‘Abuse of power’: Republicans say Adam Schiff smeared Devin Nunes and reporter John Solomon
by Steven Nelson
Washington Examiner
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee notified Republicans when they sent subpoenas to phone companies demanding records for multiple numbers. They didn’t tell Republicans who the numbers belonged to, but it didn’t take long to figure out.
The subpoenas for the records of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani’s former Ukraine “fixer” Lev Parnas were uncontroversial, but their use enraged Republicans once Democrats released an impeachment report Tuesday. It became apparent that the committee’s top Republican, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, had spoken twice with Parnas, and journalist John Solomon had spoken with Giuliani and Parnas as he wrote opinion articles about Ukraine for the Hill.
It took a while for some Republicans to understand what happened. Some seemed to think Nunes and Solomon had their call logs seized. “I want to know all the people Adam Schiff is spying on. Are there other members of Congress that he is spying on? And what justification does he have?” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.
“This is a textbook abuse of power,” said a House Republican involved in the impeachment proceedings. “Schiff clearly went through these phone records for the purely political purpose of reverse engineering them to find his political opponents and then gratuitously publish their names. Doing this to a journalist — John Solomon — is particularly abusive.”
Solomon received little public support Wednesday from fellow journalists. His reports for the Hill regarding Ukraine were targeted previously by Democrats, who allege he spread misinformation about former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
“Schiff published records of Solomon’s calls to discredit him by implying he’s talking to shady people. But Solomon is a reporter, that’s what reporters do — they talk to all kinds of people. Schiff insinuates these conversations were shady, but, in fact, he has no idea what these conversations entailed,” the Republican said. “If Schiff did this to any journalist other than Solomon, other reporters would be up in arms. But Solomon’s reporting counters Schiff’s impeachment narrative, and all the other reporters support impeachment, so they view Solomon as being fair game for these attacks.”
The call records show Nunes spoke for less than 10 minutes in total with Parnas in April, before key events related to Trump’s effort to push Ukraine to investigate Democrats.
“The idea that nine minutes of conversation is some outrage or scandal is ridiculous,” the Republican said. “They have no actual accusation against Nunes, it’s just insinuation. The implication seems to be that he was involved in some kind of circle that was trying to get Yovanovitch ousted, which is ridiculous. Just a few days ago, all these people were decrying Nunes’s meeting with [former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor] Shokin in Vienna, which never even happened.”
Solomon could not be reached for comment. Giuliani and his legal team did not respond to requests for comment.
AT&T declined to comment on its role supplying the call records. “Like all companies, we are required by law to provide information to government and law enforcement agencies. In all cases, we ensure that requests for assistance are valid and that we act in compliance with the law,” said company spokesman Jim Greer.
Verizon also appears to have supplied records in response to a committee subpoena for information on U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
Advocates for civil liberties offered little sympathy for targets of the record acquisition.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told the Washington Examiner: “It’s pretty rich to see people who’ve led the charge to expand government surveillance powers crying foul over the most basic, constitutionally sanctioned-evidence gathering in an investigation of alleged — and increasingly apparent — criminal wrongdoing. Be serious.”
Parnas’s attorney Joseph Bondy said he was “not really” concerned about the subpoena violating his client’s civil liberties. Parnas is cooperating with authorities.
“It would appear to be a simple subpoena for phone records, with a low bar for production, and I haven’t seen the warrant application,” Bondy said. “Besides, for us, the records are corroborative of Mr. Parnas’s version of events.”
A Democratic House Intelligence Committee official did not directly address criticism of Schiff’s use of the records but underscored that neither Nunes nor Solomon had their records taken.