Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff said if Senate Republicans had voted to convict and remove President Donald Trump during his impeachment, 130,000 Americans would not have died of the coronavirus.
On Trump commuting Roger Stone’s prison sentence, Schiff said, “There are things that we can do to discourage the abuse of the pardon power the commutation power. I introduced a bill months ago if the president pardons someone in which they’re a witness, subject, the files on that case will be provided to Congress, to evaluate whether this is another act of obstruction of justice. That we can do. You point out a very important problem which is responsible for the commutation of this sentence and is that Republicans won’t stand up for the rule of law, won’t stand up for the independence of the Justice Department. This was a Republican-led investigation that Roger Stone lied to. The committee was chaired by a Republican, and here you have no more than a couple of Republicans willing to say a single word of someone who came before Congress and lied to them, obstructed them. Why? Because he did it to cover for a president of their party. Donald Trump understands that he has these Republicans cowed, they won’t stand up to him. They won’t defend the rule of law, and that means we’ll have to wait until next year to pass this legislation to discourage further abuses of the powers.”
He continued, “It’s an impeachable offense if you abuse the pardon power to protect yourself from criminal liability. Again, George, if the Republicans won’t say a word, of course, they’re not going to vote to impeach and convict. We already presented a case with overwhelming evidence, and they refused to convict then. And during that impeachment we around with if they left him in office that the damage he could do between now and election day could be severe. Here we are now 130,000 Americans dead, We no idea just how bad the damage would be. But non the less we knew the damage would be grave.”
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