McCarthy’s proposed banishment of Intel Democrats sparks cries

Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.career )’s in intelligence may be finished if the GOP pledges to kick two Democrats off the House Intelligence Committee, perhaps terminating his career. It would also raise concerns that the new majority plans to violate minority rights.

Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell, two of the most outspoken opponents of former President Trump, would lose influence as a result of Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) pledge, which comes as the former president has begun his reelection campaign.

Democrats are howling in outrage, and McCarthy has promised to kick Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) off the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The committee was always going to change next year as a consequence of customary post-election rearrangement, but if the McCarthy pledges are carried through, it will be a considerably more aggressive move on the part of the incoming majority to get revenge on its political foes.

McCarthy has charged Schiff of misleading the public on both Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine and President Trump’s links to Moscow. He has also pursued Swalwell because of his connections to a Chinese spy who had been targeting politicians in California.

“In the public sector, Eric Swalwell is not eligible for a security clearance. Why would we ever provide him a security clearance regarding America’s secrets? McCarthy told Maria Bartiromo, presenter of MINIECHAT’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” “So I won’t let him be on Intel.

McCarthy said, “You have Adam Schiff, who has repeatedly misled to the American people. “We won’t let him serve on the Intel Committee either,” was the response.

One of three Muslims in Congress, Omar, a former refugee from Somalia, regularly criticizes the Israeli government on topics relating to human rights. McCarthy is one of Omar’s critics who claims that at times, her remarks have bordered on antisemitism.

The expulsions, which still need the support of the whole House, would represent a major uptick in the political fight about who holds the reins when it comes to committee assignments and what actions are grounds for expulsion. Usually, party leaders give their own members committee positions without consulting the opposition party.

Democrats took the rare step of removing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a first-term conservative, from her two committee positions early last year, just after Trump supporters invaded the Capitol. The vote was brought about by discoveries that, in the years before Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) was elected to Congress, Greene had advocated for the death of prominent Democrats.

Democrats have justified the expulsions of Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who was ejected from the Oversight and Reform Committee and the Natural Resources Committee in separate processes, by citing the very violent nature of the conduct that led to them.

Gosar published an animated film in which his avatar uses a sword to kill renowned leftist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

They now accuse McCarthy of propagating false equivalencies just to discredit his political adversaries, despite his threats to react.

“That’s the constant concern. That’s the institutional worry, Tim Bergreen, an attorney who once oversaw personnel for the committee’s Democrats, told The Hill. “Processes were held solely for the most heinous instances.”

He interprets the conduct in this instance as being “basically based on the fact that… you don’t like the two members in issue.”

“[Schiff] has made an effort to conduct himself in line with the ideals of congressional service,” says the author. Likewise with Swalwell. They still put up a fierce fight, however. And it doesn’t mean they won’t go on television and criticize their Republican colleagues, the speaker remarked.

To basically equate how they behave to others who would happily set the institution on fire and show no respect. Simply said, there is no similarity in my opinion, Bergreen continued.

The participants themselves seem to be handling the danger well. Swalwell noted that any expulsions from the party next year may be prevented by McCarthy’s challenges in gaining the GOP support he’ll need to be Speaker.

If Kevin McCarthy becomes speaker, “talk to me,” Swalwell stated in a statement.

Swalwell said that the action will be taken “from a point of retribution, not from any substance or merit,” during an interview on MINIECHAT on Friday.

“He’s acting that way because I’m successful. Adam Schiff, who is also being targeted, and I both held Donald Trump accountable when we were both on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees while he was in the White House, I believe.

“Look, every coach would love to take the top players from the other side off the game on a Sunday morning on an NFL field, and that’s what Kevin McCarthy is trying to accomplish here,” said one observer.

Schiff is responding by accusing McCarthy of caving in to Greene’s demands in order to get her vote in the Speaker’s vote.

Well, I have a feeling he will comply with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s wishes. Schiff stated on ABC’s “This Week” program on Sunday, “He’s a very weak leader of this conference. He will follow the demands of the lowest common denominator, and if that lowest common denominator wants to remove members from committees, that’s what they’ll do.

The GOP is concentrating on Swalwell’s association with a lady who was subsequently identified as a Chinese agent. Christine Fang targeted a number of Bay Area elected officials in order to support Swalwell’s reelection campaign in 2014. Swalwell severed links with Fang after receiving a defense briefing from the FBI in 2015. It was revealed five years later that he had a relationship with her.

A national security law and clearance specialist named Mark Zaid stated that removing Swalwell from his committee position in response to the event would be a politicized action, having an effect on a panel that “had been virtually immune to such concerns” up until recently.

In response to McCarthy’s assertion that Swalwell wouldn’t be able to get a clearance, he replied, “Members of Congress are permitted access to secret material by virtue of their elected status and are not subject to the Executive Branch’s investigative or due process system.

“A judgement of trustworthiness is based on a set of adjudicative principles, and it is unwise, and indeed irresponsible, to appraise another member’s possible predicament, especially if living in a glass house as so many sitting in Congress certainly do,” the statement reads.

In the larger context of the inquiry into connections between Trump and Russia, McCarthy has charged Schiff with lying.

Bergreen cited the now-discredited Steele dossier, which first surfaced early in the inquiry and was named for a former British intelligence officer called Christopher Steele.

“McCarthy is saying that because Schiff was trying to find some of the weeds in the Steele dossier, and he would talk about that not only in the committee, but when questioned about it in the press, that somehow that rendered him unfit to hold a committee chairmanship or even a position on the committee, because it turned out that not everything in the Steele dossier was true, which is a standard of idiocy,” he said.

If that is the norm, I suppose everyone involved in the Benghazi witch hunt… They probably shouldn’t be permitted to participate in committee work, he continued.