Trump To Schiff: You Can’t Impeach Me, I’ll Impeach You! And Sue You!

Adam Schiff Image by Getty
On Saturday, President Donald Trump appeared before a crowd at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. and let loose at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff.
“Maybe we should just impeach them, because they’re lying and what they’re doing is a terrible thing for our country,” Trump said, according to CNN. It’s an instance of wanting to fight fire with fire.
Schiff and Pelosi are leading an impeachment inquiry on the president, who is suspected of pressuring Ukraine to investigate his Democratic opponent — former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The problem for Trump here is that members of Congress cannot be impeached, according to the Constitution.
Maybe that’s why, in the same speech, Trump threatened to sue Schiff.
“[E]ven if we lose, the American public will understand,” Trump said, adding that Pelosi should also be sued. He didn’t specify what exactly this legal action would look like.
A day before threatening to sue and impeach Pelosi and Schiff, Trump gave remarks at a campaign rally in Louisiana, according to Real Clear Politics, where he called Schiff out for paraphrasing his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In Trump’s speech, he referred to the Democratic Congressman as “Shifty Schiff.”
Trump has used this nickname in the past, drawing censure from critics, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who believe the epithet to be anti-Semitic.
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at [email protected].
Did you know that only 2% of Forward readers donate to support our nonprofit newsroom? That 2% make it possible for millions to read the Forward without a paywall or subscription — removing any barriers to the full and fair Jewish story.
But while the Forward is free to read, it isn’t free to produce. Big stories — like deep dives into the antisemitism data, political scoops or reporting trips to college campuses — take months of research and fact-checking. All while we keep you informed of what you need to know each day.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Forward Publisher & CEO
