Emotional Schiff Speech Goes Viral, Delighting the Left and Enraging the Right – The New York Times, Nytimes.com

Representative Adam B. Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, gave an impassioned speech urging senators to convict and remove President Trump. Credit (Credit …) Erin Schaff / The New York Times

Jan. , (Updated

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WASHINGTON – Senator James M. Inhofe, a conservative Republican from Oklahoma, has made clear that he intends to vote to acquit President Trump. But after Representative Adam B. Schiff ‘s fiery speech Thursday night calling for the president’s removal, Mr. Inhofe felt compelled to give his fellow lawmaker some grudging respect.

“I have to say this,” Mr. Inhofe told reporters Friday morning in the Capitol. “Schiff is very, very effective.”

Mr. Schiff, a California Democrat who steered the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump and is the lead prosecutor in his Senate trial, has long

been a hero to the left and a villain to the right. But never has he aroused as much passion as he has during his closing arguments in the president’s impeachment trial, first with Thursday’s declaration that “you know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country,” and then again Friday when he invoked a news report that Republican senators had been warned that their heads would be “on a pike” if they voted against Mr. Trump.

On Friday morning, the phrase #RightMatters – from the last line of Mr. Schiff’s Thursday speech – was trending as a hashtag on Twitter. The Daily Beast declared that the remarks “will go down in history .” Ryan Knight, a progressive activist, called it “a closing statement for the ages. ” Video of the speech quickly went viral. Liberals lavished him with praise.

“I am in tears,” Debra Messing , the “Will & Grace” actress and outspoken Trump critic. “Thank you Chairman Schiff for fighting for our country.”

Republicans had precisely the opposite reaction. Many view Mr. Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, as a slick and self-righteous political operator intent on undoing the results of the election – or preventing Mr. Trump from winning in . In the Senate, Republicans took particular umbrage at his declaration that they could not trust the president.

“I don’t trust Adam Schiff,” Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, shot back.

On Fox News, Mr. Schiff was filleted. “Amateur Thespian Schiff Tries Out Some New Lines,” TV monitors broadcasting the network declared Thursday, as the host Tucker Carlson mocked the congressman, calling him a “wild-eyed conspiracy nut.”

And if Mr. Schiff had made any inroads with Republicans in the Senate chamber, he may have undercut them on Friday with his “head on a pike” remark, drawn from

an anonymously sourced CBS News report . Mr. Schiff used it to liken Mr. Trump to a monarch, but the implication was that Republicans were terrified of crossing him.

“The whole room was visibly upset on our side,” said Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, “and it’s sad, it’s insulting and demeaning to everyone to say that we somehow live in fear and that the president has threatened all of us to put her head on the pike. ”

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Mr. Schiff took a risk in telling senators they must convict and remove President Trump because “you know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country.” Credit … Pete Marovich for The New York Times

A Stanford- and Harvard-educated lawyer, Mr. Schiff is drawing on skills he honed as a young federal prosecutor in Los Angeles. He first drew national attention in by winning the conviction of an FBI agent who became romantically entangled with a Russian spy, and was accused of selling government secrets in exchange for promises of gold and cash.

Prosecutors said Mr. Schiff took a risk in his bald declaration Thursday night that the president could not be trusted because Republicans in the chamber, almost all of whom support Mr. Trump, would see the criticism as implicitly directed at them.

“When you make an argument like that, you better be sure that your entire audience is with you,” said James G. McGovern, a criminal defense lawyer at Hogan Lovells in New York and a former prosecutor.

Multiple Republicans said afterward that they had not at all been moved by Mr. Schiff. “It seems to me their case is weaker today than it was yesterday,” said Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Senate Republican.

