In a fiery rebuttal to allegations he’d criminally misrepresented facts in his mortgage documents, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) sued Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte on Tuesday — accusing him of criminally misusing government databases to baselessly target President Trump’s political opponents.
“Pulte has abused his position by scouring databases at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — two government-sponsored enterprises — for the private mortgage records of several prominent Democrats,” attorneys for Swalwell wrote in a federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C. “He then used those records to concoct fanciful allegations of mortgage fraud, which he referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.”
Pulte’s attack, Swalwell’s attorneys wrote, “was not only a gross mischaracterization of reality” but “a gross abuse of power that violated the law,” infringing on Swalwell’s free speech rights to criticize the president without fear of reprisal, and violating the Privacy Act of 1974, which they said bars federal officials from “leveraging their access to citizens’ private information as a tool for harming their political opponents.”
Pulte, the FHFA and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Pulte has previously defended his work probing mortgage documents of prominent Democrats, saying no one is above the law. His referrals have exclusively targeted Democrats, despite reporting on Republicans taking similar actions on their mortgages.
Swalwell’s lawsuit is the latest counterpunch to Pulte’s campaign, and part of mounting scrutiny over its unprecedented nature and unorthodox methods — not just from targets of his probes but from other investigators, too, according to one witness.
In addition to Swalwell, Pulte has referred mortgage fraud allegations to the Justice Department against Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, who have all denied wrongdoing and suggested the allegations amount to little more than political retribution.
James was criminally charged by an inexperienced, loyalist federal prosecutor specially appointed by Trump in Virginia, though a judge has since thrown out that case on the grounds that the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed. The judge also threw out a case against former FBI Director James Comey, another Trump opponent.
Cook’s attorneys slammed Pulte in a letter to the Justice Department, writing that his “decision to use the FHFA to selectively — and publicly — investigate and target the President’s designated political enemies gives rise to the unmistakable impression that he has been improperly coordinating with the White House to manufacture flimsy predicates to launch these probes.”
Schiff also has lambasted Trump and Pulte for their targeting of him and other Democrats, and cheered the tossing of the cases against James and Comey, calling it “a triumph of the rule of law.”
In recent days, federal prosecutors in Maryland — where Schiff’s case is being investigated — have also started asking questions about the actions of Pulte and other Trump officials, according to Christine Bish, a Sacramento-area real estate agent and Republican congressional candidate who was summoned to Maryland to answer questions in the matter last week.
Pulte has alleged that Schiff broke the law by claiming primary residence for mortgages in both Maryland and California. Schiff has said he never broke any law and was always forthcoming with his mortgage lenders.
Bish has been investigating Schiff’s mortgage records since 2020, and had repeatedly submitted documents about Schiff to the federal government — first to the Office of Congressional Ethics, then earlier this year to an FHFA tip line and to the FBI, she told The Times.
When Trump subsequently posted one of Schiff’s mortgage documents to his Truth Social platform, Bish said she believed it was one she had submitted to the FHFA and FBI, because it was highlighted exactly as she had highlighted it. Then, she saw she had missed a call from Pulte, and was later asked by Pulte’s staff to email Pulte “the full file” she had worked up on Schiff.
“They wanted to make sure that I had sent the whole file,” Bish said.
Bish said she was subsequently interviewed via Google Meet on Oct. 22 by someone from the FHFA inspector general’s office and an FBI agent. She then got a subpoena in the mail that she interpreted as requiring her to be in Maryland last week. There, she was interviewed again, for about an hour, by the same official from the inspector general’s office and another FBI agent, she said — and was surprised their questions seemed more focused on her communications with people in the federal government than on Schiff.
“They wanted to know if I had been talking to anybody else,” she said. “You know, what did I communicate? Who did I communicate with?”
Schiff’s office declined to comment. However, Schiff’s attorney has previously told Justice Department officials that there was “ample basis” for them to launch an investigation into Pulte and his campaign targeting Trump’s opponents, calling it a “highly irregular” and “sordid” effort.
The acting FHFA inspector general at the time Bish was first contacted, Joe Allen, has since been fired, which has also raised questions.
On Nov. 19, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) — the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — wrote a letter to Pulte denouncing his probes as politically motivated, questioning Allen’s dismissal and demanding documentation from Pulte, including any communications he has had with the White House.
Swalwell’s attorneys wrote in Tuesday’s lawsuit that he never claimed primary residence in both California and Washington, D.C., as alleged, and had not broken any laws.
They accused Pulte of orchestrating a coordinated effort to spread the allegations against Swalwell via a vast network of conservative influencers, which they said had “harmed [Swalwell’s] reputation at a critical juncture in his career: the very moment when he had planned to announce his campaign for Governor of California.”
They said the “widespread publication of information about the home where his wife and young children reside” had also “exposed him to heightened security risks and caused him significant anguish and distress.”
Swalwell said in a statement that Pulte has “combed through private records of political opponents” to “silence them,” which shouldn’t be allowed.
“There’s a reason the First Amendment — the freedom of speech — comes before all others,” he said.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has harnessed the weight of his office in recent days to accelerate a campaign of retribution against his perceived political enemies and attacks on 1st Amendment protections.
In the last week alone, Trump replaced a U.S. attorney investigating two of his political adversaries with a loyalist and openly directed the attorney general to find charges to file against them.
