The Washington Post awarded “Four Pinocchios” to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff on Friday, claiming he hadn’t told the truth about his knowledge of the whistleblower.
Schiff has played a leading role in investigating the Trump-Ukraine scandal but hasn’t been truthful in the process, according to Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler.
Kessler laid out a compelling, fact-based argument that Schiff wasn’t honest when asked if he had advanced knowledge about the whistleblower’s concerns regarding the now-infamous phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a series of interviews.
“Schiff’s answers are especially interesting in the wake of reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post that the whistleblower approached a House Intelligence Committee staff member for guidance before filing a complaint with the Intelligence Community inspector general,” Kessler wrote.
Last month, Schiff sat down with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who asked if he was in contact with the whistleblower, or even if he simply knew their identity.
“I don’t know the identity of the whistleblower … I don’t want to get into any particulars. I want to make sure that there’s nothing that I do that jeopardizes the whistleblower in any way,” Schiff told CNN when asked if the whistleblower has contacted him.
The Post called this answer a “classic dodge” and noted that the CNN host didn’t bother with a follow-up question – which helped Schiff avoid giving a potentially damaging answer.
“He managed not to mislead; he just simply did not answer the question,” Kessler wrote of Schiff.
Read the rest at: Pinocchios
