https://www.westernjournal.com/rep-doug-collins-challenges-schiff-impeachment-fi...Rep. Doug Collins Challenges Schiff in Impeachment Fight: 'Folks, This Ain't Over'
Surrounded by colleagues and under a portrait of George Washington, Georgia Republican Rep. Doug Collins holds a news conference on Thursday after the House voted mostly along party lines to approves rules governing the "inquiry" into the impeachment of President Donald Trump. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)
By Joe Saunders
Published October 31, 2019 at 1:56pm
If there was any question whether tempers are rising on Capitol Hill as the impeachment fight gets hotter, Georgia Republican Doug Collins’ news conference on Thursday proved it beyond doubt.
In the aftermath of the mostly party-line vote to approve rules for an impeachment inquiry that give vital powers to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Collins took the microphone in front of assembled reporters to make it clear just how angry he was.
“Folks, this ain’t over. Get ready,” he said.
The ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Collins delivered a message to Schiff while the cameras were rolling.
And he invoked the image of Kenneth Starr, the special counsel from the impeachment of President Bill Clinton two decades ago, to make his point.
“Here’s my challenge to Mr. Schiff,” Collins said. “You want to be Ken Starr? Be Ken Starr. Come to the Judiciary Committee, be the first witness, and take every question asked of you.”
The odds of that happening are approximately zero, of course.
Schiff is a lawmaker, not a special counsel, no matter what powers the anti-Trump Jacobins who make up the House Democrats might wish to confer on him.
But Collins made it clear that he and his fellow Republicans are girding for a fight — one Democrats might wish they never started.
“The cloud that is dropping will be dropping on their heads. Because process matters,” he said. “And substance will always win out in the end. And this president has nothing to worry about on substance.”
As the “impeachment inquiry” fight has progressed, Collins — like Florida Republican Matt Gaetz — has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of how Democrats under the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schiff have conducted themselves.
That’s won him praise from Trump supporters across the country, and Thursday’s news conference was no different.
Has Adam Schiff told the truth throughout any of this process, going back to his contacts with the “whistleblower” who started this latest chapter in the story of Democrats trying to destroy the Trump presidency?
But leaving the fantasy of Schiff being grilled by GOP members of the Judiciary Committee aside, Collins did make one thing perfectly clear:
The fight on Capitol Hill only got started with Thursday’s vote, and it’s going to get uglier from here.
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