His Federal Communications Commission chairman hinted at punitive actions against networks whose journalists and comedians run afoul of the president.
Trump filed a $15-billion lawsuit against the New York Times, only to have it thrown out by a judge.
The Pentagon announced it was imposing new restrictions on reporters who cover the U.S. military.
The White House officially labeled “antifa,” a loose affiliation of far-left extremists, as “domestic terrorists” — a designation with no basis in U.S. law — posing a direct challenge to free speech protections. And it said lawmakers concerned with the legal predicate for strikes on boats in the Caribbean should simply get over it.
An active investigation into the president’s border advisor over an alleged bribery scheme involving a $50,000 payout was quashed by the White House itself.
Trump emphasized his partisan-fueled dislike of his political opponents during a Sunday memorial service for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who he said “did not hate his opponents.”
“That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” Trump said. “I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them.”
It has been an extraordinary run of attacks using levers of power that have been seen as sacred arbiters of the public trust for decades, scholars and historians say.
The assault is exclusively targeting Democrats, liberal groups and establishment institutions, just as the administration moves to shield its allies.
Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney in Virginia, resigned Friday after facing pressure from the Trump administration to bring criminal charges against New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James over alleged mortgage fraud. In a social media post later that day, Trump claimed he had “fired” Siebert.
A few hours later, on Saturday, Trump said he nominated White House aide Lindsey Halligan to take over Siebert’s top prosecutorial role in Virginia, saying she was “tough” and “loyal.”
Later that day, Trump demanded in a social media post addressed to “Pam” — in reference to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi — that she prosecute James, former FBI Director James Comey and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s remarks, saying Monday that the president is “rightfully frustrated” and that he “wants accountability for these corrupt fraudsters who abuse their power, who abuse their oath of office, to target the former president and then candidate for the highest office in the land.”
“It is not weaponizing the Department of Justice to demand accountability for those who weaponize the Department of Justice, and nobody knows what that looks like more than President Trump,” Leavitt told reporters.
As the president called for prosecution of his political opponents, it was reported that Tom Homan, the White House border advisor, was the subject of an undercover FBI case that was later shut down by Trump administration officials. Homan, according to MSNBC, accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover agents after he indicated to them he could get them government contracts.
At Monday’s news briefing, Leavitt said that Homan did not take the money and that the investigation was “another example of the weaponization of the Biden Department of Justice against one of President Trump’s strongest and most vocal supporters.”
“The White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely nothing wrong,” she said.
Some see the recent actions as an erosion of an expected firewall between the Department of Justice and the White House, as well as a shift in the idea of how criminal investigation should be launched.
“If the Department of Justice and any prosecution entity is functioning properly, then that entity is investigating crimes and not people,” said John Hasnas, a law professor at Georgetown University.
The Trump administration has also begun a military campaign against vessels crossing the Caribbean Sea departing from Venezuela that it says are carrying narcotics and drug traffickers. But the targeted killing of individuals at sea is raising concern among legal scholars that the administration’s operation is extrajudicial, and Democratic lawmakers, including Schiff, have introduced a bill in recent days asserting the ongoing campaign violates the War Powers Resolution.
Political influence has long played a role with federal prosecutors who are political appointees, Hasnas said, but under “the current situation it’s magnified greatly.”
“The interesting thing about the current situation is that the Trump administration is not even trying to hide it,” he said.
Schiff said he sees it as an effort to “try to silence and intimidate.” In July, Trump accused Schiff — who led the first impeachment inquiry into Trump — of committing mortgage fraud, which Schiff has denied.
“What he wants to try to do is not just go after me and Letitia James or Lisa Cook, but rather send a message that anyone who stands up to him on anything, anyone who has the audacity to call out his corruption will be a target, and they will go after you,” Schiff said in an interview Sunday.
Trump campaigned in part on protecting free speech, especially that of conservatives, who he claimed had been broadly censored by the Biden administration and “woke” leftist culture in the U.S. Many of his most ardent supporters — including billionaire Elon Musk and now-Vice President JD Vance — praised Trump as a champion of free speech.
However, since Trump took office, his administration has repeatedly sought to silence his critics, including in the media, and crack down on speech that does not align with his politics.
And in the wake of Kirk’s killing on Sept. 10, those efforts have escalated into an unprecedented attack on free speech and expression, according to constitutional scholars and media experts.
“The administration is showing a stunning ignorance and disregard of the 1st Amendment,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School.
“We are at an unprecedented place in American history in terms of the targeting of free press and the exercise of free speech,” said Ken Paulson, former editor in chief of USA Today and now director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
“We’ve had periods in American history like the Red Scare, in which Americans were to turn in neighbors who they thought leaned left, but this is a nonstop, multifaceted, multiplatform attack on all of our free speech rights,” Paulson said. “I’m actually quite stunned at the velocity of this and the boldness of it.”
Bondi recently railed against “hate speech” — which the Supreme Court has previously defended — in an online post, suggesting the Justice Department will investigate those who speak out against conservatives.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened ABC and its parent company, Disney, with repercussions if they did not yank Jimmy Kimmel off the air after Kimmel made comments about Kirk’s alleged killer that Carr found distasteful. ABC swiftly suspended Kimmel’s show, though Disney announced Monday that it would return Tuesday.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, said it will require news organizations to agree not to disclose any information the government has not approved for release and revoke the press credentials of those who publish sensitive material without approval.
