‘Mr. Nadler when he applied for that job… told his colleagues that he was really good at impeachment…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) As he did in the House impeachment investigation, smooth-talking Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has once again upstaged his clumsy colleague-turned-sidekick, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, issued a media release mocking the two powerful House committee chairmen after Schiff refused to allow Nadler to answer a question prior to the start of Wednesday’s impeachment proceedings in the Senate.
Although both congressmen are leading the House Democrats’ prosecution efforts against President Donald Trump as impeachment managers, Schiff, who has considerably less seniority, has taken a much more prominent role.
In one of his rare opportunities to take center stage, Nadler engaged in a vicious attack on members of the U.S. Senate as “treacherous” and accusing them of a “shameful cover-up” late Tuesday evening.
Nadler also levied personal attacks on the president’s defense team, which prompted White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to return fire.
Chief Justice John Roberts issued a general rebuke “in equal terms” to the counsels for using language “not conducive to civil discourse.”
However, Trump co-counsel Jay Sekulow had even more heated remarks for Nadler, whom he charged with “shredding the Constitution.”
Some questioned whether Nadler’s insults might further alienate centrist Republicans, whom Democrats must woo in order to succeed in making their long-shot case for removing the president.
Wednesday’s interaction between Schiff and Nadler seemed to support speculation that Nadler had once again fallen out of grace with House leadership.
The lanky Schiff—often mocked by Trump for his “pencil neck”—could not stand in greater contrast with the squat, stocky Nadler, who once tipped the scales at 350 pounds prior to having bariatric surgery.
Schiff, who boasts a Harvard Law degree, also has a considerably different rhetorical style from Nadler, who obtained his J.D. taking night classes at Fordham University.
While Schiff tends to be carefully calculated in his remarks—although prone toward dishonesty—Nadler’s blunt, off-the-cuff style has frequently revealed Democrats’ true underlying beliefs and motives.
Democrats including Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have not openly acknowledged as much, but many believe Nadler’s botched handling of his Judiciary Committee investigations into Trump were what prompted Schiff to assume control of the long-sought impeachment effort in the House Intelligence Committee.
In addition to the embarrassment Democrats faced in calling special counsel Robert Mueller to publicly testify in a disastrous set of hearings on July 24, Nadler also was humiliated in a hearing with Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski during what was touted as the first official impeachment hearing in September.
Moreover, only a day after Trump’s fateful July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy triggered what would become a so-called whistleblower complaint that led to the House’s partisan impeachment, Nadler prematurely declared that the House had already entered into impeachment proceedings, perhaps forcing them to rush into the impetuous probe.
The Democrats may now be regretting their haste as they enter into the Senate trial without having charged Trump with any actual crime in its articles of impeachment. Even their own allies in the Senate admit that they cut short the discovery phase, leading them—thus far unsuccessfully—to attempt to subpoena new witnesses and introduce new evidence in order to bolster their Senate case.
Trump’s attorneys savaged Nadler earlier in the day Tuesday for failing to deliver on his promises when he was named chair of the Judiciary Committee in January 2019.
“Mr. Nadler, when he applied for that job… told his colleagues that he was really good at impeachment,” Cipollone said Tuesday while noting the shoddiness of the case against the president.