U.S Rep. Adam Schiff
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, who is leading the House Intelligence Committee impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump, said in Evanston on Thursday night that House Democrats might be forced to move forward before being able to “flesh out the facts” because of what he described as the president’s obstructionist acts and delay tactics.
Speaking at Northwestern University, Schiff said Trump’s request to have foreign powers interfere in the U.S. election process makes his presidency one of the most “pernicious threats to our democracy.”
“I’m certainly concerned that there’s a need to act expeditiously here. We don’t want this to drag on forever,” Schiff told an audience of more than 1,000 about advancing potential articles of impeachment to the full House.
“At the same time, (the White House has) apparently every incentive to try to make it drag on forever. And there may very well come a point where we have to make the decision that the effort to obstruct has become such an impediment that we have reached a decision point — even in the absence of being able to fully follow and flesh out the facts surrounding the president’s Ukraine conduct,” Schiff said.
Schiff, a former federal prosecutor from California who is in his 10th term in the House, made the remarks while delivering Northwestern’s 30th annual Richard W. Leopold Lecture. His talk was entitled “The Threat to Liberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.
Schiff’s visit came just hours after Trump doubled-down on his call for foreign government investigations involving potential 2020 Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Trump has acknowledged speaking to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in July, seeking the country’s help to investigate the Bidens at a time when U.S. military aid was being withheld from the country. The conversation was revealed in a whistleblower’s letter.
On Thursday morning, Trump said, “likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens.” Asked if he had asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to launch an investigation, Trump told reporters, “I haven’t, but it’s certainly something we can start thinking about.”
Biden’s campaign said Trump was “desperately clutching for conspiracy theories that have been debunked and dismissed by independent, credible news organizations,” and that the president was “terrified” that Biden would defeat him for reelection.
Schiff said the Founding Fathers would have considered Trump’s request for foreign involvement in domestic elections “an offense of the greatest magnitude.
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“I think one of the most pernicious threats to our democracy is one that’s been revealed in just the last couple of weeks — and that is the president of the United States would use the full power of his office to attempt to coerce a foreign leader, the leader of another country … beholden to the United States for its defense, for its economy, for diplomatic support, (and) abuse the power of his office to coerce that country into intervening in our election on his behalf by investigating his political rival,” Schiff said.
“The message the president is seeing for what he put this country through in the last two years is that he can do anything and get away with it, but there is no accountability. That is a very dangerous idea for a president to have,” he said.
Schiff said the move to launch impeachment proceedings was a “very reluctant journey for me” given the gravity of the potential removal of a president from office. But he said he did not know where the process would lead and discounted the possibility it could serve to embolden Trump’s base.
But Schiff criticized Republicans for failing to take on Trump and said they would be remembered for failing to “stand up for the rule of law and this very democracy when it was under its greatest threat at home.”
He said the world is now questioning whether the U.S. has had “a bout of momentary insanity, or that it’s just fundamentally not the country they thought we were.
Trump has repeatedly sought to demean Schiff. On Thursday morning before heading to Florida, the president called him “Shifty Schiff” and again vented his criticism at the congressman over his shorthand parody-like paraphrasing of a White House memo of Trump’s call to Zelenskiy during an intelligence committee hearing.
Trump has previously called Schiff a “low life” and treasonous, and said he should be forced to resign from Congress. Earlier this week, noting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the president said Schiff “couldn’t carry his ‘blank’ strap.”
Asked if he had a favorite nickname from Trump, Schiff criticized the president for using social media to invite “violence,” such as referring to those who oppose him as a “traitor or spy.”
“I don’t have a favorite nickname, and I wish he would spend more time attending to the business of the country than making up new ones,” Schiff said.
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