Critics of the administration, free speech organizations and even some conservative pundits who have long criticized the “cancel culture” of the progressive left have spoken out against some of those policies. Scholars have too, saying the amalgam of actions by the administration represent a dangerous departure from U.S. law and tradition.
“What unites all of this is how blatantly inconsistent it is with the 1st Amendment,” Chemerinsky said.
Chemerinsky said lower courts have consistently pushed back against the administration’s overreaches when it comes to protected speech, and he expects they will continue to do so.
He also said that, although the Supreme Court has frequently sided with the president in disputes over his policy decisions, it has also consistently defended freedom of speech, and he hopes it will continue to do so if some of the free speech policies above reach the high court.
“If there’s anything this court has said repeatedly, it’s that the government can’t prevent or stop speech based on the viewpoint expressed,” Chemerinsky said.
Paulson said that American media companies must refuse to obey and continue to cover the Trump administration and the Pentagon as aggressively as ever, and that average Americans must recognize the severity of the threat posed by such censorship and speak out against it, no matter their political persuasion.
“This is real — a full-throttle assault on free speech in America,” Paulson said. “And it’s going to be up to the citizenry to do something about it.”
Chemerinsky said defending free speech should be an issue that unites all Americans, not least because political power changes hands.
“It’s understandable that those in power want to silence the speech that they don’t like, but the whole point of the 1st Amendment is to protect speech we don’t like,” he said. “We don’t need the 1st Amendment to protect the speech we like.”
The only head-to-head debate in California’s high-stakes U.S. Senate race between Rep. Adam B. Schiff and former Dodger Steve Garvey was dominated Tuesday by contentious exchanges on a host of national political issues — from immigration to the economy, expanding conflict in the Middle East, reproductive healthcare and global warming.
The sharpest exchanges, however, related to the two candidates’ vastly different stances on former President Trump.
Schiff, a Burbank Democrat with more than 20 years of experience in the House and a commanding lead in the polls, cast Garvey as an inexperienced Trump backer who would push conservative rather than Californian values in Washington.
Californians, Schiff quipped, are “not looking for some MAGA mini-me in a baseball uniform.”
Garvey, a Palm Desert Republican with no political experience but high name recognition from his days as a Major League Baseball star, suggested Schiff was too caught up in party politics and his vendetta against Trump to focus on the issues most important to California voters.
“How can you think about one man every day and focus on that when you’ve got millions of people in California to take care of?” Garvey said. “I think it’s unconscionable.”
The debate was testy from the start. When Schiff in his first remarks accused Garvey of turning a blind eye to the worst impulses of Trump — who Schiff said wants to “be a dictator on Day One” — Garvey replied, borrowing a famous Ronald Reagan line used in a 1980 presidential debate, “There you go again.”
During a separate exchange on immigration, in which Schiff accused Garvey of supporting Trump’s plan for mass deportations, Garvey said, “One of the two of us is honest and straightforward.”
“I would agree with that,” Schiff shot back.
The debate offered a final chance for the two candidates to square off in public before voters decide between them in the November election. Californians will be asked to vote twice in the Senate race: First, to choose Schiff or Garvey to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s final term, which ends in early January, and, separately, who should serve a subsequent six-year Senate term.
Tuesday’s debate was the first since Garvey and Schiff won the two highest totals of votes in a more crowded primary field, in which Schiff bested Democratic rivals Reps. Katie Porter of Irvine and Barbara Lee of Oakland. Polls show Schiff with a substantial lead over Garvey.
Trump loomed over immigration debate
Moderators of the fast-paced, hour-long debate — hosted by KABC-TV in partnership with Univision and the League of Women Voters — asked Schiff and Garvey multiple questions about immigration and border security.
Schiff said the country needs to “get control of the border” with more personnel and technology to interdict people and drugs. But it also needs a “comprehensive immigration policy” that treats people humanely and provides relief for farmworkers and undocumented people who arrived in the U.S. as children.
And he blasted Garvey for backing Trump, saying Trump’s plan is for mass deportations that will devastate the country and immigrant communities.
“You’re voting for mass deportations when you say you’re for Donald Trump,” Schiff said.
“What we have to do is secure the border. We have to finish off the wall. We have to reinstate ‘remain in Mexico,’” Garvey said. “We have to reinforce our border patrol. We have to get back to building facilities at the border that will detain these illegal immigrants, then a judicial system that will will try them.”
A record number of people have been stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden-Harris administration, and Republicans across the country — including Garvey — are pushing to make border security a campaign liability for Democrats.
“A lot of Americans are concerned about immigration,” said Mindy Romero, the founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC. “The reason why Republicans are talking about it so much is because it works.”
While Garvey’s chances of winning the Senate race are low given how deeply blue California voters are overall, Romero said, he is still the highest-ranking Republican on the ballot after Trump — and what Garvey says about immigration could still matter for Republicans.
“In California, we’re not a monolith and we’re not all in sync on this issue,” Romero said. “What Garvey says and does could help motivate and mobilize Republicans.”
