Schiff is getting desperate and it is showing.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff is taking his position as one of the House impeachment managers overboard. Schiff, along with the other managers, sent a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone with intentions of disqualifying him from representing the president in the impeachment trial.
Their justification:
The articles of impeachment allege Trump committed “obstruction of Congress” by following legal advice to decline subpoenas, the lawyer who advised him is a “material fact witness.”
Excerpts from the letter read, “Evidence indicates that, at a minimum, you have detailed knowledge of the facts regarding the first Article and played an instrumental role in the conduct charged in the second Article. The ethical rules generally preclude a lawyer from acting as an advocate at a trial in which he is likely also a necessary witness.”
Breitbart reports:
In other words, Cipollone would have to violate attorney-client privilege and his duty of confidentiality to his client, effectively disqualifying him from participating.
The extraordinary letter is the latest in a series of bold — or desperate — tactics by House Democrats determined to retain control of an impeachment process that has passed into the hands of the Republican-controlled Senate.
In other words, they are claiming that President Trump does not have a right to legal counsel.
[T]he House’s factual investigation was supervised by an interested fact witness, Chairman Schiff, who—after falsely denying it—admitted that his staff had been in contact with the whistleblower and had given him guidance. See Part II.C. These three fundamental errors infected the underpinnings of this trial, and the Senate cannot constitutionally rely upon House Democrats’ tainted record to reach any verdict other than acquittal.
If they were to use that exact same logic in reverse, Schiff would also have to be disqualified from the trial.
