Adam Schiff Has Crossed a Line: He's Obtained Phone Records of Devin Nunes, Nunes' Aide, Rudy Giuliani and John Solomon (Update)

House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks before Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testifies before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Adam Schiff

House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks before Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testifies before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

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As promised, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff released the Democrats’ report on the Trump impeachment inquiry on Tuesday. If anyone is so inclined, the report can be viewed here.

The report says, “President Trump’s scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign…The inquiry uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.”

Speaking to reporters after the report’s release, Schiff said, “It is deeply concerning that at a time when the president of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival, that there may be evidence that there were members of Congress complicit in that activity.”

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement, the document “reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing…At the end of a one-sided sham process, Chairman Schiff and the Democrats utterly failed to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump. This report reflects nothing more than their frustrations.”

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The most stunning aspect of the report, to me anyway, was the inclusion of telephone records of House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, Nunes’ aide Derek Harvey, President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and investigative reporter John Solomon. Schiff refused to say how he was able to obtain these records.

The mainstream media is abuzz with stories about Nunes communication with “Rudy Giuliani during key aspects of his Ukraine pressure campaign.” Nunes was in touch with John Solomon around the times he published major articles. And on and on. The telephone records don’t include the actual conversations. They identify who was calling whom and how long they spoke.

Schiff has crossed the line of decency with this move. Once again, he has abused his power. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tweeted that obtaining these records is a remarkable abuse of President Trump’s constitutional rights. I would argue that it’s an abuse of the constitutional rights of all of the above. These are KGB tactics.

Well, fair is fair. Republicans should obtain Schiff’s phone records, those of the so-called alleged whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, and the colleague with whom he had a “bro-like” relationship, you know, Sean Misko, the one Schiff hired as an aide the day after the whistleblower’s complaint was submitted.

The repellent Adam Schiff has managed to reach a new level of depravity. The sooner this inquiry ends, the better. Once Schiff passes this to the Senate, it will be the Democrats on trial. This has become demoralizing. Republicans need to take off the gloves and fight back.

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On a more positive note, donations to the RNC have been skyrocketing over the last two months, a direct result of the Democrats’ Schiff show.

UPDATE (December 4,  7:30 p.m.): Powerline’s Scott Johnson addressed this post earlier today. He points out a distinction which had not been clear when I wrote this last night. It looks as if Schiff obtained Rudy Giuliani’s and Lev Parnas telephone records. From there, he identified calls between either Giuliani or Parnas and Rep. Nunes, his aide, Derek Hunter, and John Solomon. And he included all of the calls in the report.

Here are the calls involving Nunes, Hunter and Solomon that Schiff included in the report:

Page 154, Footnote 69: Call records obtained by the committees show that Mr. Parnas and Mr. [Derek] Harvey had connected previously, including a four minute 42 second call on February 1, 2019, a one minute 7 second call on February 4, and a one minute 37 second call on February 7th.

Page 143, Footnote 76: Between April 8 and April 11
Four calls between Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Solomon, all on April 8, longest duration: one minute, 30 seconds
Nine calls between Mr. Parnas and Mr. Solomon, longest duration: four minutes, 39 seconds

Top of page 155: 4/10/19: Several call attempts, one call between Giuliani to Nunes: two minutes, 50 seconds

Page 157: Call between Parnas and Solomon; one minute, 30 seconds
Call between Parnas and Solomon, one minute, 49 seconds
One minute call between Parnas and Nunes

Top of page 158: Call between Parnas and Nunes, 8:34 minutes
Two brief calls between Parnas and Solomon, 28 seconds and 53 seconds

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Other sources:

3. Dan Bongino Podcast: Episode #1126 (4:00 on the video)

4. Hannity: December 3 Episode: Rep. Matt Gaetz (can be viewed at 8:25 on Bongino podcast Episode #1126.)

5. American Greatness article: Shock: Schiff Releases Phone Records of Devin Nunes and Other Trump Allies in Impeachment Report

Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Tuesday released phone records of Republican Devin Nunes and other allies of President Trump as part of the House Intelligence Committee’s Impeachment report. The stunning revelation that Democrats obtained the phone records of their political rivals was a fresh detail found in their lengthy report, which is mostly a rehash of arguments they’ve already made in favor of impeachment.

6. CNN article: Democrats obtained phone records showing how Trump allies coordinated ‘false narratives’

The phone records, which are labeled in the report’s endnotes as coming from AT&T, show a web of communications between Solomon, Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Ukrainian American businessman Lev Parnas, Nunes and the White House’s budget office.

Actually, in an article entitled, “Schiff’s Surveillance State,” the Wall Street Journal presented it the same way I did.

Adam Schiff’s 300-page House Intelligence impeachment report doesn’t include much new about Mr. Trump’s Ukrainian interventions. But it does disclose details of telephone calls between ranking Intelligence Republican Devin Nunes, Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, reporter John Solomon, former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, the White House, and others. The details are “metadata” about the numbers and length of the calls, not the content.

The impeachment press is playing this as if the calls are a new part of the scandal, but the real outrage here is Mr. Schiff’s snooping on political opponents. The Democrat’s motive appears to be an attempt to portray Mr. Nunes, a presidential defender and Mr. Schiff’s leading antagonist in Congress, as part of a conspiracy to commit impeachable offenses.

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