Adam Schiff Hits Back at Donald Trump Jr. For False Leaking Accusations

During a Fox News appearance Tuesday, Don Trump Jr. blamed Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) of leaking what was said when was called before the committee.

The younger Trump stupidly attempted to declare father-son privilege, something that doesn’t exist in the law. As a result, he refused to answer most of the committee’s questions.

But Schiff is the new sheriff in town, and he won’t continue to allow Don Jr. to get away with flouting the law. Over the past two years, the Trump crime family was allowed to get away with their crimes with no accountability thanks to Devin Nunes, the corrupt Republican who until January 3 was Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Nunes brought in Donald Jr. to testify so the president’s son could lie under oath while attempting to make the Trump-Russia scandal go away.

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Nunes also tried to protect Junior from facing perjury charges which were well deserved.

But everything has changed now that the committee is being run by straight shooting Democratic Chairman Schiff.

Schiff also made an appearance on Fox News and opined that Don Jr. is desperately trying to avoid having to answer questions when he’s brought back in to testify. This time, he knows, he will have to tell the truth or go to prison for perjury. Schiff ridiculed Junior’s attempt to claim that he has some kind of client-client privilege with Donald Trump, simply because they’re father and son, even though no such thing exists under the law.

Schiff made clear on-air that he and the newly Democratic-controlled House Intelligence Committee have no intention of allowing Donald Trump Jr. or anyone else to get away with anything. Junior will be issued a subpoena and dragged before the committee if necessary. He will be forced to face questions in front of the television cameras for all the world to see.

“He has been making this claim of privilege all along,” Schiff said. “What upsets Don Jr. — I can understand why he is upset — is he was saying, ‘I’m fully cooperating with Congress, I’m answering questions.’ Then he goes before our committee and refuses to answer a whole host of questions, making completely false claims of privilege. We called him out on it as we have done with other witnesses.”

Schiff noted that the other side of the aisle did similar things when they exposed former aide Steve Bannon for refusing to answer questions.

“He calls that a leak because we exposed the fact that he refused to answer questions and was making up some attorney/client privilege to cover conversations between he and his father when neither is an attorney nor the client of the other,” the chairman continued. “That’s his upset. That’s not a leak. It’s exposure of his non-cooperation and his stonewalling of our committee.”

Schiff noted that the committee has always maintained that they would not talk about the substance of the witness’ testimony, but would reveal non-cooperation.

“So, they cannot mislead the public into thinking they are answering our questions,” Schiff said. “That is not only a practice that we have had, but also my colleagues in the GOP have from time-to-time used the same practice, for example, when Steve Bannon came in and stonewalled our committee. They were more than willing to go out publicly and say, he is not answering our questions. That’s been our practice both Democrats and Republicans. Don Jr. may not like it because he wants to maintain a facade of cooperation. That’s the reality.”

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.