Who made Adam Schiff chairman of the House Intelligence Committee?
Martha Raddatz, of ABC News, that's who. Anyone doubting how far to the left Ms. Raddatz is should see her interview with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on ABC's This Week, May 28. He is the ranking Democrat on the committee, but Raddatz had him appear all by himself – with nary a committee Republican in sight – the better to hammer Trump and his administration.
The anti-Trump whipping began with Schiff declaring that the Trump administration "takes in people with good credibility and chews them out and spits out their credibility at the same time." Sources for the whipping were "reports," cited by Raddatz, "that Jared Kushner tried to set up a secret back channel with the Russians." Schiff, on cue, replied, "If these reports are accurate, right after [the election] campaign ... to have the president's son-in-law, a key player within the Trump Organization trying to establish a back channel, with the Russians through a Russian diplomatic facility, you have to ask, well, who are they hiding the conversations from?"
Richard A. Moss in The Washington Post, May 27, pointed out:
The Trump team isn't the first to want to shield its discussions with the Russians. Richard M. Nixon's administration did something similar. According to a February 1969 memo written by Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin – who served before six American presidents, from Kennedy through Reagan – Henry Kissinger told him that the Nixon administration wanted to conduct a "most confidential exchange of views" with the Kremlin because, "The Soviet side ... knows how to maintain confidentiality; but in our State Department, unfortunately, there are occasional leaks of information to the press."
Perhaps it is just as well Raddatz didn't mention the Nixon precedent. The recusal-challenged Schiff might well have gone into a Watergate spiel.
Raddatz said that according to The New York Times and ABC News, Kushner spoke "about the crisis in Syria and other policy matters" with the Russians. Not "necessarily" mitigating, Schiff replied, quickly adding, "It is something that our committee needs to get to the bottom of as well as [Special Counsel] Bob Mueller.
Next Raddatz asked: Had your committee, can I ask you, seen any of this type of evidence at all up to this point with Kushner?" Rather than answering, "What 'evidence' are you referring to?," Schiff declared: "I can't confirm or deny what we have seen."
To get to back to the question in the title of this piece, why did Raddatz, chatting with Schiff, refer to "your committee" in the question just quoted, if not to give viewers the impression that Schiff is really in charge because Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was pressured into stepping down for daring to go in a direction vigorously opposed by the Oust Trump Coalition: getting to the bottom of the Obama surveillance of the Trump campaign?
Raddatz, as any member in good standing of the media division of the Oust Trump team would, gave Schiff ample opportunity to insinuate that the bottom must be reached, concerning "allegations" about Jared Kushner, and "there is another question about his security clearance[.]"
Raddatz did not ask Schiff to comment on any progress his committee was making concerning the matter of the illegal unmasking of individuals on the Trump campaign who came under surveillance by the Obama administration. But then, for the left, the rule of law doesn't apply when it comes to goring Republicans.
Interestingly, Raddatz – was she prompted by the program's producers? – asked, just before the end of this interview: "[D]oes Congressman Devin Nunes still have a say on whether the committee issues subpoenas even though he stepped down as the chair of [the Russia] probe?" Schiff, grudgingly, replied: "He does. I don't think he should, given that he has stepped aside or recused himself. What I have been urging is that we have a committee vote[.]" A vote where the Republican members do what Schiff tells them, of course. And the left says President Trump is a threat to our democracy?
How about a Republican call for a special prosecutor – a prosecutor, not counsel – to probe Hatch Act violations by the bulbous boys, former director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director John Brennan?