But Anne Milgram, a former attorney general of New Jersey and now a law professor at New York University, described Mr. Schiff’s sharp criticism of Mr. Trump as a “wise calculation,” because unlike a regular jury trial, Mr. Schiff does not need a unanimous verdict. The argument was aimed, she said, at

Regardless of the risk, it was clear on both sides of the aisle – and to experienced prosecutors who watched – that after a long day of complicated and sometimes monotonous testimony, Mr. Schiff’s oratory broke through. Mr. Schiff apparently thought so himself. He posted the last eight minutes, the most dramatic part of his speech, on Twitter Thursday night,

and by Friday evening it had been viewed 5.9 million times.

“Sometimes when Schiff steps to the mic I think he’s a little scripted,” Ms . Milgram said. “I did not feel that last night. I thought it was the most authentic I have seen him. He sort of crossed into another level. ”

Mr. Schiff opened by carefully leading the Senate through the House’s case that the president abused his office by trying to enlist Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, weaving in bits and pieces of testimony and commentary along the way. He then turned to his Senate audience and stated what he believes to be the obvious: Mr. Trump is guilty.

“Do we really have any doubt about the facts here?” Mr. Schiff asked. “Does anybody really question whether the president is capable of what he’s charged with? No one is really making the argument Donald Trump would never do such a thing, because of course we know that he would, and of course we know that he did. ”

Video

transcript

transcript

House Democrats Complete Their Opening Arguments Against Trump

Highlights from the final day of opening arguments in the Senate by House impeachment managers.

“Do you think for a moment that any of you, no matter what your relationship with this president, no matter how close you are to this president – do you think for a moment that if he felt it was in his interest , he wouldn’t ask you to be investigated? Do you think for a moment that he wouldn’t? And if somewhere deep down below you realize that he would, you cannot leave a man like that in office when he has violated the Constitution. ”“ This is a determination by President Trump that he wants to be all-powerful. He does not have to respect the Congress. He does not have to respect the representatives of the people. Only his will goes. He is a dictator. This must not stand. And that is why – another reason he must be removed from office. ”“ The president’s order executed by his top aides substantially interfered with the House’s constitutionally authorized power to conduct an impeachment inquiry, and we must hold any unprincipled and undisciplined executive accountable. ” “In an effort to conceal that whistleblower’s concerns, the White House and the Department of Justice took an unprecedented step. No administration had ever intervened in such a manner before. But President Trump maneuvered to keep the whistleblower’s concerns from the Congressional Intelligence Committees. ”“ Although senior Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Bill Barr, were reportedly made aware of the concerns about corrupt activity, no investigation into President Trump’s wrongdoing was even opened by the Department of Justice. ”

But that, Mr. Schiff said, led to the most critical question of all: “Does he really need to be removed?” The answer was yes, Mr. Schiff said, then offered a situation in which the Russians interfered in the election to help Mr. Trump, just as they did in “Can you have the least bit of confidence that Donald Trump will stand up to them and protect our national interest over his own personal interest?” Mr. Schiff said. “You know you can’t’t, which makes him dangerous to this country.’ ’

In the Capitol, Mr. Schiff is ordinarily serious, composed and in control. But as he moved toward his closing comments, he grew visibly emotional as he recalled the testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the White House national security aide and Ukrainian immigrant who testified in impeachment hearings before Congress and helped Democrats build their case.

Colonel Vindman, who fled the former Soviet Union with his family when he was 3, testified that he felt deeply uncomfortable with a telephone call Mr. Trump had on July with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, when Mr. Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to “do us a favor” and investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Mr. Schiff recalled how Colonel Vindman told lawmakers that unlike in the former Soviet Union, “right matters” in the United States.

“Well, let me tell you something,” Mr. Schiff went on, his forefinger jabbing the air for emphasis. “If right doesn’t matter, if right doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how good the Constitution is. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the framers were. Doesn’t matter how good or bad our advocacy in this trial is. ”If“ right does not matter, ”he connected,“ we’re lost. ”

Trump on Trial is a continuing series of articles offering reporting, analysis and impressions of the Senate impeachment proceedings.

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