would do with this information, their dissemination of it. So when Donald Trump openly called on the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and be richly rewarded if they release these to the press, his campaign had already been put on notice that the Russians were prepared to do just that and disseminate these stolen e-mails.”
Trump already knew that Russia had the emails and that is an impeachable offense
Trump illegally coordinated with a hostile foreign power to win a presidential election. Collusion is not illegal, but coordinating a foreign government, and getting aid and assistance from that government is definitely illegal. The point that Adam Schiff raised goes straight to the heart of the questions about Trump’s presidential legitimacy.
The pieces are coming together. It doesn’t matter if Trump colluded with Russia because collusion is not illegal. Coordination and accepting benefits from a foreign entity is a crime. Rep. Schiff didn’t drop the I-word, but he didn’t need to. The point he was getting at was that the Trump/Russia coordination was not all done in private. Some of it was very public, and now that the pieces of the puzzle are beginning to connect, there is a growing case to be made for the impeachment of Donald J. Trump.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
