President made claim against Adam Schiff on Twitter as diplomats quoted in transcripts have not complained about accuracy
Donald Trump
stepped up his fight against impeachment on Monday, making the false
accusation that his Democratic opponents released “doctored transcripts”
of testimony by US diplomats.
The president faces a momentous week as the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry begins nationally televised hearings Democrats hope will help shift public opinion against Trump.
So far Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, has
released transcripts from hundreds of pages of testimony received
behind closed doors that concurs the Trump administration attempted to
tie military aid to Ukraine to an investigation of a potential
Democratic rival for the presidency, Joe Biden.The president faces a momentous week as the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry begins nationally televised hearings Democrats hope will help shift public opinion against Trump.
Trump tweeted on Monday: “Shifty Adam Schiff will only release doctored transcripts. We haven’t even seen the documents and are restricted from (get this) having a lawyer. Republicans should put out their own transcripts!”
He did not cite evidence for the extraordinary claim and none of the diplomats quoted in the transcripts, or their lawyers, have complained about their accuracy.
Robert Luskin, who represents the witness Gordon Sondland, US ambassador to the EU, said in an email to the Daily Beast: “No reason to believe that the transcript was altered.”
"Republicans could decide that they just want to make the whole thing look like a circus, to tarnish it in the public eye"
Conversely, Trump has repeatedly asserted that he released a full version of his “perfect” 25 July call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, repeatedly telling critics to “Read the Transcript!”
In fact it was an edited version with some potentially crucial passages missing.
In his tweet, Trump also returned to a frequent attack line against Schiff, who has been criticised for glibly paraphrasing Trump’s call at a congressional hearing: “Schiff must testify as to why he MADE UP a statement from me, and read it to all!”
The latest attack typifies a broader campaign by Trump and his supporters on Capitol Hill – and in conservative media – to delegitimise the impeachment inquiry, which has moved at a cracking pace and might be wrapped up by Christmas. The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist, has even declared he will not read the transcripts.
The inquiry will reach a pivotal moment on Wednesday with appearances by Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine who told the House committees in closed-door sessions about his misgivings that US aid was being frozen, and George Kent, a senior state department official who expressed concern about Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani operating an irregular diplomatic channel.
On Friday, the intelligence committee will hear from former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who said in the private hearings she was removed after Giuliani waged a campaign against her with “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives”.
House Republicans released a list on Saturday of witnesses they would like brought before the committee, including Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who had business interests in Ukraine, and the anonymous whistleblower who brought a complaint against Trump over the Zelenskiy phone call. Neither is likely to be summoned.
Schiff, who will gavel in the sessions carried by major broadcast and cable networks and expected to be viewed by millions, has said they will “be an opportunity for the American people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves”.
There will be inevitable parallels with the Watergate hearings in 1973, which over seven months transfixed the nation and led to the resignation of Republican Richard Nixon, and the 1998-99 impeachment of Democrat Bill Clinton, which was followed by his Senate acquittal.
Although some Republicans have struggled to defend Trump’s conduct, many of his dubious claims will probably be amplified by Republicans at the hearings.
John Farrell, a biographer of Nixon, told the Guardian: “You hope that people will try to pull themselves away from the snark and the terribly leading questions when the cameras are on but they may choose to grandstand for their base. Republicans, in particular, could decide that they just want to make the whole thing look like a circus, to tarnish it in the public eye.”
All concerned will be operating in a very different media environment that includes rightwing cable network Fox News and partisan echo chambers on the internet.
Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent, observed in a newsletter: “This is the first internet impeachment. The first social media impeachment. This is the first impeachment since Fox News became a powerful force in American politics. The first impeachment since smartphones, Twitter and ‘alternative facts’.”
He added: “The hearings will be clipped and digested and condensed and remixed and memed and distorted and mocked in ways that weren’t even possible during the Nixon or Clinton eras.”
Many political commentators believe Trump’s impeachment is all but certain in the Democratic-controlled House, although he is almost certain to be acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate, leaving him in place to contest next year’s election.
On Monday, Trump drew protesters in New York when he attended the opening of the 100th annual parade organised by the United War Veterans Council in Madison Square Park.
America’s veterans “risked everything for us”, he said. “Now it is our duty to serve and protect them every single day of our lives.”
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