The FBI agent who slept with the KGB spy: what sounds like the title of a crime thriller really happened in 1984. The agent's name was Richard Miller, he lived in Los Angeles and had an affair with a former Soviet citizen, who he sold secret information before he flew.
The US Department of Justice needed three lawsuits to put Miller behind bars in 1990 for espionage. The successful plea was held by a 30-year-old prosecutor named Adam Schiff. It was his first big case.
Witnesses of the indictment
Today, ship sits for the Democrats in the US Congress. There he will now negotiate an even bigger case, in front of the world and with enormous risk - a potential impeachment for abuse of power against President Donald Trump.
Since the end of September, Schiff has been conducting the preliminary investigations for such an impeachment. So far, they played behind closed doors, in the basement of the Capitol. But on Wednesday, the first witnesses to the prosecution testify publicly, in front of cameras.
It's likely to be the most dramatic TV scenes that political Washington has seen since the Watergate scandal.
Next week, the House Intelligence Committee will hold its first open hearings as part of the impeachment inquiry.
On Wednesday, November 13, 2019, we want to hear from William Taylor and George Kent.
On Friday, November 15, 2019, we want to hear from Marie Yovanovitch.
More to come.
As the head of the lead intelligence committee, Schiff, 59, is completely in the limelight. The MEP, who first distinguished himself in the Russian affair, faces a tough task: The hearings could be the beginning of the end of Trump - or, should they get to the circus, as fizzy as the report of the Russia investigator Robert Mueller in the spring.
That is the goal of the Republicans, even if they find it increasingly difficult to defend Trump in the Ukraine. This most recent one of the US President's many affairs is about Trump's alleged campaign to urge the new Ukrainian government to investigate Democrat Joe Biden - a potential rival in the presidential race.
At the closed hearings, several witnesses had already confirmed this under oath. To distract attention, the republicans did not feel a pitty: they condemned the constitutionally anchored Congressional investigation as unconstitutional, stormed and occupied the secure boardroom, and discredited the witnesses, including several deserving US diplomats.
More about Ukraine
The most recent strategy that has emerged is a flight forwards: yes, there has been such a campaign, but that does not justify its impeachment.
This corresponds to Trump's absolutist self-image, but also helped little Richard Nixon. "If the president does," Nixon had said, "it means it's not illegal." Nevertheless, he fell over his actions at that time.
So ship becomes Trump's most dangerous adversary. Even from the point of view of nature, he is its antipode: calm, almost phlegmatic, polite, deliberate - but not to be underestimated as a lawyer. The fact that Trump insults him almost every day ("corrupt", "weakling", "mischievous bastard"), bothers him little.
Dubious Ukraine campaign
Already the difficult investigations against the FBI agent Miller hardened him off. They also made him familiar with the secrets of espionage and counterintelligence - and Moscow's ability to tap vulnerable Americans.
These findings he used most recently in the Russia investigation, they should come to him again now. Another goal of the Ukraine campaign should have been to shift the responsibility for the manipulation of the US elections 2016 from Moscow to Kiev - and to help Trump with the re-election in 2020.
more on the subject
The complex details could only be read in the transcripts of the internal testimonies - a script for the public hearings this week. Bill Taylor, the current US ambassador to Ukraine, and Secretary of State George Kent will testify on Wednesday followed by ex-ambassador Marie Yovanovitch on Friday. All three had already burdened Trump in the last few weeks.
Schiff brings another lesson from the past. 19 years ago, he made the leap to the US House of Representatives by beating Republican Jim Rogan, who played a leading role in 1998 in the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
It was not only Rogan who experienced how a process of impeachment can backfire. The Republicans who wanted to topple Clinton overestimated the patience and will of the voters: Clinton was acquitted.
That could be very similar to the Democrats. Moderate anyway, Schiff had long avoided drumming too impatiently for an impeachment. After all, the Republicans in the Senate, who ultimately decide on impeachment, have the majority. A guilty verdict is unlikely.
But some said so in 1990 in the case against the FBI agent Richard Miller.
