Adam Schiff and Democrats are Twisting Words to Smear Trump “We were promised a Hollywood-style, smoking gun quid pro quo. But after the transcript was released, the whistleblower complaint came out, and the House Intelligence Committee grilled acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, leaving most people with glazed-over expressions, wondering what the big deal is,” Jenna Ellis Rives writes in the Washington Examiner. Yesterday, “Chairman Adam Schiff attempted to play word games with Maguire in an effort to manipulate the situation and paint the intelligence community and the White House as covering up something really, really bad that President Trump must have done.” “So why the manipulation? Because the Democrats know their case is weak. Their only hope lies in trying to twist legal terminology for their political advantage.” Click here to read more.

“The formal complaint from an anti-Trump ‘whistleblower’ alleging various crimes by President Donald Trump is riddled with third-hand gossip and outright falsehoods,” Sean Davis writes in The Federalist. “Rather than provide direct evidence that was witnessed or obtained firsthand by the complainant, the document instead combines gossip from various anonymous individuals, public media reports, and blatant misstatements of fact and law in service of a narrative that is directly contradicted by underlying facts. A footnote in the document even boasts about its use of ‘ample open-source information.’”

“House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) performed an entirely made-up conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his opening statement at a committee hearing Thursday morning,” Kristina Wong reports for Breitbart News. “The White House released a transcript of a phone call between Trump and Zelensky on Wednesday, but Schiff made up and fabricated his own transcript that he read at the hearing, which sought to create the quid pro quo that Democrats have accused the president of making.”

Rather than getting entangled in an impeachment battle, Congress should move to approve a new trade pact with Mexico and Canada, the USMCA, The Detroit News editorial board writes. “The window appears to be narrowing for getting anything productive done in Washington, but this is one piece of business that is essential to maintaining America's decade-long prosperity streak. It should get top priority.”

“Palestinians are among the largest recipients of donor assistance per capita in the world today. Yet despite decades of work, billions of dollars, euros, shekels, and dinars donated, life continues to get worse,” U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt writes in Fox News. “Hamas has driven Gaza to a state of utter desperation. With unemployment at nearly 50 percent (the highest in the world), Hamas’ decade-long experiment in governance is an utter failure.” Greenblatt adds that “donor countries must ask themselves why they should keep struggling to raise money when everyone can plainly see the Hamas regime and the Palestinian Authority are squandering the opportunities that donor money provides for a better future for all Palestinians.”