I guess Republicans can't wait until January to launch their three-ring circus. Schiff made clear he had no role in the whistleblower report and hasn't spoken to him/her—now an unnecessary witness given that s/he has had their report confirmed by many witnesses and Trump himself.
1/ Indeed it's DOJ that should be investigated—for breaking protocol by informing the White House of the report prematurely and not conducting a review of the report in regular order (using its standard case-review process). The Republicans have no useful info to get from Schiff.
2/ The only purpose of calling Schiff is to advance the very same "deep-state" conspiracy theories that the NYT reports the DOJ IG report is going to conclusively debunk in a matter of days. None of this has anything to do with the crimes committed by the suspect(s) in this case.
3/ At every stage of these investigations, the Republicans have located at least one former/current member of federal law enforcement to scapegoat for the actions of the career criminal in the Oval Office. This time they have selected former prosecutor Schiff. That's all this is.
4/ But it goes beyond that. This is a trial strategy that involves demanding to speak to witnesses Trump and his allies know they will not be able to speak to. Then they can spin conspiracy theories about why they were not able to access that evidence, even if it wasn't relevant.
5/ Meanwhile, the same GOP voters who falsely said there was no collusion between anyone on Trump's campaign and Russia, even after the Mueller Report demonstrated otherwise, will suddenly start loving conspiracy theories rather than denigrating everything others say in that way.
6/ Republican politicians have been misleading Republican voters about how the criminal justice system works for *decades*—*precisely* in preparation for moments like these, in which deceiving America about how due process works allows them to demagogue a critical national event.
7/ It's the same reason GOP rhetoric focuses so much on the U.S. Constitution, as the small number of prescriptions in the Bill of Rights are in fact something most GOP voters profoundly *misunderstand*. GOP politics is about demagoguing issues your voters *don't* follow closely.
8/ That's why, for instance, the GOP relies so heavily on the NRA. Most GOP voters understand the basic gun control debate well enough to side with moderate Democrats, as even the majority of NRA members do. So the NRA must step in to give a tiny minority of GOP voters a "voice."
9/ If GOP voters writ large understood the criminal justice system, or were simply willing to listen to attorneys on cable and elsewhere, they would understand that even in the context of a conventional criminal defense what the Republicans are doing is obscene and unprecedented.
10/ I practiced criminal law for years, and I would not only be personally, ethically, and professionally humiliated to act (or feel or "forced" to act) as Trump's allies are now acting, but I would expect others in the legal profession to step forward to intervene and *stop* me.
11/ Imagine if I defended a case in which my client was dead-to-rights not by seeking a negotiated resolution or even insisting on a professionally conducted adversarial hearing, but by *falsely asserting a massive years-long conspiracy in local law enforcement*. I'd lose my job.
12/ Even that summary undersells what's happening here. Trump and his agents are defending a dead-to-rights criminal by terminally assaulting/degrading:
1️⃣ Rule of Law
2️⃣ U.S. Intelligence
3️⃣ Federal Law Enforcement
4️⃣ Our Elections
5️⃣ Our Democratic Institutions (e.g. Congress)
1️⃣ Rule of Law
2️⃣ U.S. Intelligence
3️⃣ Federal Law Enforcement
4️⃣ Our Elections
5️⃣ Our Democratic Institutions (e.g. Congress)
