President Donald Trump on Thursday floated legal action against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for falsely claiming House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) used the president’s “own words” when he performed a fabricated conversation between the president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a hearing last week.
“Nancy Pelosi today, on @GMA, actually said that Adam Schiffty Schiff didn’t fabricate my words in a major speech before Congress. She either had no idea what she was saying, in other words lost it, or she lied. Even Clinton lover @GStephanopoulos strongly called her out. Sue her?” the president wrote on Twitter.
President Trump’s tweet came in response to Pelosi’s Wednesday interview with ABC News in which she asserted Schiff “didn’t make it up” when he performed the fake conversation between the two world leaders during his opening statement at a committee hearing featuring Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire.
A partial transcript of the exchange is as follows:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I know you support chairman Schiff but was it right for him to have that dramatic interpretation of the president’s transcript of the phone call at the hearing last week.
HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: I want the American people to know what that phone call was about. I want them to hear, it. So, yeah, it’s fair. It’s sad but he was using the president’s own words. So if he’s—.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, those weren’t the president’s words, it was an interpretation of the president’s words. They’re saying he made this up.
PELOSI: He didn’t make it up.
During the September 26th hearing, the House Intelligence Chairman performed what he claimed was “the essence” of what President Trump discussed with Zelensky:
We’ve been very good to your country. Very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what? I don’t see much reciprocity here. I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from YOU though. And I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of it. On this and on that. I’m gonna put you in touch with people, and not just any people. I’m going to put you in touch with the attorney general of the United States, my attorney general Bill Barr. He’s got the whole weight of the American law enforcement behind him. And I’m gonna put you in touch with Rudy, you’re gonna love him, trust me. You know what I’m asking, so I’m only going to say this a few more times, in a few more ways. And, by the way, don’t call me again. I’ll call you when you’ve done what I asked.
This is in sum and character what the president was trying to communicate.
Of course, words such as “political opponent,” and “make up dirt,” were absent from the Trump-Zelensky transcript, which, in a nod to transparency, was released last week. Conversely, the actual transcript shows the president encouraged the leader of Ukraine to “call me more often” and mentioned former Vice President and 2020 White House candidate Joe Biden just once. A partisan CIA officer who filed a so-called “whistleblower” complaint regarding the pair’s call erroneously alleged that Biden was namedropped eight times. The complaint sparked House Democrats to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against the president.
Speaking to reporters at the White House Wednesday, President Trump slammed Schiff as a “lowlife” and demanded that he resign from Congress.
“Congressman Adam Schiff should resign for the Crime of, after reading a transcript of my conversation with the President of Ukraine (it was perfect), fraudulently fabricating a statement of the President of the United States and reading it to Congress, as though mine! He is sick!” he wrote earlier Wednesday.