House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) defended his decision not to seat Adam Schiff on the House Intelligence Committee and, in epic fashion, laid out the case justifying this move while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
“What did Adam Schiff do as the chairman of the Intel Committee? What Adam Schiff did—use his power as a chairman and lie to the American public, even the inspector general said it,” McCarthy said, before going through several of Schiff’s offenses, including lying about the Nunes Memo, and using his position as chairman of the Intelligence Committee to lie about Trump/Russia collusion and the Hunter Biden laptop.
“So no, he does not have a right to sit on that [committee],” McCarthy said.
McCarthy did say that Schiff could serve on other committees.
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“I will not be like Democrats and play politics with these—where they removed Republicans from committees and all committees. So yes, he can serve on a committee but he will not serve on Intel because it goes to the national security of America, and I will always put them first.”
Last week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries formally nominated Schiff and Swalwell to serve on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, though it looks like McCarthy isn’t going to back down.
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