>>54181
https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/15/during-january-6-hearing-schiff-doctored-text-messages-between-mark-meadows-and-rep-jim-jordan/
.. Not only did Schiff lie about the substance of the text message and its source, he even doctored the message and graphic that he displayed on screen during his statement. The full text message, which was forwarded to Meadows from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on the evening of Monday, Jan. 5, was significantly longer than what Schiff read and put on screen, but Schiff erased significant portions of the text and added punctuation where there was none to give the impression that Jordan himself was tersely directing Meadows to give orders to Pence on how to handle the electoral vote certification.

The original text was written by Washington attorney and former Department of Defense Inspector General Joseph Schmitz and included an attachment of a four-page draft Word document drafted by Schmitz that detailed Schmitz’s legal reasoning for suggesting that Pence had the constitutional authority to object to the certification of electoral votes submitted by a handful of states. The piece that Schmitz had sent to Jordan was published at the website everylegal.vote the next day and even included the same “DISCUSSION DRAFT” heading and timestamp on the document that Schmitz sent to Jordan.

“Good luck tomorrow!” Schmitz texted Jordan on the evening of Jan. 5, including the Word document as an attachment. Schmitz then texted to Jordan a three-paragraph summary of his Word document, which Schiff sliced and diced and then attributed to Jordan:

“On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence,” Schmitz texted. In his graphic, Schiff erased the final clause and the em dash preceding it and added a period to the first clause without disclosing that he or his staff had chopped up the text and created a fake graphic misrepresenting the actual contents of the text message.

Schmitz continued: “‘No legislative act,’ wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78, ‘contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.’ The court in Hubbard v. Lowe reinforced this truth: ‘That an unconstitutional statute is not a law at all is a proposition no longer open to discussion.’ 226 F. 135, 137 (SDNY 1915), appeal dismissed, 242 U.S. 654 (1916).”

“Following this rationale, an unconstitutionally appointed elector, like an unconstitutionally enacted statute, is no elector at all,” Schmitz wrote.

In his statement and on-screen graphic, Schiff erased the final two paragraphs and the final clause of the first paragraph of the text message before inserting punctuation that was never there, all without disclosing what he was doing. The graphic displayed by Schiff, which was doctored to look like an exact screenshot, was similarly doctored, as it contained content that was never in the original message and eliminated content that was. ..