Posted on 06/14/23
| News Source: The Hill
The House on Wednesday effectively killed a resolution to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), voting for a Democratic-led motion to table the measure.
The chamber voted 225-196-7 to table the resolution. Twenty Republicans voted with Democrats to table the measure, while seven lawmakers — five Democrats, two Republicans — voted present.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) introduced the censure measure in May but brought it to the floor as a privileged resolution on Tuesday, forcing the House to take action on the legislation. Democratic leadership motioned to table the measure, which requires a simple majority vote.
The effort by House Republicans to censure Schiff is the latest iteration of the conference’s longtime crusade against the California Democrat, who became a bogeyman to the right after spearheading efforts against former President Trump while he was in the White House.
Schiff, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, led the first impeachment inquiry into Trump, which ended with the House impeaching him for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Schiff was also at the forefront of Democratic accusations that Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.
In January, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) blocked Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from serving on the Intelligence panel, following through on a promise he made before securing the Speaker’s gavel. He said the decision was made “in order to maintain a standard worthy of this committee’s responsibilities.”
And in May, Luna filed a resolution to expel Schiff from the House.
Luna’s censure resolution, which spans four pages, calls for censuring and condemning Schiff “for conduct that misleads the American people in a way that is not befitting an elected Member of the House of Representatives.” It would also direct the Ethics Committee to conduct an investigation into Schiff’s “lies, misrepresentations, and abuses of sensitive information.”
Luna, a staunch Trump ally, brought the measure to the floor as a privileged resolution the same day the former president pleaded not guilty to 37 counts brought against him by the Department of Justice as part of the investigation into his handling of classified documents. Prosecutors allege that Trump willfully retained classified records and then obstructed efforts by authorities to collect them.
In a letter to Democratic colleagues on Tuesday, Schiff argued that Luna was forcing a vote on the censure resolution — which he called “false and defamatory” — to distract from Trump’s legal woes. He said it would discipline him for his work “holding Donald Trump accountable.”
“This partisan resolution to censure and fine me $16 million is only the latest attempt to gratify the former President’s MAGA allies, and distract from Donald Trump’s legal troubles by retaliating against me for my role in exposing his abuses of power, and leading the first impeachment against him,” he wrote.
“The intent of this resolution goes far beyond me and my role leading investigations of Donald Trump, and his first impeachment — an effort I would undertake again, and in a heartbeat, if it were necessary,” he later added. “This resolution plainly demonstrates the lengths our GOP colleagues will go to protect Donald Trump’s infinite lies – lies that incited a violent attack on this very building.”
Schiff also asserted that the censure resolution was “a clear attack on our constitutional system of checks and balances.”