House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff, who is one of the impeachment managers summarizing the case against President Donald Trump, mentioned Russia more than 30 times during his Wednesday presentation.
He used the word “Russia,” “Russian,” or “Russians” about 30 times during his over two-hour opening speech, according to a rough transcript of the hearing.
In addition, the California Democrat repeated the widely debunked allegation that Moscow and the 2016 Trump campaign colluded to steal the election from Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Schiff also repeatedly referred to the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin to accuse Trump of siding with them to pressure the Ukrainians.
A lot of Schiff’s opening statement included rehashed information from special counsel Robert Mueller’s post-probe report, though Mueller was clear in that he and his investigators found no evidence to support the collusion allegation.
Schiff also repeatedly claimed that President Trump had continued to back Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine while accusing him of spreading Russian lies about Ukraine meddling in the 2016 election.
He said that Trump had “embraced Russian activity and disinformation” rather than standing by the United States’ allies in Ukraine.
“The United States aids Ukraine and the people so that we can fight Russia over there and we don’t have to fight Russia here,” he said.
Video of former Vice President Joe Biden at an event sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018 show him boasting about how he threatened to withhold $1 billion in financial aid from Ukraine unless the top prosecutor investigating corruption allegations involving a company paying his son $83,000 a month was fired.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko fired the prosecutor.
Also, critics of Schiff note that President Trump has provided lethal military aid to Ukraine, to help the country fight separatists that are backed by Moscow.