Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a manager in Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, was formally censured by the House on Wednesday on a party-line vote.
The vote Wednesday on the censure resolution was 213 to 209. All the votes in favor came from Republicans while Democrats provided all the “no” votes. Six Republicans voted “present.”
After the vote, a large group of House Democrats gathered near the Speaker’s dais, where Schiff was to present himself to be censured, and shouted “shame, shame!”
The censure vote was the unsurprising end of a two-week quest by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) to have Schiff officially admonished for various statements and actions her resolution alleged were unfair to Trump. She had offered a similar resolution last week, but it was tabled after 20 Republicans, possibly concerned by its suggestion of fining Schiff, crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats.
Luna’s almost-identical new resolution, without the fine language, said Schiff had “abused” his position as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee by spreading “false accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia” in 2016. It also made other allegations against Schiff.
While a special prosecutor and an inspector general have found fault with some procedural aspects of how the 2016 FBI investigation into Trump’s campaign began, it is unquestioned that the Russians took “active measures” to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election and that a high-ranking Trump campaign operative, Paul Manafort, worked with a Russian agent by giving him campaign polling data.
Schiff, who is running for the Senate, defended himself on the House floor, saying he had done his duty to warn Americans about the danger Trump posed to national security.
“You honor me with your enmity,” he said of Republicans. “You will never deter me from doing my duty.”
Schiff specifically referenced Manafort’s actions as among the activities that constituted collusion and said Republicans refused to be honest about it.
“You must not call that collusion, though that is its proper name, as the country well knows,” he said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who was a manager in Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial, said the effort to admonish Schiff was evidence of the collapse of the Republican Party into an “authoritarian cult of personality.”
“We don’t censure members over a difference of opinion,” he said.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) supported the resolution, accusing Schiff of bias when investigating Trump and his campaign’s activities.
“He was hasty. He was prejudiced. And he was wrong,” Ogles said.
Schiff’s censure was a victory for Trump, who had posted a supporter’s list of the 20 Republicans who had helped Democrats derail Luna’s resolution on his social media site last week. The supporter called them “the Coward 20.”
Luna said when the first resolution was tabled that she feared some of her fellow Republicans had not fully read the 574-word document or were spooked by its suggestion that a $16 million fine be imposed on Schiff.
All of the 20 Republicans who voted to table the resolution last week voted Wednesday against tabling the new one.
Luna’s resolution — supported by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who had suggested punishing Schiff the day serial liar Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was indicted — may open the floodgates to other, similarly symbolic resolutions.
Already, right-wing Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has filed an impeachment resolution against President Joe Biden, only to be accused of copying by fellow right-wing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.).
