AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
- Rep. Adam Schiff worried he sunk one of Trump's cabinet picks by praising him to the former president.
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About then-DOD Secretary nominee Mark Esper, Schiff wondered, "Have I just killed his nomination?" - Schiff discusses his relationship with Trump in his forthcoming memoir "Midnight in Washington."
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Rep. Adam Schiff worried that he inadvertently sabotaged Mark Esper's nomination as Secretary of Defense under former President Donald Trump by praising Esper to Trump, the congressman writes in his forthcoming book.
The Democratic congressman from California recently announced a new memoir "Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could," a copy of which was obtained and reported on by CNN ahead of its October 12 publication date.
Schiff used his post chairing the powerful House Select House Committee on Intelligence to aggressively investigate Trump and his associates – while also having to regularly advise the White House on national security and intelligence matters.
Schiff recounted one such occasion in 2019, where he and other committee chairs met with Trump and White House officials on Iran.
"Mr. President, I think you've made an excellent choice for defense secretary. I've known Mark for a long time, and think he will do a fine job. I hesitate to say so, because I wouldn't want you to hold it against him," Schiff said to break an awkward silence, he wrote.
Later in the meeting, Schiff writes, Trump returned to the topic of Esper's nomination, asking Schiff: "Just how long have you known Esper?"
The congressman became the face of House Democrats' investigations into Trump and led the team of House Democratic impeachment managers making the case for the Senate to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial in early 2020.
In the book, Schiff recalls how before he became the former president's number-one enemy on Capitol Hill, Trump, a former reality TV host, praised Schiff's performances on TV when they first met in March 2017.
Schiff would go on to become even more of a prominent media figure and mainstay of cable news channels like MSNBC and CNN discussing his committee's investigations into Trump officials and the Trump campaign's contacts with Russians in 2016.
Schiff wrote that Trump's son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner also echoed those compliments for Schiff's televised appearances while testifying before the Intelligence Committee later that year, saying, "You know, you do a really good job on TV."
Esper did end up being confirmed as Trump's Secretary of Defense.
But he had a rock relationship with Trump that culminated in the presdient screaming and cursing at Esper when the Secretary refused to go along with Trump's wish to deploy troops to quell protests in the summer of 2020, an incident recounted in Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's book "Peril."
Trump fired Esperin the wake of his 2020 election loss, a move that rankled fellow top military and intelligence officials, including Gen. Mark Milley and CIA director Gina Haspel, Woodward and Costa wrote.