Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Wednesday accused Speaker Kevin McCarthy of lying about the intelligence briefing House leaders received about Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) affair with a Chinese spy.
Reps. Schiff, Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) held a news conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning to complain about McCarthy’s decision to strip them of their committee assignments.
McCarthy has on multiple occasions referenced an FBI briefing House leaders received about Swalwell’s conduct with a Chinese spy named Christine Fang, better known as Fang Fang.
“The FBI was concerned about putting a member of Congress on the Intel Committee that has the right to see things that others don’t because of his knowledge and relationship with a Chinese spy,” the Speaker told reporters during a contentious press conference Tuesday. “I do not believe that he should sit on that committee.”
Schiff accused McCarthy of “misrepresenting” the FBI intelligence briefing about Swalwell, calling it a “patently unfair smear.”
“I sat in on that briefing and when Kevin McCarthy misrepresents it and does a disservice to the American people, it’s shameful,” Schiff said. “Mr. Swalwell has served honorably on our committee. He’s never been accused of any wrongdoing. This is a patently unfair smear.”
Schiff also claimed, without evidence, that McCarthy was “doing the former president’s bidding” by stripping the Democrats of their committee assignments. “He is entirely reliant on the former president and this is something the former president wants,” the California Democrat said.
Adam Schiff doubles down on his farewell tour saying McCarthy is only letting him go because his Master in Mar-a-Lago told him to. He says he sat in on the Intel brief on Swalwell and he did nothing wrong. pic.twitter.com/HpLE6gIC2W
— MistyG ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@Misty_G_17) January 25, 2023
During his presser Tuesday, McCarthy pointed out that Schiff used his power as a leader on the Intel Committee to repeatedly lie to the American public.
“Even the Inspector General said it,” McCarthy said, referring to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, whose December 2019 report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation debunked Schiff’s lies about Trump colluding with Russia.
As the ranking member of the Intel Committee, Schiff read the discredited Steele Dossier into the Congressional Record, and repeatedly claimed that he had seen evidence of collusion. He also baselessly smeared then-Intel Chairman Devin Nunes’ February 2018 FISA memo, calling it Russian disinformation. Horowitz’s report not only corroborated the Nunes memo, it identified further FBI misconduct.
Schiff also claimed that he did not know the identity of the Ukraine “whistleblower” (CIA operative Eric Ciaramella), even though one of his aides had met with him before he filed his formal complaint against Trump.
Additionally, the former Intel chairman falsely claimed that a damaging Senate report about Hunter Biden’s corrupt and potentially criminal business dealings was “Russian disinformation.”
In September of 2020, Republican Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Charles Grassley of Iowa, released a report detailing Hunter’s work for Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, as well as his business associations with Chinese nationals linked to the Communist government and People’s Liberation Army resulting in millions of dollars in questionable cash transactions.
The Senate investigation also found links between Hunter Biden and human trafficking, the adult entertainment industry, and/or prostitution. All of these findings were further corroborated by information found on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop.
In a statement, Schiff dismissed Johnson and Grassley’s devastating report, accusing them of promoting Russian information.
“The Kremlin must be very pleased,” Schiff said in the statement. “Everyone should see this report for what it is: an election year hit job that uses as its very basis Russian disinformation,” Schiff added.
After the New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop broke in October of 2020, Schiff told CNN, again without citing evidence, that he believed “the Kremlin” was behind a “smear” of Joe and Hunter Biden.
“Well, we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin. That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about the vice president and his son,” Schiff told Blitzer.
Although it took the corporate media over a year to take the laptop seriously, it was clear in October of 2020 that it was real.
John Paul Mac Isaac, the Delaware computer repairman who blew the whistle on the “laptop from Hell,” filed a multimillion-dollar defamation suit last May against Schiff, CNN, the Daily Beast and Politico, alleging they falsely accused him of peddling Russian disinformation.
McCarthy on Tuesday blasted Schiff for all of his lies.
.@SpeakerMcCarthy to reporter: Let me be very clear & respectful to you. You ask me a question when I answer it it's the answer to your question. You don't get to determine whether I answer a question or not, okay? In all respect…what happens in the Intel Cmte you don't know. pic.twitter.com/WD57QB7m1v
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 25, 2023
During the Democrats’ press conference on Wednesday, Schiff accused McCarthy of “bowing to the demands of the most extreme elements of his conference,” and claimed, without evidence, that the Speaker was using the Intel Committee as a “plaything.”
“He will cause the Intelligence agencies to, I think, distrust this action, and in combination of the formation of this so-called Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which will ostensibly have access to classified information, he will only, I think, breed distrust within the Intelligence Community as to what it can share and what it can feel confident in sharing with the Congress,” Schiff said.
Adam Schiff is crying a river of Lib tears this morningpic.twitter.com/bekedN180j
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 25, 2023