Intelligence agencies will be resistant to share info with right-wing members: Adam Schiff
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Congressman Adam Schiff speaking with attendees at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention.
Republicans have fought to have two Democrats removed from the House Intelligence Committee, and he's seeking to remove a third from all of her committees as well as from the House floor. Now they're fighting back.
Speaking to MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell on Monday, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), all of whom are facing expulsion from their committees. A House vote removed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from her committees after she spoke at a white supremacist conference. Ten Republicans joined in the vote to remove her. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made some concessions with Greene for her support of him for the Speaker, Schiff alleges.
"This is Kevin McCarthy's basic math problem," said Schiff. "He can't remain Speaker unless he does the dirty work of the most extreme elements of this Congress, including members like Marjorie Taylor Greene, which as you demonstrated, he is holding on for dear life."
But the Intelligence Committee itself is a big concern of Schiff's, not necessarily because he's being removed from it, but his concerns about the far-right members that are being brought onto those committees.
"This is an unprecedented action to take the steps," he explained. "And not just bring this. These are important committees, but also establishing different committees like the Committee for the Weaponization of the Government. The combination of these things is that the intelligence communities are going to be very reluctant to share information with Congress because they see how little regard the Speaker has for his job and responsibilities and themselves."
In the case of Omar, McCarthy must hold a full vote of the House to have her removed from the Foreign Affairs committee. One of the key pieces of her appointment is that she would be the ranking member on the Africa subcommittee under Foreign Affairs. She's the only member of Congress who was actually born in Africa and fled to the U.S. as a refugee.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) was the other Republican removed from his committees by a bipartisan vote after he posted a video of himself assassinating a colleague and President Joe Biden.
Swalwell noted, "the new McCarthy looks like the old McCarthy" at work to enact political vengeance for the fringe members of the House. In the case of Swalwell, McCarthy's reasons aren't even true and fact-checkers have made it clear that he's basing his decisions not on reality but on a conspiracy theory.
The Congressman has pledged to spend the next two years working against the new brand of McCarthyism.
See the interview excerpt below or at the video here:
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