House censures Adam Schiff over claims of 2016 Trump-Russia collusion
Reese Gorman Cami Mondeaux
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The House on Wednesday voted to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) for allegations he abused the trust of his constituents by pushing the theory former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election.
The House voted 213-209 to condemn the California Democrat. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) and Republican members of the House Ethics Committee, Reps. Michael Guest (R-MS), Dave Joyce (R-OH), John Rutherford (R-NE), Michelle Fischbach (R-MN), and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) voted present. After the vote to censure Schiff, House Democrats yelled “shame, shame, shame” and “disgrace” at House Republicans. As House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was reading the resolution, House Democrats were chanting “Adam, Adam, Adam” in support of Schiff.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) called McCarthy a “spiteful coward” as he was reading the censure resolution.
All but six 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.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) 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 matter will now be referred to the Ethics Committee for a full investigation, according to the measure.