Addressing the Senate on the first official day of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) delivered a persuasive and impassioned speech that urged senators to conduct a robust and thorough proceeding — rather than rushing through the trial as many Republicans would like.
Schiff repeatedly dismantled many of the arguments against hearing new witnesses and obtaining new evidence that have been put forward by the president’s defenders, and he rebutted the arguments that the impeachment inquiry he led in the House of Representatives was too swift. The House, he said, has a constitutional right conduct impeachment in the manner it sees fit, and it was obligated to move forward once it had a compelling and urgent case against Trump. And while some critics have said that he should have fought to obtain more witness testimony and documents, he pointed out that the president obstructed many efforts to get this evidence and that going to the courts would have been unnecessary and far too slow.
In a clever and compelling move, Schiff used video clips of Trump’s own words to bolster his arguments. He played a clip of Trump saying, for instance, that he would like to see witnesses at the Senate trial. Continue reading.