With a touch of hyperbolic flair, President Donald Trump and his allies have started dubbing nascent impeachment efforts an American “coup.”
They’re also using slightly more subtle tactics as they attempt to rally their supporters and throw allegations about the leader of the free world into question.
Those allegations are tied to a whistleblower complaint released last week that claims Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden and Democratic National Committee servers that conspiracy theorists believe are in Ukraine.
Here are some of the main themes emerging from misinformation-laden responses to the impeachment inquiry.
1. “Shifty Schiff”: Attacking the credibility of the House Intelligence Committee head
Trump and his surrogates have placed a target squarely on Rep. Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence chairman, with the president going so far as to accuse him of treason. Like a tiresome drumbeat, conservatives and the far right are continually repeating claims that Schiff lied during a hearing last week because he paraphrased the details of Trump’s call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Today, Trump claimed without evidence during a press conference that Schiff helped write the whistleblower complaint, adding, “That’s what the word is.” I’ll get into why this doesn’t jibe with reality, but first, some background.
That claim followed a New York Times report that details how and why the whistleblower, a Central Intelligence Agency official, shared an abridged version of their concerns with a House Intelligence Committee aide before filing a formal complaint.
According to the Times, the CIA official approached the aide after initially asking a colleague to take the allegations to CIA general counsel Courtney Simmons Elwood, who alerted the White House to the complaint. This triggered White House attorneys to investigate the allegations – the same attorneys who, according to the whistleblower complaint and subsequent reporting, authorized details of Trump’s call with Zelensky to be concealed from most of the Trump administration in a computer system reserved for highly classified information.
Because the whistleblower was concerned their allegations wouldn’t be taken seriously, they approached the committee aide, who recommended the CIA official find an attorney and file a complaint through the formal whistleblower process.
Schiff couldn’t have helped the whistleblower write their complaint, because according to the Times, the committee aide didn’t tell the lawmaker the CIA official’s identity. The aide also didn’t provide Schiff with a detailed rundown of the whistleblower’s allegations, because the aide had received only vague information on the claims in the first place, the Times reported.
2. Hearsay, hearsay, hearsay
In their complaint, the whistleblower acknowledges that they were witness to some, but not all, of the events connected to their allegations. Conservatives and the far right have used this to throw the complaint’s credibility into question and suggest it is entirely based on hearsay, although it isn’t.
The law presiding over intelligence whistleblower complaints doesn’t actually require them to be drawn entirely from direct experience. That has led Trump and his supporters to accuse the intelligence community of secretly changing this law to allow second-hand information.
A Snopes fact check found that this conspiracy theory originated with The Federalist, a site where the truth goes to die. The law never required whistleblower complaints to be the product of firsthand experience.
3. No quid pro quo
The memo of Trump’s call with Zelensky doesn’t include an explicit offer of U.S. aid in exchange for Ukraine’s investigations into the president’s political foes. Trump and his supporters are relying on this as evidence that no quid pro quo took place.
However, as I wrote here and discussed in this episode our podcast, Hard Reset, the memo leaves out some relevant context.
At least a week before Trump’s conversation with Zelensky in July, the U.S. president directed his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold about $400 million in military aid from Ukraine. For about two months, administration officials explained the hold-up to lawmakers as an “interagency process,” without providing additional information, according to The Washington Post. The White House allowed the funds to go to Ukraine on Sept. 11.
Democrats have speculated that these decisions are a signal to possible extortion. We don’t have more concrete evidence to back this up, but we also don’t have evidence that would prove Trump’s aid decision had nothing to do with his requests to Ukraine.
4. Hey, look over there
Don Draper might have been a womanizer, an alcoholic and an imposter, but the guy had a few things figured out. Take this pearl of wisdom from the legendary Mad Men character: “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”
Genius! In light of the impeachment inquiry, some Trump supporters are directing our attention to the president’s victories, whether or not they have actually taken place.
Here’s an example: Today Trump campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany Tweeted that Trump has caused prescription drug costs to fall $26 billion, an impressive coup, to borrow a term, on the health care industry.
Except that it’s not true. This has been debunked here and here, and if you really want to dig into the esoteric world of pharmaceutical sales, for which we don’t actually have great public data, you can look into a series of estimates here – all of which show prescription drug sales on an upward trend.
Contact Big If True editor Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 or bryant@bigiftrue.org. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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