Whether far-left Democratic U.S. Senator Adam Schiff of California faces possible prosecution for ordering the release of classified information in 2017, when he was ranking member of the House intelligence committee, is legally murky.

But one thing isn’t. Either Schiff or the whistleblower is a felon. In the first case, the felony is leaking classified information. In the second, the felony is lying to the FBI.

Law Professor Jonathan Turley has offered an analysis of Schiff’s situation on X and on his website pursuant to revelations from newly declassified FBI files that a Democratic staff member spilled the beans on Schiff. If Schiff did what the staff member alleged, it was a “premeditated” crime, Turley averred.

That effort, by the way, didn’t stop with promoting the Russia Collusion hoax, which was conceived by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign hitmen, approved by Clinton, and aided and abetted by the Obama administration.

Plus, Schiff was a major player behind the lie that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. And he falsely claimed that U.S. intelligence officials believed as much.

First revealed by Just the News, the FBI 302 documents divulge a shocking meeting between Schiff and staffers of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).

The staffer told the FBI he “was called to an all-staff meeting by SCHIFF,” the reports say:

In this meeting, SCHIFF stated the group would leak classified information which was derogatory to President of the United States DONALD J. TRUMP. SCHIFF stated the information would be used to indict President TRUMP.

Doing so would be illegal, the staffer said, yet “upon hearing his concerns, unnamed members of the meeting reassured that they would not be caught leaking classified information,” the reports said.

Beyond that, the staffer thought such leaks were “unethical” and “treasonous.” The patriotic whistleblower sought guidance from former employees in the intelligence agency where he worked. They told him to contact the FBI.

But Schiff had a personal beef with Trump. Potus 45 defeated Schiff’s candidate, Hillary Clinton. Schiff thought Clinton would make him CIA director.

“Schiff was particularly upset, as he believed he would have been appointed as the director of the CIA had candidate Hillary Clinton won the election,” the documents say:

The HPSCI minority viewed the election and its aftermath as a constitutional crisis, and, by February 2017, [the whistleblower] stated, all hell broke loose. During a meeting on 13 February 2017, [redacted] instructed the staff that he wanted to drive the “Russian involvement” issue in a joint inquiry, similar to the 9/11 commission.

Bottom line is, Schiff believed Russia “hijacked” the election and that the nation was in a “constitutional crisis.”

Thus, the documents say:

Classified information began leaking to the media. The Democratic minority leadership of HPSCI was aware of the leaks but was under the impression that leaking the information was one way to topple the administration and fix the constitutional crisis.

Turley is unequivocal. The George Washington University professor wrote that

Schiff has previously been accused of politicalization of intelligence, including his claims (after the Special Counsel rejected the Russian collusion claims as unsupported) that he had secret evidence in the Committee proving such collusion. He never produced that evidence, and it is widely believed that it did not exist.

But Schiff’s lie about having “secret evidence” is just a typical leftist lie. If it did exist, he would have produced it.

“This is different,” though, Turley wrote:

This would be a premeditated criminal act. It is hard to believe that a “player” like Schiff would be stupid enough to openly discuss such a criminal act in a staff meeting. However, the fact that the whistleblower made this allegation in a report to the FBI is equally probative. It is a crime to lie to federal investigators.

Amazingly enough, Turley observed, despite the leaks from Schiff’s committees and the FBI, the allegation against Schiff and information that proved the Russian collusion was a hoax “were not leaked or published in the media.”

Turley noted that the whistleblower’s allegations against Schiff can be confirmed by others in the meeting. They would face criminal charges if they lied about it.

“What is clear is that someone is lying and someone is a felon,” Turley wrote:

Either Schiff ordered the commission of a serious felony or this whistleblower made repeated false statements to the FBI. The public — and Congress — has every right to know the answer.

Whether Schiff might face charges is unclear. One of Turley’s followers asked the professor to explain the senator’s legal situation because:

Schiff may well be invulnerable to criminal charges for deliberately and with knowledge aforethought leaking classified information, whether through the Speech and Debate clause OR through his midnight hour pardon from the autopen. 

However, that does not include conspiracy to cover-up that crime, I suspect. Which is probably an ongoing corrupt endeavor including activity not on the Capitol grounds, and so is outside both the Constitutional immunity and the pardon.

While the statute of limitations on most federal crimes is five years, those involving conspiracy can reach beyond that.

Aside from the Russia Collusion hoax, Schiff’s other big lie was that Hunter Biden’s notorious laptop, which threatened to derail Joe Biden’s bid for the White House, was “Russian disinformation.”

Indeed, Schiff went so far as to say American intelligence officials believed the same thing. 

In fact, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said, intelligence officials believed no such thing. They told Schiff nothing of the sort.

“Let me be clear: the intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that,” he told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo:

And we have shared no intelligence with Chairman Schiff, or any member of Congress, that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign.

It’s simply not true.

Ratcliffe testified likewise at his confirmation hearing for CIA director.

Schiff’s other recent trouble includes possible charges of bank, mail, and mortgage fraud.