"Adam Schiff stuns Senate, reveals Russia set to attack U.S. mainland (Video)"
The Duran Quick Take: Episode 410 (January 24, 2020)
By Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris
https://theduran.com/adam-schiff-stuns-senate-reveals-russia-set-to-attack-u-s-mainland-video/

Alex Christoforou: “Let’s talk about Adam Schiff and some of the statements he made at the impeachment trial, Day 2. This guy has gone absolutely mad. I want to remind all our viewers that Adam Schiff takes a lot of money from Igor Pasternak who is a Ukrainian oligarch arms dealer."

[Shows screenshot of headline from The Mall Online]:

"So it doesn’t surprise me to see Adam Schiff taking this line of attack against Trump, but anyway, Alexander, here are some of the quotes during Day 2 of the impeachment hearings in the Senate and I quote [shows screenshot from Fox News:"

"... and another memorable quote from Schiff says this:"

“Alexander, what do you make of these two quotes by Adam Schiff?”

[1:30] Alexander Mercouris: “Well, first of all, they’re classic Adam Schiff. They’re absolutely nuts. They show, once again, Adam Schiff’s extraordinarily manipulative but also paranoid approach to politics. And they show two things. Firstly, that he’s still trying to peddle this myth of Donald Trump as some kind of Russian agent. I mean this whole business about Ukraine, you know: ‘We’re fighting the Russians over there becaise if we don’t fight them over there, who knows, they might come and fight us over here.’ I mean, that is such a crazy idea. Evem at the height of the Cold War when the USSR was the great superpower with armies and fleets encompassing the globe, the Russians didn’t come to the U.S. to fight them there. In fact, they only ever did in a film that was made in the 1960s, I remember, which had them coming as friends. But that’s another story ...

“So, I mean, that’s absolutely zany stuff. But the reason Schiff is saying this, as has become entirely obvious, is that the Democrats haven’t really given up on Russia-gate. This is all about Ukraine, at one level it is about Ukraine. What they really want, what the Deep State wants – and remember all the witnesses during the impeachment who came and gave evidence at the House impeachment hearings, the ones presided over by Adam Schiff – they’re all Deep State people absolutely invested in building up Ukraine as this anti-Russian forward base in Eastern Europe, and they want some kind of massive conflict there. But that is part of THEIR great geostrategic neocon play to try to break up Russia and establish some kind of hegemony in Eurasia. Something which most Americans are really not into, at all."

[3:33]“But Adam Schiff’s real purpose in all of this is to press on with this fantasy of Donald Trump as somehow the President who is some shape or form a Russian asset working towards Russian objectives. So he’s undermining Ukraine, these heroic people fighting our cause far away, and he’s obviously doing it in some form or other, Schiff insinuates, because Moscow and Putin want him to.”

[4:09] “Of course, he has no evidence for that. None whatsoever. We had the Mueller investigation which went on for two-plus years, and before that Comey’s investigation. And they came up with no evidence linking Donald Trump with the Russians in any shape or form. Donald Trump has, of coure, supplied arms to Ukraine, which Barack Obama – I repeat and remind our viewers – not only never did, but refused to do. Donald Trump has been MORE supportive of Ukraine than Barack Obama ever was. And, of course, there is no evidence since Donald Trump became President, that he follows Moscow’s will on anything. He has kept U.S. troops in Syria. The Russians don’t want that. Why would he do that, for just one example, if he was Putin’s agent? Of course, the Sanctions War on Russia has escalated and intensified, enormously, since Donald Trump became President. So this whole theory is nonsense. It’s complete baloney. But it’s Adam Schiff, manipulative, insinuating as always trying to promote it.”

5:54] Alexander Mercouris: "And as you rightly say, he’s got his finger in this Ukrainian pie, like so many other Democrats have; he gets Ukrainian money as so many other Democrats do; and of course he’s got a personal interest which he doesn’t want us to remember and which he obviously doesn’t want to publicize. that’s the Ukrainian part of it."

"The other things that he says, I mean, I don’t know where to begin. What’s to say? This idea that the American people cannot elect their own president; that they’re too deluded; that someone who has committed gross abuse of power, as Schiff says he [Trump] has; and who has got the entire media against him as Donald Trump says he has; that the American people are somehow going to be tricked or fooled into re-electing him is just crazy. It shows Adam Schiff’s fundamental and deep contempt for the American people and for democracy in America. And can I just say, people who are as manipulative and as cynical as Adam Schiff is, that’s completely unsurprising.Those sort of people never really believe in the good sense of American voters. And in fact they don’t care for American voters. They don’t want the American people deciding who the American President is. They want to be the people who decide who the American President should be. So, one is Schiff being manipulative and insinuating, and the other one is Adam Schiff basically showing that he doesn’t care about American democracy. And American democracy for him is just a word because he doesn’t trust the American people. He doesn’t care about the American people. He doesn’t care about the American political system. He is fully and entirely pursuing an objective that advances the interests of the Clintonite faction within the Democratic party and, ultimately, Adam Schiff."

Alex Christoforou: "Alexander, what’s that phrase that says whatever they’re accusing you of is actually what they’re doing?"

[8:18] Alexander Mercouris: “It’s projection. You project onto the other person what you, yourself, are thinking. You think that somebody else thinks like you.

[9:09] Alex Christoforou: “Yes. And the fact that he’s driving home, this Trump-Russia connection continuously and now this Trump-Ukraine thing, I think is a telltale sign that he’s the one who is in bed with Ukraine oligarchs. It’s the Democrats, via Joe Biden, via Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation that are getting tons and tons of money from the Ukraine oligarchs, as well as many Republicans, let’s not forget McCain at the Maidan, his many trips to Ukraine during Maidan. Let’s not forget that Lindsey Graham was also there. And my point is that you have Schiff, whose Patron, Pasternak, a billionaire oligarch arms dealer, no one talks about him. You have Victor Pinchuk whom I believe was the number one or two donor into the Clinton Foundation, if not the number one or two richest men Ukraine, as well. And you have McCain and Graham and all these guys who were at the Maidan, fueling the Maidan revolution, the coup that took place in 2014.”

