Not really. You have to be for free speech for everyone. You want jail time for a guy, you say, lied about trump. Apparently that’s a crime in your world. But MAGA isn’t authoritarian at all.
He didn't just lie about Trump. He did knowingly and willingly interfere in a US election by colluding against Trump. He defamed Trump. He exploited his position as chair of the Intel Committee.
Rep. Adam Schiff, put out a response memo with competing claims:
1. FBI and DOJ officials did not omit material information from the FISA warrant.
2. The DOJ “made only narrow use of information from Steele’s sources about Page’s specific activities in 2016.” 3. In subsequent FISA renewals, DOJ provided additional information that corroborated Steele’s reporting.
4. The Page FISA warrant allowed the FBI to collect “valuable intelligence.”
5. “Far from ‘omitting’ material facts about Steele, as the Majority claims, DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele’s background, credibility, and potential bias.”
6. The FBI conducted a “rigorous process” to vet Steele’s allegations, and the Page FISA application explained the FBI’s reasonable basis for finding Steele credible.
7. Steele’s prior reporting was used in “criminal proceedings.”
Each of these claims were found by Horowitz to be false.
Schiff most famously claimed that Congress had not only uncovered a criminal conspiracy by the president’s 2016 campaign but also that
he himself was in personal possession of a “smoking gun.” Schiff never shared any corroboration with the public.
And when, after years of delay, Schiff was forced to release transcripts of interviews conducted by House Intelligence Committee into Russia meddling, we learned that the director of National Intelligence, former Obama attorney general, former deputy attorney general, and the FBI deputy director, among others,
all told his committee that there was no direct evidence of criminal conspiracy.
Schiff said on national television that
he and his committee had no prior contact with the whistleblower who filed a complaint about the phone call between Trump and the president of Ukraine that launched the impeachment inquiry. Even The Washington Post’s fact-checker called Schiff out on this, giving him four “Pinocchios” – the highest condemnation for a lie. The truth was that the whistleblower came to Schiff’s committee and then filed a complaint with the intelligence community’s inspector general.
Schiff’s committee held its first hearing about the contents of the call between President Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. During his opening remarks,
Schiff fabricated a portion of the call between Trump and Zelensky. Schiff claimed later that this was a “parody,” but viewers who hadn’t read the rough transcript wouldn’t know that.
After his censure, Schiff then stood in well of the House as required by the resolution, and was
hugged and cheered by dozens of Democrats who surrounded him. The measure also requires the House Committee on Ethics to investigate Schiff’s "falsehoods, misrepresentations, and abuses of sensitive information."