Democrats count on Schiff to deliver focused impeachment inquiry of Trump

It was a low point for House Democrats hoping to build a case to remove President Trump from office — a committee hearing in which former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski made his questioners look hapless with a flurry of deflections and delays.

“I heard it did not go well,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told one of her fellow leaders, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), hours after he had participated in the Sept. 17 hearing, according to officials familiar with their conversation. Another top Democrat, Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (Ky.), had a more blunt assessment: “A fiasco.”

The confrontation served as a reminder of how the Democrats, through years of speeches, lawsuits and subpoenas — even after taking the House majority this year — have thus far failed to figure out how to hold a norm-busting president and his lieutenants in check.