COMETH THE MOMENT, COMETH THE MAN:

News of a whistle-blower complaint about Mr. Trump's July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine changed all of that. The drama that ensued put Mr. Schiff in the driver's seat -- not because the call specifically addressed intelligence matters, but because the whistle-blower just happened to work in the intelligence community. A whistle-blower from the State Department with access to similar witnesses and facts could just as easily have submitted the complaint to a different committee.

Mr. Schiff is a stickler for process. When the whistle-blower approached him and his staff, they did precisely the right thing: They directed the whistle-blower to obtain legal counsel and file the complaint through the appropriate channels laid out in the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act.

Mr. Schiff went public only after receiving a letter from the intelligence community inspector general indicating the acting director of national intelligence had not followed process requirements outlined in the law. The president can concoct all the conspiracy theories he wants, and Lindsey Graham and others may pick up the tune, but Mr. Schiff played it by the book.

Speaker Pelosi tagged Mr. Schiff as the lead on gathering facts on the Ukraine issue in anticipation of an impeachment vote. For now, Mr. Nadler has stepped into the background -- eventually, any articles of impeachment would go through his committee first. But Mr. Schiff is quarterbacking speedy efforts of his own staff and also two other committees, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight and Reform, that Ms. Pelosi has directed to assist in the effort.

Mr. Schiff is setting the tone and strategy of the inquiry, quickly setting up depositions of key witnesses and warning the administration that obstruction and delay could form the basis for a distinct article of impeachment similar to one approved by the Judiciary Committee against Richard Nixon in 1974.

In short, Mr. Schiff is the man of the moment -- and, without knowing it, he has been preparing for it for the past two years. As chairman, he followed Devin Nunes of California, whose handling of the committee's Russia investigation was specious and included cloak-and-dagger visits to the White House.

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