House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, stands at the center of the impeachment of the president scam.

And as word gets out about his real game and how he got it — through a spying operation aimed at the White House that he directed, he's starting to get weirdly wobbly.

Two instances just from the weekend are starting to stand out.

First, in stark contrast to the big hullabaloo he made about hearing from the so-called "whistleblower" in Congress ahead of the planned Trump execution, Schiff suddenly doesn't think the whistleblower is so very, very necessary to testify at his hearings at all:

"We don't need the whistleblower who wasn't on the call to tell us what took place during the call," he claimed.

According to National Review:

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) announced on Sunday that the whistleblower at the center of an impeachment inquiry into President Trump may not testify before Congress due to concerns over the person's safety. "Our primary interest right now is making sure that that person is protected," Schiff told interviewers on CBS's Face the Nation. Schiff explained that Democrats may be able to gather enough evidence to impeach Trump without revealing the person's identity. Trump blasted Schiff's comments on Twitter on Monday morning . "Adam Schiff now doesn't seem to want the Whistleblower to testify. NO!" Trump wrote. "We must determine the Whistleblower's identity to determine WHY this was done to the USA."

Ah, safety. Pay no attention to those sneaky-Pete meetings Schiff's staff held with this so-called whistleblower before his complaint for impeachment was filed; it's convenient to not have his testimony to keep those questions from being asked by curious Republicans. Trump called it right in saying there was a problem there.

Here's another one, reported by the New York Post:

WASHINGTON — Rep. Adam Schiff Sunday conceded he should have "been much more clear" in explaining the whistleblower's contact with his House Intelligence Committee. The leader of the impeachment probe expressed regret for claiming last month his committee hadn't spoken to the whistleblower who raised concerns about a conversation between President Trump and his counterpart in the Ukraine — when in fact the anonymous official had approached an aide to Schiff for guidance on reporting wrongdoing before filing a complaint. "I should have been much more clear and I said so the minute it was brought to my attention," Schiff told CBS's "Face the Nation."

It's Schiff's fancy way of saying he shouldn't have lied, and not just lied, but made up phony stories.

The Post reports a fine quote from a Republican congressman who has Schiff's number:

"What Adam Schiff wants is to get United States of America drunk on his favorite cocktail," Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) said Sunday on ABCs "This Week." "There's three ingredients. One is cherry-picking leaks, second is withholding facts, and three is just outright lying."

That's two backtracks in a very short space of time. It sounds as though Schiff is in retreat as the walls close in, hoping, just hoping everyone forgives him for his lying, which lit the fuse to the impeachment debacle, and then pays no attention to his missing witness, who, again, got the impeachment ball rolling. He just wants to have his impeachment and eat his lies, too.

One can only hope this is the first of a well trod retreat path for this dishonest poll. He's the one who should be on trial and impeached, and already a hundred House members are signed on to that growing list. His weakness is showing, and it's time for the hook.

Image credit: Caricature by DonkeyHotey, via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.