Adam Schiff lied about the Trump investigation — and the media let him

Last week, Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell forced Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff’s hand. If the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee didn’t release the transcripts of 53 interviews from the committee’s Russia collusion investigations, then he’d do it himself. The transcripts, many of them from nearly three years ago, were declassified and ready for public viewing since June.

As the grand impresario of collusion, Schiff has filled print and broadcast media since January 2017 claiming that he has seen “more than circumstantial evidence” of a Trump-Putin conspiracy. Obviously there was none in the transcripts, or he’d have pulled back the curtain years ago. But Schiff didn’t want to hand control of the narrative to one of Trump’s most effective deputies, so on Thursday they finally went live.

They show exactly what you’d expect them to show: None of the former Obama administration officials who took to the airwaves immediately after Trump’s election to claim collusion had any evidence of it.

Here’s Obama’s director of national intelligence, and CNN analyst, James Clapper: “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.”