In an appearance on Fox News Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins, who is on President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team, was critical of the House Democrat effort led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
Collins (R-Ga.) characterized the House Democrat-led impeachment effort as “whining and theater,” noting it proved they have a weak case against the president.
“From what we’re hearing right now, it’s just another line of what we’ve seen with Schiff all along,” Collins said in his interview.
“He is willing to say anything, do anything, tell anything to get at this president. This is not just a simple matter, a one-off. It’s not a two-off. It’s just a regular habit of what this man does,” he added.
“He does not want to come to grips with the truth that the president is the president. He is doing a good job. And he wants to do anything he can to take him down,” Collins noted further.
“But the whining and theater that’s going on the Senate floor today for him and other — it just really takes the cake today. It just shows the American people how weak the case is, and how they’re wanting other people to do their job for them,” the Georgia Republican added.
Late Tuesday, POLITICO reported that Schiff likely mischaracterized alleged evidence from a former business associate of presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani that he said implicated President Trump in a scheme involving Ukraine, which is at the center of the House’s impeachment case.
“In one section of the letter, Schiff claims that Parnas ‘continued to try to arrange a meeting with President Zelensky,’ citing a specific text message exchange where Parnas tells Giuliani: ‘trying to get us mr Z.’ The remainder of the exchange — which was attached to Schiff’s letter — was redacted,” POLITICO’s Melanie Zanona writes.
“But an unredacted version of the exchange shows that several days later, Parnas sent Giuliani a word document that appears to show notes from an interview with Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma, followed by a text message to Giuliani that states: ‘mr Z answers my brother.’ That suggests Parnas was referring to Zlochevsky not Zelensky.”
Republicans have criticized House Democrats for impeaching Trump over political differences, which is not the constitutional standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”