Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), who has been debunking the falsities espoused by Democrat lawmakers throughout the week’s public impeachment hearings, slammed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Thursday for lying in his “opening statement parody.”
He made his accusation on Twitter ahead of the testimonies of Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official, and David Holmes, counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.
Schiff kicked off the seventh public impeachment hearing by repeating what Zeldin says is a lie, claiming that President Trump demanded an investigation into Joe Biden in exchange for aid.
“Trump then requested that Zelensky investigate the discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. Even more ominously, Trump asked Zelensky to look into the Bidens,” Schiff said.
“Neither request had been included the official talking points for the call prepared by the NSC staff, but both were in Donald Trump’s personal interest, and in the interests of his 2020 re-election campaign,” he claimed.
“Schiff just said in his latest opening statement parody that the President demanded an investigation of Joe Biden in return for US $. This is a lie,” Zeldin noted. “Unfortunately we now expect nothing less from this total Schiff Show”:
As Republican lawmakers have pointed out throughout the public impeachment hearings, Ukraine received a phone call, meeting, and aid without investigations or a mere announcement of investigations into the 2016 elections, Burisma, or the Bidens.
This was highlighted by an exchange between Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) and former diplomat Kurt Volker, who spoke to both parties.
Turner: “Did the President of the United States ever say to you that he was not going to allow aid from the United States to go to the Ukraine unless there were investigations into Burisma, the Bidens, or the 2016 elections?”
Volker: “No, he did not,” Volker said.
Turner: “Did the Ukrainians ever tell you that they understood that they would not get a meeting with the President of the United States, a phone call with the President of the United States, military aid, or foreign aid from the United States unless they undertook investigations of Burisma, the Bidens, or the 2016 elections?”
Volker: “No, they did not.”
Turner: “Pretty much, Ambassador Volker, you just like took apart their entire case.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) also drove that point home.
He told Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who testified on Wednesday:
I mean, you got all three of them wrong. They get the call, they get the meeting, they get the money. It’s not 2+2. It’s 0-3. I mean I’ve never seen anything like this. And you told Mr. Castor that the president never told you that the announcement had to happen to get anything. In fact. He didn’t just not tell you that, he explicitly said the opposite. The gentlemen from Texas just read it. You said to the President of the United States, “What do you want from Ukraine?” The President: “I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. I want Zelenksy to do the right thing. I want him to so what he ran on.”
Sondland ultimately testified that Trump told him, “I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo”: