The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to censure and condemn Democratic representative Adam Schiff, who played a major role in the party’s congressional investigations into former president Trump during his tenure.
The resolution, introduced by GOP Representative Anna Paulina Luna, passed with 213 members of Congress in favor and 209 opposing. As House Speaker Kevin McCarthy read the final vote tally, Democrats booed and, with repeated yells of “shame,” interrupted his reading of the measure. Democrats cheered as Schiff presented himself in the chamber well. A censure vote is a formal reprimand of a member’s conduct.
The resolution alleges that Schiff, who then served as ranking minority member and then chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, whipped up the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election. Schiff therefore, the resolution states, “abused” the trust of the committee, where he was afforded access to sensitive intelligence.
“By repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people,” the resolution reads.
The resolution accuses Schiff of lending credibility to the Steele dossier, a collection of unsubstantiated accusations linking the 2016 Trump campaign to the Kremlin that were later debunked. The federal probe led by John Durham, the special counsel tapped by the Trump administration to audit the Russia investigation for malfeasance, found that all of the substantive claims made by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele were either unverified or erroneous. Steele was later accused of peddling a hoax of Russian election interference to undermine Trump’s campaign with his dossier, which was funded by the Clinton campaign through its law firm Perkins Coie.
With his privileged access to classified information, Schiff knowingly “composed a false memo justifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application on Trump associate Carter Page,” the resolution says.
Luna announced Tuesday that she had gathered enough votes to censure Schiff and refer him to the House Ethics Committee.
“I have called up my censure motion and will be bringing the vote to hold Adam Schiff accountable to the floor tomorrow,” Luna tweeted Tuesday night.