Schiff Censured,Justice is served! To Be Kicked Out Next?
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to censure Congressman Adam Schiff from California due to remarks he made several years ago regarding investigations into Donald Trump’s connections to Russia. The censure, along party lines, serves as a rebuke to Schiff, a Democratic representative and frequent critic of the former president.
According to AP, Schiff, who stood before the House while the resolution was read, now joins the ranks of the 25th censured House lawmaker. Despite the impending vote, he remained defiant, viewing the formal disapproval as a “badge of honor.” He accused his Republican colleagues of carrying out the bidding of the former president.
During the debate over the measure, Schiff, who is currently running for the Senate in his home state, expressed his unwavering stance: “I will not yield, not one inch.”
Last week, over 20 Republicans aligned with Democrats to block the censure resolution. However, their votes changed this week when the resolution’s sponsor, Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, eliminated a provision that could have imposed a $16 million fine on Schiff if the House Ethics Committee determined he lied. Several Republicans who had opposed the resolution objected to the proposed method of fining a member of Congress.
The final vote tally stood at 213-209. The revised resolution accuses Schiff of abusing his positions of power during Trump’s presidency by making claims of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Schiff had been one of the most vocal critics of the former president while both the Justice Department and the Republican-led House conducted investigations into Trump’s Russia ties in 2017. These investigations concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election but found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
According to the resolution, Schiff deliberately deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people. The congressman, who previously served as the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and was the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial, has long been a target for Republicans. Upon regaining the majority this year, Republicans prevented him from sitting on the intelligence panel.
Over the past two decades, the House has censured only two other lawmakers. In 2021, Republican Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona was censured for tweeting an animated video depicting him attacking Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword. Former Democratic Representative Charlie Rangel of New York faced censure in 2010 for serious financial and campaign misconduct.
Although the censure itself holds no practical consequences other than leaving a mark on a lawmaker’s career, the GOP resolution will trigger an ethics investigation into Schiff’s conduct.
While Schiff did not initiate the 2017 congressional investigation into Trump’s Russia ties—Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, who later became one of Trump’s staunchest defenders, led that effort—Republicans supporting Schiff’s censure on Wednesday blamed him for what they perceived as the repercussions of that probe, as well as the separate investigation initiated that same year by Trump’s Justice Department.
Luna claimed that Schiff’s comments alleging evidence against Trump had “torn apart American families across the country” and caused “permanent destruction of family relationships.” Some lawmakers also held him responsible for the more than $30 million spent on the Justice Department’s investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Schiff dismissed the censure resolution as “nonsense,” stating that it would accuse him of leading an omnipotent Deep State conspiracy.