Garvey struggled to state a clear position on abortion
The moderators sought, without success, to bring clarity to Garvey’s position on abortion rights.
He has said that he personally opposes abortion and would not support a federal ban on abortion.
“I am a Catholic,” Garvey said Tuesday night. “I believe in life at conception. I believe that God breathes a soul into these fetuses. So I am steadfast in terms of my policies on abortion, and also pledge to support all the people of California.”
But Garvey also pledged to “support the voice of Californians.” He said he supported the amendment enshrining a right to abortion in the state Constitution that two-thirds of Golden State voters supported in 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
If Garvey is “listening to the voices of Californians like he claims, he would hear their voices loud and clear,” Schiff said. “Californians want a national right to reproductive freedom and they don’t want the government in the business of making that decision for women.”
Schiff has been a longtime vocal advocate for access to abortion services, and said Tuesday that he supports establishing a national right to abortion access.
A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll in early August, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, found that more than half of likely California voters surveyed — 52% — said electing someone who “would be a strong voice in defending abortion rights in the Senate” was very important to them.
Differences on government’s role on the economy
The differences in how Schiff and Garvey see the role of government was fully on display when they were pressed on how to address the rising cost of goods and housing.
“We’re much worse off than we were four years ago,” Garvey said. He said he supported more free-market policies, and knocked Schiff for what he described as “Schiff-flation.”
Housing is a local issue and more federal regulation could lead to the government being “overinvolved,” Garvey said.
Asked how he would help renters, he said he’d do so by getting the U.S. economy “roaring again.”
Schiff said he would support more direct federal spending on housing, and as well as an expansion of Section 8 vouchers, a government subsidy that enables eligible tenants to find housing with private landlords. He also proposed a “renter’s tax credit,” akin to the tax deduction that allows homeowners to write off their mortgage interest payments.
Garvey said he would support tariffs on imported goods shipped by “a company that threatens the success of an American company.” But, he said, he would prefer to see lower domestic taxes to foster more small businesses and reduce the need to import foreign goods.
Schiff said he doesn’t support Trump’s “across-the-board tariffs,” which he said would lead to higher prices for consumers. He said he would support “targeted tariffs” when China dumps cheap goods into the country “to try to drive American businesses out of business.”
Right out of the gate, KABC anchor and moderator Marc Brown brought up Feinstein having authored an assault weapons ban in 1994, and asked Garvey whether he would take any action on guns were he elected.
“I believe in the Constitution, I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe it will never be overturned, nor should we attempt to overturn that,” Garvey said. “I do have sympathy for all of those who may have been victims of shootings, but I think that the most important thing is a stringent background check that goes much deeper than it is today, in order to to preserve the integrity of the Second Amendment and to be able to provide for people to defend themselves.”
Schiff said Californians need leaders like Feinstein who are willing to “stand up to” the National Rifle Assn.
“I would support an assault weapons ban. I would support extended and universal background checks. I would support a ban on extended ammunition clips and my own bill, which would strip away the NRA’s immunity from liability,” Schiff said. “Mr. Garvey was asked just a couple weeks ago if he would support any gun control measure, and his answer was unequivocal, no, that is not what Californians are looking for. Californians want a leader like Dianne Feinstein, who will stand up to the NRA.”
Later in the debate, Feinstein came up again, on the issue of environmental regulations — and whether Schiff would ease water restrictions on farmers.
Schiff said he would not “support eviscerating” regulations, but would do what Sen. Feinstein did, which is “look for those opportunities where we can have a win, both for our farms, our cities and our environment.”
Garvey said environmentalists in the state need to work with farmers, and that he is a “consensus builder” who can help make that happen. He called water the “platinum issue in California,” and one Schiff doesn’t know how to fix.
Schiff would later evoke Feinstein’s name on the economy, saying he realizes many in California are struggling financially and that he will work with “community leaders and stakeholders in every part of this Golden State” in “Feinstein’s model.”
“Mr. Schiff, you’re no Dianne Feinstein,” Garvey said. “I remember when this state was the heartbeat of America, and now it’s just a murmur.”
Schiff, in response, said Feinstein was a friend of his, and would never “pretend to be the equal” of hers, because she was a “giant.” But he suggested he is far more similar to Feinstein than Garvey.
“While Mr. Garvey was signing baseballs for the last 37 years, I was seeing presidents of both parties and governors of both parties sign my bills into law,” Schiff said.
Back to Trump
After the debate, in small gaggles with reporters, both Schiff and Garvey came back to another politician not in the room: Trump.
Schiff said it was clear from the debate that Garvey is “for Trump” and his agenda.
“He’s for states being able to ban abortion. He’s against any form of gun safety legislation. He’s for opening up the oil spigots. These are views right out of Project 2025 and Trump, but they are not in sync in California,” Schiff said.
Garvey said he felt he had been unfairly tied to Trump.
“People know that we’re two entirely different people,” he said.
He said Schiff’s attempt to “paint me far-right” wouldn’t stand up, because “people know I’m conservatively moderate.”
Garvey declined to say whether he would vote for Trump in November, but confirmed that he voted for Trump for a third time in this year’s primary.
Irvine Rep. Katie Porter has repeatedly attacked her top Democratic rival in California’s 2024 Senate race, Burbank Rep. Adam B. Schiff, for accepting campaign contributions from oil, pharmaceutical, financial and other influential special interests trying to sway federal policy in Washington.
