GOP’s McCarthy Demands Adam Schiff Step Down as House Intel Chairman

Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, talks briefly to reporters
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Monday (R-CA) called on Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) ― who has continually advanced the hoax claim that President Donald Trump conspired with Russia’s government ― to resign as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee after special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation concluded there was no proof of any Trump campaign collusion.

“[Schiff] owes the American public an apology,” McCarthy told Politico. “Schiff has met the standard that he has imposed on other members of Congress of when they should step back from their positions. He has exceeded that standard, and there is no question he should step down from the Intel chairmanship.”

McCarthy’s remarks come one day after the Department of Justice announced Mueller’s investigation did not find evidence that President Trump’s presidential campaign “conspired or coordinated” with the Russian government in the 2016 election.

White House official Kellyanne Conway went a step further than McCarthy Monday morning, calling on Schiff not only to step down from his powerful chairmanship, but from Congress as well.

“He ought to resign today,” Conway said of Schiff in an interview with Fox & Friends. “He’s been on every TV show 50 times a day for practically the last two years, promising Americans that this president would either be impeached or indicted.”

“Adam Schiff should resign. He has no right as somebody who has been peddling a lie, day after day after day, unchallenged and not under oath,” she added. “Somebody should have put him under oath and said ‘you have evidence, where is it’?

Schiff has been one of Congress’s most vocal proponents of the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy, claiming as early as this month that the Trump Tower meeting in which Russian nationals claimed they could provide damaging information on then-Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was “direct evidence” of collusion.

Appearing Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Schiff even argued that despite Mueller not bringing additional indictments anyone from the Trump campaign, “there is significant evidence of collusion.”

“There is significant evidence of collusion,” Schiff said. “We have set that out time and time again from the secret meetings in Trump Tower to the conversations between Flynn, the Russian ambassador, to the providing of polling data to someone linked to Russian intelligence and Stone’s links to Wikileaks.”

“There’s a difference between compelling evidence of collusion and whether the special counsel concludes that he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt the criminal charge of conspiracy,” he continued. “As I said before, I leave that decision to Bob Mueller. And I have full confidence in him.”

Meanwhile, Schiff’s intelligence panel is forging ahead with its own investigation into President Trump’s previous business dealings. On Wednesday, Trump associate Felix Sater is scheduled to appear before lawmakers to testify on his involvement regarding a proposal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

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