House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) revealed that he either doesn’t know anything about anything that’s going on with the whistleblower complaint or he is blatantly lying in a desperate bid to spin the facts.
Friday, the Republican tweeted this misleading piece of propaganda that echoes the Republican Kavanaugh defense playbook – blame the person speaking up as having known about the crime for a while, as if somehow even if true this would mitigate the fact that the Republican committed the crime.
Schiff knew about the whistleblower complaint back in August… but he sat on it and didn't share it with the rest of the committee until they had already leaked it to the press.
This is the exact same playbook Democrats ran against Kavanaugh.
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This is a shameful abuse of power. pic.twitter.com/POiKqFg6pK
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) September 27, 2019
Scalise is using the fact that the whistleblower letter was addressed to Adam Schiff as proof that Schiff knew about it. It is irrelevant whether Schiff knew about it or not, but the larger fact is that he didn’t because the Trump White House illegally withheld the complaint from Congress. That is the entire issue surrounding the White House cover up for Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president, during which Trump tried to extort Ukraine to help him cheat in yet another U.S. election.
Republicans are literally lying about why the complaint wasn’t seen by Congress, which is already an established fact. And then using that lie as if it gives them the GOJF card that worked implausibly well for them in the Kavanaugh sexual assault hearing.
This is how Republicans muddy the waters, and it’s getting so old.
Vote Vets replied:
Wow, this is a blatant lie. Not even spin. The letter, delivered to the IG, was then withheld from House Intel and Chairman Schiff, by DNI.
That was a major, major point discussed in committee, yesterday.
We would ask @SteveScalise to delete this, but he has no honor. https://t.co/DkwvcAh3PI
— VoteVets (@votevets) September 27, 2019
Republicans are trying to smear Adam Schiff because he’s an excellent prosecutor who will be handling the impeachment case against Donald Trump. Trump is desperately trying to make “liddle” happen again, apparently he’s believed that’s a word for many years, but it’s not taking off. This all the usual Republican poison the well attack because they can’t discuss facts.
This is one reason Democrats are moving at the speed of lightening to get to the impeachment vote before Thanksgiving, and also so that they can focus on their long policy agenda that actually seeks to help people.
Peter Morley, a patient advocate who works with Congress to strengthen Obamacare, said he is confident that Schiff isn’t going to allow Republicans to build more lies about the whistleblower complaint:
I've spent time with @RepAdamSchiff, he's NOT going to let Trump build any more lies.https://t.co/OCr54m5SPz
— Peter Morley (@morethanmySLE) September 27, 2019
Schiff is the natural leader on this matter because Democrats are focusing *this* impeachment inquiry specifically on the abuse of power, violation of oath of office and threat to our national security that Trump extorting Ukraine for help cheating in 2020 represents.
1:27 PM: Corrected spelling of Peter Morley’s name.
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