“In 2016, then-candidate Trump implored Russia to hack his opponent’s email account, something that the Russian military agency did only hours later — only hours later,” Schiff told the Senate Wednesday. “When the president said, ‘Hey, Russia, if you’re listening,’ they were listening. Only hours later, they hacked his opponent’s campaign.”
I found no mention by the big fact-crunchers on what was obvious at the time — Trump was joking.
But the fact-checkers don’t seem to care.
Frequently, I go to the fact-checkers. I do not necessarily agree with their conclusions but appreciate the way they explain the claims as they weigh what is accurate and inaccurate and the links they provide so that I can see for myself. But they’re not looking at both sides.
The guardians of the truth also ignore Schiff’s most offensive argument — that Trump was trying to “cheat in the next election.”
Just how does a presidential candidate cheat in an election? Voter and ballot fraud definitely qualify as cheating, but that’s not the issue here.
Now, I think Trump should not have asked a vulnerable ally to do his 2020 team’s campaign research for him.
Here cheating would be persuading Zelenskiy to announce an investigation of the Bidens. If Trump’s belief that the veep tried to fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son — when the prosecutor in question wasn’t investigating Hunter Biden — such an announcement would have served to inform voters that under-qualified Hunter Biden was paid some $50,000 per month from sketchy Burisma while his father was the face of the Obama administration’s campaign to fight corruption in Ukraine.
Actually, that’s the sort of thing American voters might want to know. So how is that cheating?
Wednesday, Schiff told the Senate that Trump had “escaped accountability for Russia meddling” in the 2016 election — which suggests Trump was working with Russia. Special counsel Robert Mueller found no coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. And still, Schiff holds Trump accountable.
At the final 2016 presidential debate, Trump made headlines when he answered that he was not sure if he would accept the results of the November contest, as he felt that the system had been rigged against him.
The New York Times and rival Hillary Clinton were mortified.
Within a year of Trump’s Electoral College win, it was Clinton who did not accept the results. In crediting Russia for Trump’s win, Schiff joins the league of crybaby losers.
And now he’s setting the stage for challenging a Trump victory should the president prevail in November.
If you want to get ahead in the Democratic Party, feel free to take down the democratic process. You can do anything, except try to appeal to new voters.
