![]() Schiff learned his prosecutorial skills trying tough cases like Miller’s. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who sits on the Intelligence Committee. “With the impeachment focus on the national security issue and Adam Schiff being much more the face of it” has given House Democrats “some confidence it will be well handled,” said Rep. ![]() Schiff has an ambitious schedule of depositions of current and former administration officials knowledgeable about the events leading up to the Trump-Zelenskiy phone call. ambassador to the European Union whom the administration instructed not to show up at a deposition, is set to testify under subpoena Oct. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, as soon as the White House directed her not to testify, according to a statement by Schiff and the chairmen of two other committees conducting the probe. ![]() Schiff has made clear he’s playing prosecutorial hard-ball. He showed his determination not to be stymied by the same kind of stonewalling the White House applied to the House Judiciary Committee, which has tried with little success to hear directly from witnesses cited in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), designated Schiff to spearhead the refocused impeachment probe after a whistleblower’s allegation surfaced last month. His committee is one of three involved in the investigation along with the Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Reform panels. On that call, the president asked his counterpart to investigate unfounded allegations that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election to help Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and that as vice president Biden pushed Ukraine to quash an investigation of his son. Schiff’s committee is piecing together the complicated sequence of events leading up to Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodmyr Zelenskiy. Schiff’s office did not respond to a request for an interview. 630) to censure Schiff for offering a version of the call “that was absolutely just untrue.” Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) introduced a resolution ( H. Trump has repeatedly referred to him as “Shifty Schiff,” and Trump tweeted that he wanted Schiff “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.’’ House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) tweeted that the chairman was a “ proven liar.” 26 hearing he attributed to Trump words the president didn’t utter on the call with the Ukraine president in a riff that Schiff said amounted to “the essence of what the president communicates” to Zelenskiy in “a classic organized crime shakedown.”įormer colleagues likened the performance to a prosecutor’s closing argument at trial.īut Republicans seized on the incident, along with Schiff’s subsequent concession that he should have been clearer the whistleblower contacted the committee before filing the complaint, arguing he’s leading a partisan effort to overturn the 2016 election results and preempt the 2020 vote. The white-collar criminal cases that Schiff, 59, prosecuted, such as fraud or political corruption “were complicated and took time to put together,” Feess said in an interview.Īs chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff is shepherding the effort to determine whether Trump should be impeached for trying to enlist Ukraine’s help to investigate Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in that country when his father was vice president.īut Schiff’s prosecutorial approach has also tripped him up and provided fodder for Republican rebukes.Īt a Sept. “He was quiet, he was methodical, he was thoughtful, he was very articulate in a low-key way, all of the things you see when he stands in front of the cameras in a quiet, but effective fashion, as he sort of lays out the case,” said Feess. attorney in Los Angeles during part of the time Schiff worked as a federal prosecutor there from 1987 to 1993. ![]() attorney’s office,” said Gary Feess, who was the chief deputy assistant U.S. “When you watch Adam work these days you are seeing exactly the way he was in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. The skills that Schiff (D-Calif.) honed during a six-year law-enforcement career that culminated in the 1990 espionage trial of fired FBI agent Richard Miller prepared him for his current role, according to former colleagues and supervisors worked with him in the U.S. Adam Schiff to a “kangaroo court,” while his Republican colleagues have accused him of lying and waging a witch hunt.īut Schiff’s former Justice Department colleagues see an older version of the measured federal prosecutor who won a high-profile Soviet spy conviction almost 30 years ago. President Donald Trump has likened the House impeachment inquiry led by Rep. Republicans question lawmaker’s truthfulness and intention.Chairman over Trump probe praised for federal prosecutor work. ![]()
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