Republicans ripped Adam Schiff for citing unverified gossip from an anonymous Trump “confidant” claiming the president had warned GOP senators that “your head will be on a pike” if they convict him in the Senate impeachment trial.
Schiff said during his closing remarks: “CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that GOP senators were warned: Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.”
After Schiff repeated the anonymous gossip, swing-vote Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski said: “that’s not true.”
Collins and Murkowski are frequent Trump critics who have openly defied the President on numerous occasions. So the idea that they would heed an alleged warning like that is outrageous.
The Hill’s Scott Wong quoted Senator Murkowski when he tweeted: “That’s where he lost me. I think he did fine until he overreached.”
Republican Senator James Lankford told reporters afterward: “That is completely, totally false. All of us were shaking our heads, like where did that story come from? And Adam Schiff just kept saying it. The whole room was visibly upset on our side of it. That’s insulting and demeaning.”
Senator John Barrasso told reporters that, “No Republican Senator has been told that.”
He also pointed out that Schiff has a well-documented history of lying, so this latest fabrication is not surprising. “What he has proven to all of us is that he is capable of falsehoods, that he would tell it to the country when every one of us knows it’s not true,” Barrasso said.
Senator Barrasso said Schiff “offended every Republican senator” by repeating that unverified gossip.
CNN’s Manu Raju said that Susan Collins rubbished the anonymous CBS News report.
“She shook her head and said, ‘No they didn’t. No, that’s not true,’” Susan Collins said.
Senator Collins added: “Not only have I never heard the ‘head on the pike’ line but also I know of no Republican Senator who has been threatened in any way by anyone in the Administration.”
