James Ostrowski has done a superb job in showing up the impeachment for the nonsense that it is. This blog goes in a different direction. Suppose that there are persons who do not want to pursue the impeachment case in detail, but who are willing to accept the judgment of the inquisitors, led by Adam Schiff. In general, we accept authority in all kinds of cases and think of what they affirm as knowledge. One may do so in this instance too, but should one? Should one defer to Adam Schiff’s judgment?
One way in which we might know that Trump committed a high crime would be through accepting the judgment of an authoritative source. We might conceivably not investigate everything related to the charge that we personally could; and we might not apply our reason to the facts of the case, but we might defer to such other men in whose judgments we have full faith. Admittedly, it is unimaginable in this day and age that such other men might be politicians or journalists. Yet it is still worthwhile to imagine the possibility of judging guilt in this way, if only to grasp how distant Trump’s accusers are from making a bankable case for his guilt of bribery or whatever the crime of the day is.
Suppose that Adam Schiff is our potential authoritative source. The question is whether or not he is a believable accuser, someone whose testimony against Trump, which is his considered judgment, we might accept as true. The answer is that we cannot reasonably accept his authority. There are far too many strikes against his behavior to conclude that what he thinks about Trump’s guilt conforms to reality.
What do we know about Schiff that supports this negative judgment about his view of the reality of a Trump high crime and thus the reality of Trump’s guilt?
We know a great deal that is not subject to doubt.
Schiff told the Washington Post in March of 2019 that “undoubtedly there is collusion” between the Trump campaign and a foreign power.
This charge has yet to be found accurate or proven. But Schiff thinks that Mueller’s work demonstrates it to be true.
In July, Schiff accused Trump of “disloyalty to the country”: “Your [Mueller’s] investigation determined that the Trump campaign including Trump himself knew that a foreign power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian meddling into their strategy, and used it.” He added
“A crime is the violation of a law written by Congress. But disloyalty to country violates the very obligation of citizenship, our devotion to a core principle on which our nation was founded, that we, the people, not some foreign power that wishes us ill, we decide, who shall govern, us.”
We know that Schiff thinks that Trump is a traitor. He feels very strongly about this. That does not preclude that he is seeing the truth and that we can defer to his authority. But it does mean that he’s challenged to make his case for us. If he is to be an authority, he must give us reasons to believe him.
The impeachment inquiry gave him a full opportunity to make his case and that is where he has, by his own actions, failed to do so. That is where he has made any reasonable observer suspicious of his objectivity.
Certainly, if Schiff had a strong case to make against Trump, one such that we would have deferred to his judgment about Trump’s guilt or innocence, he would have conducted his hearings in a radically different way. If he had a strong case that we were to believe in, he would have wanted it to be the winner against opposition questions and defenses. He would want his knowledge and evidence to defeat all comers attempting to defend Trump. He would feel and act in confidence that he can beat the opposition in a fair fight; that he can show to the whole world that Trump is a traitor, a power abuser, a briber, or whatever charges he believes fit the case. Schiff didn’t do any of this. He did the opposite.
Schiff would not have conducted a critical and false parody of Trump’s phone call, which at the time had not been made public.
The hearings would not have been done in secret. They would not have been subject to leaks to media selected and winnowed so as to influence public opinion. The opposition party would have been allowed full scope for calling witnesses and for cross-examination. Hearsay would have been either ruled out or identified as such. Schiff would not have led witnesses or browbeat them. He would not cherry pick evidence and discard exculpatory evidence. He would not have interrupted Republican cross-examinations. All participants from both parties would have had access to documents available or by subpoena. Schiff would have wanted to win over some Republican votes as a signal that his own view was the truth about Trump.
Schiff would not have lied about his contact or his staff’s contacts with the person who broached the subject of the phone call with Zelensky. Schiff would not be shielding this person on the flimsy grounds that his personal safety was at stake.
There is surely more along these lines of thought that can be added to make the case that one cannot rely on Adam Schiff’s accusations of Trump. We do not know, for example, precisely who spied on Trump and how they were connected to people on Schiff’s staff. We have no reasonable explanation from Schiff why Trump would have been so stupid as to attempt a bribe or an extortion demand in full view of a staff of listeners to his phone call. Schiff has no explanation of the failure from Zelensky’s side to confirm that any pressure was exerted. Schiff has no real evidence to support the accusations of Pelosi about Trump that he shares. We do not have complete evidence about the connections of people on Schiff’s staff to Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company. We do not know the role of the CIA in this affair and this facet of the anti-Trump activity that has raged for 3 years and more.
An honest and truthful man who “knows” that Trump is betraying the country, the kind of man that Adam Schiff wants us to believe that he is so that we’ll accept his version of Trump as conforming to reality, that is, Trump the president who is disgracing the office and betraying America, that kind of honest man would be going out of his way to make his case honestly, in full view, exposing his position to all manner of doubters and critics. He would not have done what Adam Schiff has done with the Ukrainian case and hearings. That is why Adam Schiff is not a believable accuser of Trump. That is why he cannot be regarded as a reliable authority.
If Schiff really believed in his case against Trump, why did he resort to the means that he used? The answer is obvious. He was afraid that Republican opposition would tear his case to shreds and that it wouldn’t get off the ground. He did what he did in order to further the impeachment process, which was to make the “impeachment inquiry” into a kind of preliminary “show” proceeding that protected his version from being attacked and undermined. He even drew a false analogy between the inquiry’s secrecy and a Grand Jury proceeding. (See here for criticism of that analogy.)
8:47 pm on November 30, 2019
