Early on during the impeachment hearing, Chairman Schiff (D-CA) instructed the witnesses to ONLY testify to what they knew to be true.
As the day went on, however, the biggest violator of this “rule” was Rep. Schiff himself.
Pure Assumption
One part of the hearing the media is latching onto is where Schiff made a LOT of assumptions, then asked the witness to agree with him.
Schiff stated, “I want to follow up on some of the earlier questions about President Zelensky’s statements after this scandal came to light when he was asked, ‘Were you pressured, how did the phone call go, etc.’
“Ukrainians, Mr. Kent, are pretty sophisticated about U.S. politics, are they not?”
Mr. Kent replied, “Perhaps.”
Schiff continued, “You would agree that if President Zelensky contradicted President Trump and said, ‘Of course I felt pressured. They were holding up $400 million in military assistance. We have people dying every day,’ if he were to contradict President Trump directly, they would be sophisticated enough to know they may pay a very heavy price with this president, were they not?”
Kent replied, “That’s a fair assessment.”
Schiff went on, “And President Zelensky not only had to worry about retribution from Donald Trump, should he contradict Donald Trump publicly, he also has to worry about how he is perceived domestically, doesn’t he Ambassador Taylor?”
Ambassador Taylor replied, “President Zelensky is very sensitive to the view of the Ukrainian people who, indeed, are very attentive to Ukrainian/U.S. politics, yes.”
Schiff then stated, “And so, if President Zelensky were to say, ‘I had to capitulate and agree to these investigations, I was ready to go on CNN until the aid got restored,’ that would obviously be hurtful to him back home, would it not?”
Taylor responded, “He cannot afford to be seen deferring to any foreign leader. He is very confident in his own abilities and he knows that the Ukrainian people expect him to be clear and defend Ukrainian interests.”
You can hear Schiff take over this in the video below…
Now, for someone that asked the witness to only answer questions to which they actually know the answer, that is an awful lot of conjecture and telling of the future by Schiff.
He is literally asking both witnesses to tell him what would happen for events Schiff himself interprets from Zelensky’s position.
If everyone thought Schiff’s interpretation of the phone call transcript was bad, this should have Schiff kicked right out of his leadership position.
This is what Democrats are hanging their hat on… Taylor and Kent’s assessment of what Zelensky would think and do based on made-up quotes from Zelensky by Adam Schiff.
This happened right in front of every American and our members of Congress… and not a single person objected to it, including the entire mainstream media.
Source: CNN Impeachment Hearing Video (YouTube)
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