“Today, Alexander, a picture surfaced, and I believe there is video now, filmed by NBC/CNBC where they have Lindsey Graham approaching Adam Schiff saying: ‘Good job. You’re very well spoken.” And it’s starting to make the rounds now. And I’m sure tomorrow when this video airs, it’ll be everywhere. But to me, it really struck a chord, because, once again, you’re seeing all these people, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans who were just in Ukraine from 2014 onwards, the Carpetbaggers, making money, making deals, pillaging the country, getting rich. It’s all these guys who are now center stage at this impeachment trial.”

[11:21] Alexander Mercouris: “If I may just make a quick observation, this is once again something I have direct experience of, I come from Greece, and Greece is a country where corruption is very widespread and very rife. One of the reasons why I chose not to live there. It’s not quite as bad as it was, but it used to be very bad. One of the things that I very quickly discovered is that if you’re not corrupt yourself in that kind of environment everybody around you who is corrupt is against you. They are opposed to you. They are constantly looking to find what your particular angle is. Because they can’t quite believe that you are not corrupt like they are. They always assume that somewhere or other you’re hiding something.

And the story of the Trump presidency, and even before Trump became President, is that the Democrats constantly investigating and looking through every aspect of Trump’s life, his business career, his various connections, trying to find proof of Trump’s corruption. Trying to find, you know, that he had gotten money through slush funds sent to him by Russians through Deutsche Bank. No evidence of that. Trying to find that he did something fundamentally wrong with his tax affairs. No evidence of that. That he got out of bankruptcy on the back of huge undisclosed loans from Russian oligarchs. No evidence of that. And this is one of the things, I think, that has driven them mad. they’re convinced that at some level Donald Trump MUST be as corrupt as they are. Because he’s Donald Trump. He’s this flamboyant, outspoken, vulgar personality, as they see him and that HAS to mean that he’s corrupt. And , of course, he’s a member of the billionaire class. So that he’s not actually financially corrupt, is something that they don’t understand at all. And it makes them incredibly hostile to him. And when you see that all of these people in the American political class are so suspicious of Donald Trump, it’s precisely because of that. Because they sense that he doesn’t share their style of corruption. And this really worries and scares them. And when they remember during the 2016 elections when he talked of draining the swamp, and they of course know what “the swamp” is. And when he went on television, I think it was 2015 and spoke openly about how he bribed people in the U.S. political system, that really alarms them. That really horrifies them. Bear in mind also that these people, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, who has now passed away, Adam Schiff, obviously, Jerry Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, what they also are is that they are professional politicians. They make their careers by politics. Politics is their career. It’s how they make money. It’s how they choose power. They believe that politics is something they understand and they run.

“Now, what’s happened on top of that, is that this total outsider, Donald Trump, who is not a politician, who before he was elected to the presidency had never held elective office or any kind of state office comes along and beats them at their own game by winning the 2016 election. Anyone who has been a professional, knows how infuriating it is to be beaten by an amateur. And that’s exactly what Trump did.”

So you have all of this, all of these different elements coming together. You have Donald Trump the successful amateur beating the professionals, Donald Trump the person you can’t really stick corruption to, taking on a political class that is completely corrupt. One of the extraordinary things about the Manafort trial was the extent to which it exposed how much corruption there is at all levels of the American political system. Manafort had been operating and doing all kinds of things for a very long time. And it turned out it wasn’t just him. Lots of other people were doing essentially the same sort of thing. So when they’re confronted with a phenomenon like Donald Trump., that scares them. That scares the entire political class because at multiple levels, they just don’t get it. They don’t understand it. And, of course, they hear what he says and they say to themselves: “Where’s this going to end? How is it going to end? How is it going to affect us? And if you are running a whole foundation, like Hillary Clinton does which depends on money coming in from all kinds of foreign donors, well that scares you even more. Remember, Donald Trump didn’t do that. He never had any kind of foundation of that sort and has no apparent interest in setting one up. So it’s not surprising that we get all of these things coming together exactly in the way that you say.”

[16:59] Alex Christoforou: “Clinton had a quid-pro-quo foundation, that’s obvious. And then you have the case of Biden and Hunter Biden and Burisma and all of that stuff which I think is just the tip of the iceberg as to all the corruption that was taking place in Ukraine. Every one of these people, both Republicans and Democrats that are at this impeachment trial, they all had their hands in Ukraine. They were all getting money from these Ukrainian oligarchs. All of them.

[17:34] Alexander Mercouris: Well, indeed. This is the great irony of it. Donald Trump is being impeached for seeking what is called a “quid pro quo” from Ukraine except, of course, there is no actual evidence that he did do that. A fact that Schiff has to find a way to skate around. But it is very important to say, that alleged quid pro quo which never existed didn’t involve any transfer of money. There’s no question of bribes being exchanged. Whereas, as you rightly say, Pinchuk gives money to the Clinton Foundation. And what is that if not a quid pro quo. A conditional quid pro quo, the condition being Hillary Clinton being elected president. And that does involve a transfer of money. And so some quid pro quos lead to people being impeached. Other quid pro quos apparently are OK as far as the U.S. political class is concerned. I think most people looking at this from the outside would find that all rather disturbing and very strange.”

[18:57] Alex Christoforou: “Alexander Mercouris, editor in chief of the Duran, thank you very much.

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