Despite telling senators this week to not surrender to the President’s stonewalling, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) hesitantly said that House Democrats caved into to Trump’s stonewalling during an interview on CNN Sunday morning.
When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked what the House impeachment manager would say to “those who say “that’s exactly what the House Democrats did by not going to court to try to force subpoenas and force witnesses,” Lofgren responded “we did go to court, as you know.”
Tapper then pointed out to Lofgren that House Democrats didn’t pursue it in court, however, and that they “ultimately withdrew the cases and went to the Senate.”
“Ultimately we realized we had the evidence we were going to get, and that it was sufficient to prove our case,” Lofgren said.
When Tapper asked if that essentially meant “you surrender to the President’s stonewalling, in that sense,” Lofgren responded “I guess, in that sense, we did.”
“If we had waited for three or four years, the election would be over,” Lofgren said. “The issue would be almost moot.”
Lofgren added that if Trump is “committing a high crime and misdemeanor now, and continuing to do it, we need to act” before mentioning that when it comes to the subpoena of White House counsel Don McGahn, who was subpoenaed in April, “we’re not going to get an answer on that probably until next year.”
Earlier in the interview, Lofgren reacted to Trump’s Sunday morning tweet where he railed against Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) who he said “has not paid the price.”
Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and probably a very sick man. He has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2020
“Well, that’s really unfortunate,” Lofgren said. “The President has a tendency to say things that seem threatening to people. You know, ‘she’s going to go through some things,’ ‘Adam Schiff is doing his job — he’s going to pay a price.’ I mean, he really ought to get a grip and be a little more presidential.”
Watch Lofgren’s remarks below:
Rep. Lofgren says that House Dems surrendered to Trump’s stonewalling by not pursuing subpoenas in court pic.twitter.com/nlxkqCZQAj
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) January 26, 2020
The headline does not reflect the nuance of Lofgren’s response. On to something else, now.
Well, c’mon, TPM.
Trumpers will find a way to distort this, but why do it for them?
She said it was a “surrender” in the sense that they stopped trying to enforce the subpoenas … BECAUSE THEY HAD ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO GO FORWARD ANYWAY.
The real surrender would have been to fritter away their impeachment opportunity letting the courts slow-roll their litigation.
They made the right call.
That is a true statement about the reality of our court system. Acknowledging reality and playing the hand you were dealt is not “surrender[ing] to the president’s stonewalling.”
Ugh, this headline is not what she said. This is more of a Fox headline than TPM.
What they said