Republicans and President Trump, eager to discredit the impeachment inquiry launched by House Democrats, may have found their weapon in Adam Schiff.

Schiff, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was tasked last month by Speaker Nancy Pelosi with leading the impeachment inquiry into the president's efforts to get foreign governments to investigate allegations against 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.

But Schiff, 59, could be helping the GOP weaken the case for impeachment by making critical missteps that Republicans and Trump believe undermine the Democrats' case against the president.

Reports surfaced last week that members of Schiff's committee staff spoke with the whistleblower before the bombshell complaint was filed with the Intelligence Community inspector general who launched the impeachment inquiry. The reports directly contradicted Schiff, when during a Sept. 17 appearance on MSNBC, he proclaimed, "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower."

The revelation raised serious questions about whether Democrats coordinated with the whistleblower or even aided in writing the whistleblower complaint. While the attorney for the whistleblower flatly denied Democrats had any role in writing the complaint, Schiff's dissembling hurt his credibility.

Republicans seized on the information, revealed to the New York Times, as proof that Democrats are orchestrating the allegations against the president to fuel their effort to impeach him.

"We learn from the press today that Chairman Schiff had prior knowledge and involvement in the whistleblower complaint," Rep. Devin Nunes of California, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said. "He withheld this information from the American people and even from the Intelligence Committee. In light of this news, it's hard to view impeachment as anything aside from an orchestrated farce."

Trump, who long ago assigned Schiff the nickname "Shifty Schiff," delivered a decisive blow against him at a widely televised Oct. 2 press conference that commenced just as the New York Times story broke.

"It shows that Schiff is a fraud," Trump said.

He accused Schiff of helping to write the whistleblower complaint, which Schiff and his staff flatly deny.

Trump made the case that Schiff's prior knowledge of the whistleblower underscores a pattern Democrats are following to try to undermine his presidency, first by accusing him of colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election.

That allegation led to a two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller that found no evidence Trump colluded with the Russians.

"The whole thing is a scam," Trump said. "The Mueller deal was a scam. The Russian collusion was a scam."

Pelosi, in late September, turned to Schiff to take over the Trump investigation after the House Judiciary Committee, headed by Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, botched the effort.

Nadler had declared last summer that he was conducting his own impeachment proceedings and did so without receiving Pelosi's blessing to label it as such.

Nadler expanded his investigation again and again to include a multitude of allegations against Trump, including whether he paid hush money to an adult film star and Playboy model when he was running for president. Nadler's hearings featured combative witnesses and theatrics from lawmakers and were largely criticized by both parties.

Pelosi chose Schiff in part to bring integrity and credibility to a much narrower impeachment inquiry than Nadler was conducting.

But Schiff may have stumbled out of the gate.

Many believe Schiff bungled his inaugural impeachment hearing when he read aloud his fictitious account of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The phone call is the centerpiece of the Democrats' impeachment inquiry because the rough transcript shows Trump had asked Zelensky to investigate corruption allegations involving the Democratic National Committee and Biden.

But Schiff made up his own, more sinister dialogue of the conversation and read it aloud during his opening statement.

"I have a favor I want from you," Schiff said as he sat at the hearing room dais and appeared to be reading from the call transcript. "And I'm going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of it, on this and on that."

The stunt left Republicans outraged, and it provoked so much criticism from the traditionally Schiff-friendly media punditry that Schiff moved quickly to clarify that his opening statement was a "parody."

But Schiff's fake phone call dialogue may have irrevocably damaged the integrity of the impeachment investigation, which has already been undermined by Pelosi's decision to forgo a formal vote to open the inquiry, which bucked decades of precedent. Republicans have labeled the entire impeachment inquiry "a parody" and have called on Pelosi to drop it.

Last week, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona introduced a resolution to censure Schiff over his parody opening statement. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, is a co-sponsor.

"I don't think Schiff is the guy who should be leading an impeachment inquiry," Biggs, who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told the Washington Examiner. "He's disqualified himself."