Adam Schiff just hit a grand slam
Ahead of today’s televised House impeachment hearings, Donald Trump spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort trying to smear House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. To hear Trump tell it, Schiff was a mustache twirling cartoon villain who was cooking up a maniacal impeachment plot from his underground lair. That put quite a bit of pressure on Schiff today to, well, not be that person.
Sure enough, Adam Schiff rose to the occasion. He avoided any theatrics and simply laid out the factual case for why Donald Trump is guilty. He managed to avoid getting dragged into partisan bickering by the House Republicans who were desperate to bait him. He cleverly used a format that was designed to minimize the bickering that causes most viewers to tune out.
Schiff also started things off with precisely the right witnesses. Bill Taylor and George Kent were equal parts authoritative, damning, and non-controversial. Their stories were easily believable to the average American. It set a tone of plausibility for the rest of the hearings, which will include a number of witnesses telling first-hand tales of shocking levels of corruption. Today’s hearings will make it easier for the public to accept that the upcoming hearings are indeed the real deal.
Most importantly, Adam Schiff made sure that today’s hearings were the precise opposite of the malicious hit job that Donald Trump insisted they would be. That means Schiff has credibility with audiences going forward, and Trump does not.
