California Democrat Adam Schiff painted a doomsday scenario if President Donald Trump is not impeached, including an all-powerful dictator ruling from Mar-a-Lago, letting his son-in-law run America, and trading Alaska to Russia.
Schiff’s high fantasy came during the closing arguments of the Senate impeachment trial on Monday, after a series of procedural votes on Friday made it clear that Trump will not actually be convicted on charges brought on by the House of Representatives.
The president’s lawyers argued that Trump could not be impeached since he committed no criminal act in his talks with the president of Ukraine. Schiff shot back by saying “abuse of power” is impeachable and warning about all kinds of dangers America could face if Trump is not impeached – including losing Alaska to Russia and having Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kusher as a shadow president.
“If [abuse of power] were not impeachable then a whole range of unacceptable conduct in a president would be beyond reach,” argued Schiff. Trump “could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election,” or retire to Mar-a-Lago and let Kushner “run the country” and decide when to go to war, he added.
“Because those things are not necessarily criminal, this argument would allow that he could not be impeached for such abuses of power,” Schiff argued.
Schiff’s pitch to GOP senators was received with derision on the right.
“Adam Schiff making up fake scenarios again,” tweeted conservative commentator Carmine Sabia. “You know when you make up fake phone calls and fake scenarios? WHEN YOU HAVE NO CASE.”
Schiff had previously read a fake fake transcript of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which he later defended as “parody.”
Conservative pundit Dan Bongino called Schiff a “total goofball” and an “embarrassment to sentient beings throughout the cosmos.” Others described Schiff as “deluded” or “off his rocker” and “insane.”
On the left, however, Schiff’s impassioned fairy tale was praised as “one for the ages” (Rachel Maddow, MSNBC) and “amazing” (Michael Moore).
“I wish I disagreed with Adam Schiff's warnings about the consequences [of] acquitting the president of his abuses,” tweeted Evan McMullin, a former CIA operative and failed NeverTrump presidential candidate who found a second career as a TV pundit.
NBC News Correspondent Heidi Przybyla tweeted she saw one Democrat senator “visibly choking up” after Schiff’s closing appeal.
The notion that Trump would hand Alaska over to Russia – from which the US purchased the territory in 1867 – seems to have come from a brief submitted by the House managers last month, arguing that Trump’s attorney Alan Dershowitz had noted that such conduct would not be impeachable in his 2018 book, ‘The Case Against Impeaching Trump.’
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