Opinion: Adam Schiff's riff on Trump's Ukraine call was more truth than parody, but still unwise (via latimesopinion)
by reading aloud a “FAKE & terrible statement” that, according to Trump, purported to quote from the White House account of the president’s July 25 telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The president harrumphed that Schiff’s rendition at the beginning of a Thursday hearing of the House Intelligence Committee “bore NO relationship to what I said on the call.” Not for the first time, the president has gotten it wrong. It would have been clear to anyone watching Schiff’s remarks before the testimony of acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire that the congressman wasn’t claiming to quote Trump. Rather, Schiff offered his own opinionated summary of what Trump meant in his remarks to Zelensky.
Schiff later said his summary of Trump’s comments “was meant to be, at least part, in parody.” Actually, you could argue that there was more truth than parody in Schiff’s rewrite — but it was obvious from the start that ita rewrite. No sentient viewer would think Schiff was presenting his words as what Trump literally said.
Schiff’s “what he meant” maneuver wasn’t a misrepresentation, and it certainly wasn’t treasonous. But it was unwise, given that impeachment is a political and public-relations process as much a a constitutional one. Now that he has been anointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the
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