She prided herself on not taking donations from corporate political action committees, unlike Schiff, who along with Republican former baseball All-Star Steve Garvey is leading in the polls as Tuesday’s primary election fast approaches.
“Representative Schiff may have prosecuted big oil companies before he came to Congress, but when he got to Congress he cashed checks from companies like [British Petroleum] — from fossil fuel companies,” she said at a debate in January.
“I have delivered results on climate in my few years in Congress.”
Schiff, who took $2,000 total from the BP North American Employee PAC in 2004 and 2006, responded curtly during that debate. Schiff said he used some of the millions he raised through the years to help Porter in her congressional campaigns.
“I gave that money to you, Katie Porter, and the only response was thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The Times analyzed campaign finance reports from three election cycles when Porter and Schiff overlapped in Congress to see if the candidates’ claims were true. Both have been prodigious fundraisers for their own campaigns, raising tens of millions of dollars, while also starting political action committees that they used to support other candidates.
Here’s what we found:
Defense, tech and pharmaceutical companies donated money to Schiff
Schiff’s committees reported 377 contributions from corporate PACs, according to a Times analysis. The Schiff for Congress campaign committee received 357 contributions and Frontline USA, his leadership PAC, reported 20, totaling $636,625 and $75,000, respectively.
The more than 80 corporate PAC donors included defense, tech and telecommunications companies, which were the industries that gave the most to his committee.
The corporate PAC representing Comcast Corp. and NBCUniversal contributed more than $40,000. Schiff also received money from committees representing Wells Fargo and Amgen, among many others, during his House elections.
“I didn’t realize how much dirty money you’ve took until I was running against you,” Porter said at that same debate.
“You need to own your record.”
A majority of corporate PAC donations to Frontline USA came from groups representing defense companies, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. Frontline also received donations from PACs representing Amazon, Universal Music Group and Centene Corp. — a large insurer.
Schiff donated over $50,000 to Porter
A Times analysis of Federal Election Commission records found that throughout her election and reelection campaigns for the House of Representatives, Porter received $54,675 in campaign contributions from Schiff’s two committees.
The majority of this money came from individual donors who used Frontline USA as a conduit to donate to Porter’s campaign; the PAC gave more than $33,000 in contributions to Porter’s races in 2018, 2020 and 2022.
In May 2020, Schiff texted Porter after a fundraiser about one donation, according to messages Schiff’s campaign shared with The Times.
“Hi Katie, sending $5,475 more from my friends Dick and Lois Gunther. Keep up the great work and see you soon,” Schiff wrote on May 14, 2020.
“Thank you so much Adam. Your (sic) are great! I’m doing handwritten thank yous that mention you to these folks,” she wrote back days later.
“(I do a lot of handwritten notes and like to acknowledge the source).”
Frontline USA reported two earmarked donations for Porter from the couple in May 2020 totaling the amount. The couple also sent $5,600 to Porter’s campaign three months earlier.
Schiff’s campaign estimates that the Senate candidate helped Porter raise close to $240,000 since she first ran in 2018. Much of this money, according to Schiff’s campaign, came from fundraising solicitations he sent on her behalf and fundraisers he hosted.
It’s hard to avoid corporate money in politics
Schiff’s corporate donations, which Porter hates, flow into a much larger pool of cash that’s made up of individual donations. The money is indistinguishable when it’s donated to Porter but reflects how money from corporate special interests can make its way into the accounts of someone who decries them.
Porter’s congressional contests were high-priced affairs, and the majority of the millions she raised came from individual contributors. She has refused to accept campaign donations from corporate PACs throughout her political career. When Schiff entered the Senate contest last year, he promised to not take money from these groups, too.
The majority of fundraising by Schiff’s committees similarly comes from individual contributions. For Frontline USA, contributions from non-political party committees — including corporate PACs, along with labor, trade and other groups — comprised 11% and 3% of its total receipts for the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, respectively.
“Part of my job was to help elect Democrats — help them get reelected,” Schiff said about his national fundraising work.
When asked about Schiff’s fundraising history, Porter didn’t see trying to help Democrats as a good justification for taking money from special interests actively trying to influence Congress.
After winning in 2018, Porter created her own leadership political committee called Truth to Power PAC, which has raised a little more than $1 million since its inception. Most of the money came from individual donors, and close to $630,000 was doled out to candidates across the country who were in competitive races, according to Porter senior advisor Nathan Click.
It didn’t take money from corporate political action committees.
“Katie didn’t have to reach her hand out to the likes of BP oil or defense contractors or corporate payday lenders in order to help her Democratic colleagues, but Adam did,” Click said.
Steve Garvey is not shy about leaning into his baseball stardom as he runs for the U.S. Senate. Garvey has been officially enshrined as a “Legend of Dodger Baseball,” and his uniform number has been retired by the San Diego Padres, but he threw his cap in the campaign ring only after he believed he could win statewide support.
“A Giants fan came up to me,” he told The Times last October, “and said, ‘Garvey, I hate the Dodgers, but I’ll vote for you.’ ”
The primary election is one month away, with the top two finishers advancing to the November final. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) is favored by 25% of likely voters, with Garvey and Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) tied at 15% each and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) fourth at 7%, according to a poll released Thursday by USC, Long Beach State, and Cal Poly Pomona.
