The House on Wednesday advanced a motion to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), seeking to formally condemn the California lawmaker for his claims of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
The House voted 218-208 against tabling the motion, advancing a measure to condemn Schiff over allegations he abused the trust of his constituents by pushing claims that former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to fix the 2016 election. The vote marks the second time this month Republicans have sought to censure Schiff over those claims, previously failing to overcome the 218 majority votes needed to pass the motion.
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The measure advanced after all Republicans voted in favor of the measure, overcoming past objections by some members of the party who voted against the motion last week. The original bill language included a $16 million fine, prompting 20 GOP lawmakers to object to the measure.
Luna later removed that provision, securing the votes needed to pass the resolution on Wednesday.
Luna filed the privileged motion on Tuesday, denouncing Schiff for his push of unproven allegations of Trump-Russia collusion while touting British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier. Those claims came under renewed scrutiny earlier this year after the release of the Durham report, which concluded the FBI had no proper basis for launching the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump and Russia in 2016.
The report ultimately concluded the investigation was inherently flawed as there was no proper basis to conduct it in the first place, and it also found that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign played an outsize role in pushing collusion claims to the media and to the FBI.
Schiff has rejected the motion, decrying the resolution as a misuse of House resources.
“This is a badge of honor,” Schiff said of the censure vote. “They go after people that are effective. I expose the corruption of the former president. I led the first impeachment trial of the former president to the first bipartisan vote to remove a president.”
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A censure vote does not remove a lawmaker from office, nor does it hold any real punishment. Rather, the move is a symbolic vote to express dissatisfaction toward a lawmaker over their voting record or personal conduct. However, the move could come back to haunt Schiff as he runs to replace the retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the Senate.
The motion will now advance for a full vote before the House on Wednesday evening, after which the matter would be referred to the Ethics Committee for an investigation if approved.