According to Adam Schiff, the CIA and NSA are withholding documents critical to the impeachment trial, due to pressure from the White House. The accusation arises even as the impeachment trial begins in just two days.

Schiff appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and was asked about the fact that various members from the intelligence community have made clear that they do not want to testify publicly to the House Intelligence Committee’s panel on global security threats, preferring that the session be held in private.

Schiff confirmed the story but then said that Ukraine-related material relevant to impeachment is currently being withheld, despite its relevance, all because Trump doesn’t want the public to see it, or the senate to consider it.

“And I’ll say something even more concerning to me, and that is the intelligence community is beginning to withhold documents from Congress on the issue of Ukraine,” Schiff said. “The NSA, in particular, is withholding what are potentially relevant documents to our oversight responsibilities on Ukraine, but also withholding documents potentially relevant that the senators might want to see during the trial.”

I have often wondered what role the NSA may play in the Trump scandal. I assume that if I get on my phone from the grocery store and call my wife to ask which kind of soup she wants, the NSA and NRO know the answer before I do. I have also always assumed that the NSA knows every word Trump has ever spoken over his phone, or anyone’s else’s, especially someone in Ukraine. This reality puts the NSA in a rather awkward position. If you thought the FISA fight was bad …

Regardless, according to Politico:

Schiff added: “There are signs that the CIA may be on the same tragic course. We are counting on the intelligence community not only to speak truth to power, but to resist pressure from the administration to withhold information from Congress because the administration fears that they incriminate them.”

An Intelligence Committee official later said, “Both the NSA and CIA initially pledged cooperation, and it appears now that the White House has interceded before production of documents could begin.”

I have absolutely no doubt the above is true, and thus I have no doubt that we’re in real trouble as a democracy. If the president can wrestle control of the national security apparatus, and turn it into a giant technical machine to serve his own needs, well – we just became Russia. There would be nothing to distinguish Trump’s actions from Putin’s tactics in retaining control of his nation for life.

I knew that the NSA and CIA had evidence that we would likely never hear. I did not know that Congress had sought specific relevant evidence that it must know to exist, or Schiff would not be referencing it and making the complaint public.

Trump will not let that evidence out.

This is what fascists do. Fascists that gain control of the police state: the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and the military, that fascist cannot be held accountable, by anyone, not even the masses. We can hope that patriots within the CIA and NSA rise above Trump’s self-serving order and disclose the materials. We would hope that the evidence is within the hands of someone who feels duty-bound by law, and not dutifully wearing a red hat.

This is scary. That evidence needs to be in Congress’s hands.

Why is the White House hiding it? Everyone knows the answer, and that is the problem.

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Peace, y’all

Jason

[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom