Former member of President Bill Clinton’s administration and longtime ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos prodded Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to take a second shot at impeaching President Donald Trump.
Schiff, who chairs the powerful House Intelligence Committee, appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” on Sunday to discuss his usual talking points about Trump and Russia. During the conversation, Stephanopoulos quoted James Madison’s speech from the 1788 Constitutional Convention to push Schiff to impeach Trump for commuting Roger Stone’s sentence.
“If the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him, they can remove him if found guilty,” Stephanopoulos quoted from Madison before asking Schiff, “Is this an impeachable offense?”
As NewsBusters reported, Stephanopoulos also referenced Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who said, “the President and Stone can still be indicted once Donald Trump leaves office.” Stephanopoulos then asked Schiff if presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden should “ask his Attorney General to take that step if he indeed does become president?”
Schiff did not commit to impeaching Trump again but did fall back on his old talking points about Trump being worse than President Richard Nixon and Watergate. He claimed Trump “urged the Russians to hack Hillary’s e-mails,” referencing a joke Trump made in 2016 during a campaign rally. Schiff also continued to push the idea that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to steal the election, even though a two-year special counsel investigation found no such collusion.
“According to Schiff, what Trump did was actually worse than any actions Nixon took because ‘the Republicans at that time would not have stood for this and Nixon understood that.’ Schiff contrasted the Republicans of the Watergate era with the Republicans of today, who ‘won’t defend the rule of law,’” NewsBusters reported. “As the segment continued, Schiff mentioned that he warned Republicans during the impeachment process that ‘the damage he could do between now and Election Day could be severe’ if he was not removed from office. At this point, Schiff blamed Trump for the deaths of 130,000 Americans because of coronavirus.”
Stephanopoulos did not push back on any of Schiff’s claims.
As NewsBusters noted, it is a similar tactic Stephanopoulos took two weeks ago when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appeared on the same program to spout her own Trump-Russia conspiracy theories.
“Just as I have said to the President with him, all roads lead to Putin. He will not … I don’t know what the Russians have on the President politically, personally, financially, or whatever it is,” Pelosi said in reference to a New York Times report quoting anonymous officials who claimed Trump ignored intelligence that Russia was paying the Taliban to kill American troops. “Because the President wants to ignore any allegation against Russia. As I’ve said to him in that meeting when I’m pointing to him in a blue suit, ‘with you Mr. President, all roads lead to Putin.’”
Stephanopoulos did not push back or demand any evidence for Pelosi’s claims.