Adam Schiff asks Americans what kind of president they are prepared to accept

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last updated 20 November 2019

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) ended Tuesday's hearing by directly calling out the Republican lawmakers who continue to staunchly defend President Trump, and by posing a question to all Americans.

"My Republican colleagues, all they seem to be upset about with this is not that the president sought an investigation of his political rival, not that he withheld a White House meeting and $400 million in aid we all passed in a bipartisan basis to pressure Ukraine to do those investigations," Schiff said. "Their objection is that he got caught. Their objection is that someone blew the whistle, and they would like this whistleblower identified, and the president wants this whistleblower punished. That's their objection. Not that the president engaged in this conduct, but that he got caught."

Americans, he continued, should care about this impeachment inquiry because it is a matter of national security, and they need to ask themselves: "Are we prepared to accept that a president of the United States can leverage official acts, military assistance, White House meetings, to get an investigation of a political rival? Are we prepared to say well, you know, I guess that's just what we should expect in a president of the United States. I don't think we want to go there."

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Schiff also suggested the Founding Fathers wouldn't approve, because when they "provided a remedy, that remedy being impeachment, they had the very concern that a president of the United States may betray the national security interests of the country for personal interests. They put that remedy in the Constitution not because they wanted to willy nilly overturn elections, no, because they wanted a powerful anti-corruption mechanism when that corruption came from the highest office in the land." Watch the full video below. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.