House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff lied when he said his office had not spoken to the Ukraine whistleblower prior to that individual filing a complaint against President Trump.
It was a lie, plain and simple, and one that threatens to undermine the credibility and of the California lawmaker’s committee. But never fear, congressman. At least one media commentator is here to run interference on your behalf.
“Schiff did appear to lie here in previously saying that his office had not spoken directly with the whistleblower,” said MSNBC contributor and Daily Beast editor Sam Stein. “But if you care more about this stuff than the actual substance of the whistleblower complaint than you’re being a hack.”
With pundits like this, who even needs a press secretary?
Schiff did appear to lie here in previously saying that his office had not spoken directly with the whistleblower. But if you care more about this stuff than the actual substance of the whistleblower complaint than you’re being a hack.
— Sam Stein (@samstein) October 2, 2019
Schiff’s lie does not change the content of the whistleblower complaint or the larger allegations against Trump. But it is also worth asking why the man tasked with heading the impeachment inquiry against the president would lie about the timeline of events. Two things can be bad at once, according to sources. It is not “being a hack” to ask whether the investigators are trustworthy, especially considering Schiff has been caught lying before in his capacity as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. (He falsely claimed that he had “evidence” of Russian collusion.)
It is funny that Stein, who has experienced zero problems in the past accurately describing falsehoods with words like “lie,” “lying,” and “liar,” would go out of his way to cover for someone who lied to him specifically. I thought this was supposed to be a golden-era of truth-telling for our very brave news media.
Schiff was asked on Sept. 17 during an appearance on MSNBC to explain his suggestion that the president was making an effort to block the whistleblower’s complaint from reaching Congress.
“We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower,” the California lawmaker responded.
That is a lie.
Schiff added, “We would like to, but I’m sure the whistleblower has concerns that he has not been advised as the law requires by the inspector general or the director of national intelligence just as to how he is to communicate with Congress.”
The New York Times reported Wednesday that the whistleblower approached the congressman’s office for guidance prior to filing the complaint. The report’s opening paragraphs read:
The early account by the future whistle-blower shows how determined he was to make known his allegations that Mr. Trump asked Ukraine’s government to interfere on his behalf in the 2020 election. It also explains how Mr. Schiff knew to press for the complaint when the Trump administration initially blocked lawmakers from seeing it.
Schiff’s office has confirmed this version of events. This is not to say the whistleblower did anything wrong. Rather, it is to say Schiff clearly lied about his prior interactions with the author of the complaint.
Schiff “clearly wasn’t being forthright in that interview with us a couple of weeks ago and he should have been,” Stein put it charitably, as if he were the congressman’s spokesman.
You can take the man out of the HuffPo, but you can’t take the HuffPo out of the man.
