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But the best moment in this flurry of shifting stories and conspiracy theories came on October 6. You’ll have to follow along:
(1) On Wednesday, October 2, a spokesman for Adam Schiff issued a highly-lawyered statement that seemed to suggest that some staff from the House Intelligence Committee may have spoken with the whistleblower prior to the filing of the complaint.
(2) Trump took this statement and extrapolated, claiming in a press conference that Schiff actually wrote the whistleblower report himself:
I think he’s probably helped write it. Okay? That’s what the word is. And I think it’s—I give a lot of respect for the New York Times for putting it out.
It just happened. As I’m walking up here, they handed it to me. And I said to Mike—I said, “Whoa, that’s something. That’s big stuff.” That’s a big story. He knew long before, and he helped write it, too. It’s a scam. It’s a scam.
(3) FoxNews.com then wrote up the story about Trump’s press conference with the headline: “Trump says Schiff ‘helped write’ whistleblower complaint, after House panel admits advance knowledge.”
(4) Lindsey Graham then tweeted out the Fox News story, adding that “it’s not right” what the Democrats were doing.
(5) And finally, Trump retweeted Graham’s tweet as if it were evidence supporting his original—totally unfounded—claim that Schiff had written the whistleblower report. Which—again—is a completely unsourced charge without any supporting evidence.
Just another day in the executive office of the most powerful nation in the history of mankind. What could possibly go wrong?
As it happens, Trump’s personal campaign is lagging behind the vanguard of his defenders. Because it turns out that just about everyone thinks that his conversation with Ukraine’s president was a big deal and not in a good way.
Don’t take my word for it. Here are Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel writing at the Daily Caller:
Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden. Some Republicans are trying, but there’s no way to spin this as a good idea. Like a lot of things Trump does, it was pretty over-the-top. Our leaders’ official actions should not be about politics. Those two things need to remain separate. Once those in control of our government use it to advance their political goals, we become just another of the world’s many corrupt countries. America is better than that. That’s also why it’s good that there are finally investigations looking into the extent to which the Obama FBI may have used our government—and even foreign governments—to try to crush Trump in the last election.
The key question with Trump’s Ukraine call, though, is whether the president’s actions, advisable or not, rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
But even as fast as the goalposts are moving, they may not be able to keep up with the facts on the ground.
On the day this saga began, Trump boasted about how the public did not support impeachment. That was true three weeks ago. Today, support for impeachment is up to 44 percent.
As I write this, the RealClear Politics average for Trump’s job approval is 43.4 percent.
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