The poll asked likely voters to identify their favorite California baseball team, then broke down the voting preferences accordingly. Garvey is running as a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. The counties that are home to California’s five major league teams all have more registered Democrats than Republicans — more so in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Alameda counties; less so in Orange and San Diego counties, according to the secretary of state’s office.
That said, who do the fans of your team prefer?
Dodgers: Schiff 29%, Garvey 16%, Porter 15%, Lee 3%
Angels: Garvey 25%, Porter 22%, Schiff 15%, Lee 2%
Padres: Garvey 26%, Lee 15%, Schiff 15%, Porter 10%
Giants: Schiff 33%, Garvey 15%, Porter 14%, Lee 11%
The California Democratic Party Convention provided an opportunity for delegates and activists to project unity heading into a high-stakes election year.
The weekend-long gathering proved to be anything but that.
Democrats remained divided on the most pivotal issues facing the party and the nation: the raging war between Israel and Hamas and a 2024 California race featuring three popular party members, congressional veterans, hoping to win the seat held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein for more than three decades.
The internal fissures mirrored the national debate within the party that some believe could imperil the reelection hopes of President Biden and the balance of power in Congress.
Israel’s deadly invasion of Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack dominated the convention. Protesters angry about the war disrupted a Senate candidate forum Saturday afternoon and later in the evening stormed into the Sacramento convention center, just blocks from the state Capitol, leading to the cancellation of official party events that evening.
“An injustice to one is an injustice to all,” said delegate and lawyer Magali Kincaid, who joined with protesters who disrupted the remarks of Senate candidates Reps. Katie Porter and Adam B. Schiff along with Lexi Reese.
People at the California Democratic Convention protest the war in Gaza and call for a cease-fire.
(Benjamin Oreskes / Los Angeles Times)
Kincaid, who supports Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakand) for Senate, joined a Saturday afternoon rally where demonstrators loudly chanted “Cease-fire,” which briefly disrupted the Senate candidates. She said that she wanted to see “peace not war” in Gaza and that any resolution to what’s playing out with hostages in Gaza shouldn’t involve more violence.
“We need to make sure to stand up to genocide and colonization and it’s what I feel like we were doing,” Kincaid said.
The clash among delegates and protesters over the death and destruction in Israel and Gaza has angered young voters in particular. Ameera Abouromeleh, an 18-year-old Palestinian American who joined the protest with six members of her family — including her 74-year-old grandfather who she said was born in Jerusalem — said she looks forward to voting next year for the first time as a way to show solidarity with family who remain in the West Bank.
“Even though you squish someone under the rubble, our voices will be heard further,” said Abouromeleh.
Her grandfather Naff was less enamored with the civil disobedience, mostly content to support his grandchildren. He felt the violence by both Israelis and Palestinians had gone too far and wanted there to be a durable and sustainable resolution to the conflict.
Abouromeleh was unsure whom to back in the Senate race but in the presidential election she plans to vote for Cornel West, a progressive academic who is running as an independent for president. A newly released poll from NBC News showed that 70% of voters 18 to 34 disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. It came as his populatrity declined to 40% — the lowest level of his presidency.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators disrupt the afternoon session of the 2023 California Democratic Party November State Endorsing Convention on Nov. 18, 2023, at SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento.
(Lezlie Sterling / Associated Press)
The events of the weekend angered many Jewish delegates — some who said they felt harassed and unsafe at the convention. They criticized state Democratic Party leader Rusty Hicks for not doing enough to protect members and prevent disruptions. Andrew Lachman, president of Democrats for Israel California and a Jewish delegate, said he’d heard from more than a dozen people who either were reluctant to come to the convention or didn’t come because they worried about antisemitic confrontations.
Lachman said they were right to be worried given what played out.
“Many were shaken from the disruptive and violent acts they saw,” Lachman said.
The split within the party could imperil the party’s success in the 2024 election, Lachman said. Democrats will need the support of Jewish and Muslim voters in battleground states and congressional districts if they want to hold the White House and make legislative gains.
“We can’t win Michigan or Virginia without Muslim votes. You can’t win Nevada or Pennsylvania without the Jewish community,” Lachman said “ So anyone who thinks that they can shout the other one out of the room is hurting the Democratic Party.”
On Sunday California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks condemned the behavior of protesters and said that “any delegate who actively participated in or aided in the furtherance of those activities and events … will be held accountable.”
Saturday “concluded with a series of events that left me both deeply saddened and disappointed,” he added.
The most anticipated vote among party delegates over the weekend was for California’s 2024 Senate race, with pits Lee against fellow Democratic Reps. Schiff of Burbank and Porter of Irvine. In 2018, the California Democratic Party sent a clear message when members voted to back then-state lawmaker Kevin de León over Feinstein. This time though, no candidate reached the 60% threshold necessary to get the nod.
Rep. Barbara Lee, who is running for U.S. Senate, talks with Sacramento mayoral candidate Flo Cofer at the convention on Nov. 17, 2023, in Sacramento.
