President Donald Trump was using the power of his office to "manufacture dirt" on former Vice President Joe Biden, according House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., on ABC News "This Week."
"The president used that opportunity to try to coerce that leader to manufacture dirt on his opponent and interfere in our election," Schiff told host George Stephanopoulos, referring to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "It's hard to imagine a series of facts more damning than that."
President Trump's personal attorney pre-emptively rejected Schiff's claims early on "This Week," saying the information on the Biden family merely turned up in investigating Ukraine's potential 2016 election meddling on behalf of Democrats.
Failing short of proving pay for play, or finding illegality in the administration's actions with Ukraine, refusing to testify or turn over documents alone could expedite impeachment, ostensibly getting President Trump on a process crime, according to Schiff.
"They have been making these fallacious claims of privilege for months and months now and seeking to obstruct the work of Congress," Schiff told Stephanopoulos, a former communications director for Democratic President Bill Clinton. "But here's the problem for the administration with that strategy: Even as they try to undermine our ability to get to the bottom of the full facts of how he was coercing Ukraine to dig up dirt on his opponent, or manufacture it, they will be strengthening the case for an article of impeachment based on the obstruction of the lawful functions of Congress.
"So, they can't have it both ways. If they're going to obstruct, they're going to increase the likelihood that Congress may feel it necessary to move forward on an article on obstruction."
Schiff added praise for the "professionalism" of the Trump administration mole and called for more leaks and whistleblowing to aid the impeachment inquiry.
"Do not dismiss both the professionalism of this whistleblower and this is what we would expect from someone out of the intelligence community," Schiff said, noting thus far the whistleblower's "hearsay" has been borne out in the investigation of documents, transcripts, and testimony.
"We're dependent on people with good conscious coming forward now particularly now given that we have an unscrupulous president," Schiff concluded.
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