Donald Trump Denies Watching Impeachment Hearing, But Slags “TV Lawyers” & Rep. Adam Schiff

Dominic Patten

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Although he’s been tweeting and retweeting all morning as the House of Representatives’ impeachment hearings were live on almost every channel in America, President Donald Trump insists he hasn’t been tuning in, or maybe he has.

“I’m too busy to watch it,” the former Celebrity Apprentice host said Wednesday at the White House with the arrival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “It’s a witch hunt, it’s a hoax, I’m too busy to watch it. So, I’m sure I’ll get a report. There’s nothing — I have not been briefed. There’s nothing there.”

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If true that Trump’s not watching the televised hearings that may determine the future of his presidency it will surely be a disappointment to all those straining Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence clearly playing to an audience of one.

Still hard to believe that the besieged and frequent TV viewer POTUS isn’t tuning in when he’s been shooting off retweets like the below ever since committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) kicked off the first of many televised hearings earlier in the day.

What makes Trump’s denial of watching the hearings on his own impeachment even more dubious is the detailed knowledge of the event and its participants he seemed to display in the Oval Office with the contentious Erdogan.

“I see they’re using lawyers that are television lawyers, they took some guys off television,” Trump declared of the Democrats; counsel Daniel Goldman, who was front and center as the majority party’s primary inquisitor of Ambassador William Taylor and Deputy Secretary of State George Kent. “You know. I’m not surprised to see it, because Schiff can’t do his own questions,” Trump added in another swipe at his much-attacked political foe, who represents the Californian congressional district that includes much of Hollywood

Clearly the President knows his TV lawyers, at least the talking head ones. Goldman spent a couple of years as a legal analyst for NBC after a decade serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

With most of the broadcast networks and all of the cabler newsers providing wall-to-wall coverage, the impeachment hearing has been going for more than four hours now.

Having seen the GOP try to disrupt the proceeding on several occasions so far, Taylor (who just denied he is a Never Trumper, despite the insistence of POTUS himself in a tweet today) and Kent are alternating in giving testimony about whether Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine officials to launch a political-themed investigation into corruption and the role of Hunter Biden (ex-VP Joe Biden’s son) on the board of an energy company in the former Soviet republic.

Expect to hear more about what Trump has or has not been watching at around 12:30 PM PT, when POTUS and Erdogan are scheduled for what will certainly be an interesting joint press conference at the White House.

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