Though Lee has lagged behind Schiff and Porter in recent opinion polls, her support among Democratic delegates reflected the strong loyalty she inspires among the party’s faithful who tend to be more liberal than the broader voting electorate. During Saturday’s forum, her supporters cheered after as she reiterated her call for a cease-fire in Israel and Gaza along with her casting the only no vote on the authorization for the use of military force allowing the invasion of Iraq after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Basem Manneh, a Bay Area Palestinian America who supports Lee and is a delegate, said he was frustrated by the disruptions of the Senate forum. The broader push for a cease-fire and the moves to help Lee were the “right way to approach solidarity,” he said. He spoke at the evening protest inside the building and felt there was little evidence that the disobedience was anything but peaceful and constructive.
“I don’t see any of this as a hateful message.”
Manneh, who works at San Francisco International Airport, said both Porter and Schiff were very smart but that Lee has been at this work far longer.
“She’s that captain of the locker room,” Manneh said.
Rep. Katie Porter, who is running for U.S. Senate, shakes hands with supporters at the California Democratic Party Convention.
(Lezlie Sterling / Associated Press)
Brian Krohne, 41, who had campaigned for Porter in her congressional races is supporting Lee partially because of Porter’s unwillingness to call for a cease-fire in Israel and Gaza.
Porter and Schiff have been broadly supportive of Biden’s efforts to support Israel while gently urging its leaders to be more mindful of civilian loss of life and thinking about what comes next in Gaza.
“I find it so disappointing she’s on the wrong side of this,” Krohne said of Porter.
Rep. Adam Schiff, who is running for U.S. Senate, shakes hands with supporter Michael Nye while standing with his wife, Eve.
(Lezlie Sterling / Associated Press)
Hicks and other state party officials said that the divided party was a reflection of the strength of the candidates and that these divisions wouldn’t hurt Democrats’ ability to come together next year.
Riverside County Party Chair Joy Silver, a Jewish Palm Springs resident, said she never felt unsafe during the protests Saturday, but was angry that they prevented the party caucuses from convening — adding they seemed “deeply un-democratic.”
The splits in the party were profound, she said, but wouldn’t deter her work overseeing voter outreach in one of the most competitive parts of the state where Democrats are eager to regain a congressional seat and take some Assembly seats. The county party hadn’t endorsed in the Senate race, but she was backing Schiff. She compared the divide between Schiff and Lee to the one that the party experienced between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016.
“The real division here, I think is between the head and heart,” Silver said.
“Adam is more head and Barbara Lee is more heart.”
Representative Adam Schiff was mingling his way through a friendly crowd at a Democratic barbecue when the hecklers arrived—by boat. Schiff and two other Senate candidates, Representatives Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, convened on the back patio of a country club overlooking the port of Stockton, California. Schiff spoke first. “It’s such a beautiful evening,” he said, thanking the host, local Democratic Representative Josh Harder.
It was hard to know what to make of the protest vessel, except that its seven passengers were yelling things as Schiff began his remarks. And not nice things. Although their words were tough to decipher, the flag flying over the craft made clear where they were coming from: FUCK BIDEN. Notably, of the three candidates, Schiff was the only one I heard singled out by name—or, in one case, by a Donald Trump–inspired epithet (“Shifty”) and, in another, a four-letter profanity similar to the congressman’s surname (clever!).
Schiff is used to such derision and says it proves his bona fides as a worthy Trump adversary. Given the laws of political physics today, it also bodes well for his Senate campaign. The principle is simple: to be despised by the opposition can yield explicit benefits. This is especially true when you belong to the dominant party, as Schiff does in heavily Democratic California. One side’s villain is the other side’s champion. Adam Schiff embodies this rule as well as any politician in the country.
In recent years, Schiff has had a knack for eliciting loud and at times unhinged reactions from opponents, even though he himself tends to be quite hinged. The 45th president tweeted about Schiff 328 times, as tallied by Schiff’s office. Tucker Carlson called the congressman “a wild-eyed conspiracy nut.” A group of QAnon followers circulated a report in 2021 that U.S. Special Forces had arrested Schiff and that he was in a holding facility awaiting transfer to Guantánamo Bay for trial (the report proved erroneous). Before Schiff had a chance to meet his new Republican colleague Anna Paulina Luna, of Florida, she filed a resolution condemning his “Russia hoax investigation” and calling for him to potentially be fined $16 million (the resolution failed).
This onslaught has also been good for business, inspiring equal passion in Schiff’s favor. A former prosecutor, he became an icon of the left for his emphatic critiques of Trump’s behavior in office, including as the lead House manager in Trump’s first impeachment trial. “You know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country,” Schiff said as part of his closing argument, a speech that became a rallying cry of the anti-Trump resistance. (“I am in tears,” the actor Debra Messing wrote on Twitter.) Opponents gave grudging respect. “They nailed him,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told Mitt Romney, according to an account in a new Romney biography by my colleague McKay Coppins. Schiff’s own Trump-era memoir, Midnight in Washington, became a No. 1 New York Times best seller.
