Trump demands Adam Schiff be arrested for 'treason' for investigating him

In the midst of a Monday morning meltdown on Twitter, Donald Trump suggested that one of his chief congressional investigators, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, be arrested for treason.

“Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people,” Trump wrote about the Democratic chair of the Intelligence Committee. “It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?”

Treason is a crime punishable by execution.

Trump is referring to Schiff’s (D-CA) opening statement in a recent congressional hearing dealing with a whistleblower to revealed illegal activity on a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During his statement, Schiff said he was paraphrasing a call between Trump and Zelensky, which was based on a White House memo, which itself was a summary of the call. There is no publicly available word-for-word transcript of the call.

Trump obviously did not like the way Schiff summarized the call where Trump appeared to illegally solicit campaign assistance from a foreign national.

The Monday morning threat makes the second time in a week Trump has targeted key players in a House impeachment inquiry for arrest and possible execution. On Thursday, Trump suggested the whistleblower, and all those who spoke to the whistleblower, are spies who should be executed.

“Basically, that person never saw the report, never saw the call, he never saw the call — heard something and decided that he or she or whoever the hell they saw — they’re almost a spy,” Trump said referring to the whistleblower. “I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

On Thursday, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire told the House Intelligence Committee that the whistleblower “did the right thing” by coming forward.

Yet Trump has called for her or his execution, and the list of folks Trump wants to be thrown in jail for exposing his own wrongdoing is growing.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.