Representative Adam Schiff speaks to supporters at a barbecue hosted by fellow Democratic House member Josh Harder in Stockton, California. (Photographs by Austin Leong for The Atlantic)
You could draw parallel lines charting the levels of vilification that Schiff has encountered and his name recognition and fundraising numbers. Both the good and the grisly have boosted Schiff’s media profile, which he has adeptly cultivated. Schiff has come in at or near the top of the polls in the Senate race so far, along with Porter. A Berkeley IGS survey released last week revealed him as the best-known of the candidates vying for the late Dianne Feinstein’s job; 69 percent of likely voters said they could render an opinion of him (40 percent favorable, 29 percent unfavorable). He raised $6.4 million in the most recent reporting period, ending the quarter with $32 million cash on hand, or $20 million more than the runner-up, Porter. That’s more than any Senate candidate in the country this election cycle, and a massive advantage in a state populated by about 22 million registered voters covering some of the nation’s most expensive media markets.
“He’s become an inspiration and a voice of reason for many of us,” Becky Espinoza, of Stockton, told me at the Democratic barbecue.
Or at least the sector of “many of us” who don’t want him dead.
Schiff started getting threats a few months into Trump’s presidency. “Welcome to the club,” Nancy Pelosi, his longtime mentor, told him. He endured anti-Semitic screeds online and actual bullets sent to his office bearing the names of Schiff’s two kids. “I can’t stand the fact that millions of people hate you; they just hate you,” Schiff’s wife, Eve—yes, Adam and Eve—told her husband after the abuse started. “They just hate you.”
No one deserves to be subjected to such menace, and the threats can be particularly chilling for a member of Congress who would not normally have a protective detail. (Schiff’s office declined to discuss its security staffing and protocols.) Schiff is not shy about repeating these ugly stories, however. There’s an element of strategic humblebragging to this, as he is plainly aware that being a target of the MAGA minions can be extremely attractive to the Democratic voters he needs.
In June, congressional Republicans led a party-line vote to censure Schiff for his role in investigating Trump. As then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy attempted to preside, Democrats physically rallied around Schiff on the House floor chanting “shame” at McCarthy. On the day of his censure, Schiff was interviewed on CNN and twice on MSNBC; the next morning he appeared on ABC’s The View. “Whoever it was that introduced that censure resolution against him probably ensured Adam’s victory,” Representative Mike Thompson, another California Democrat, told me. A few colleagues addressed him that day as “Senator Schiff.”
I dropped in on Schiff periodically over the past few months as he traversed the chaos of the Capitol, weighed in on Trump’s legal travails, and campaigned across California. What did a Senate candidacy look like for a Trump-era cause célèbre who is revered and reviled with such vigor? I found it a bit odd to see Schiff out in the political wild—glad-handing, granny-hugging, and, at the barbecue in late August, nearly knocking a plate of brisket from the grip of an eager selfie-seeker. He has graduated to a full-on news-fixture status, someone perpetually framed by a screen or viewed behind a podium, as if he emerged from his mother’s womb and was dropped straight into a formal courtroom, hearing room, or greenroom setting.
I watched a number of guests in Stockton clutch Schiff’s hand and address him in plaintive tones. “After I stopped crying a little bit, I just wanted to thank him for all he did during impeachment and to just save our democracy,” said Espinoza, following her brief meeting with the candidate.
Nearby, David Hartman, of Tracy, California, put down a paper plate of chicken, pickles, and corn salad and made his way to Schiff. “I just want to shake the man’s hand and thank him,” Hartman told me, which is what he did. So did his wife, Tracy (of Tracy!), who was likewise surprised to find herself in tears.
“I’m like a human focus group,” Schiff told me, describing how strangers approach him at airports. “Sometimes I will have two people come up to me simultaneously. One will say, ‘You are Adam Schiff. I just want to shake your hand. You’re a hero.’ And the other will say, ‘You’re not my hero. Why do you lie all the time?’”
For his first eight terms in Congress, Schiff, 63, was not much recognized beyond the confines of the U.S. Capitol or the cluster of affluent Los Angeles–area neighborhoods he has represented in the House since 2001. “I think, before Trump, if you had to pick one of these big lightning rods or partisan bomb-throwers, you would not pick me,” Schiff told me.
Largely true. Schiff speaks in careful, somewhat clipped tones, with a slight remnant of a Boston accent from his childhood in suburban Framingham, Massachusetts. (His father was in the clothing business and moved the family to Arizona and eventually California.) A Stanford- and Harvard-trained attorney, Schiff gained a reputation as an ambitious but low-key legislator in the House, and a deft communicator in service of his generally liberal positions.
A Fox News reporter and other guests at the barbecue in Stockton.(Photographs by Austin Leong for The Atlantic)
After Trump’s election, however, Schiff’s district effectively became CNN, MSNBC, and the network Sunday shows, along with the scoundrel’s gallery of right-wing media that pulverized him hourly. This included a certain Twitter feed. The worst abuse Schiff received started after Trump’s maiden tweet about him dropped on July 24, 2017. This was back in an era of relative innocence, when it was still something of a novelty for a sitting president to attack a member of Congress by name—“Sleazy Adam Schiff,” in this case.
Schiff tweeted back that Trump’s “comments and actions are beneath the dignity of the office.” Schiff would later reveal that he rejected a less restrained rejoinder suggested by Mike Thompson, his California colleague: “Mr. President, when they go low, we go high. Now go fuck yourself.” Anyway, that was six years, two impeachments, four indictments, 91 felony counts, and 327 tweets by Donald Trump about Adam Schiff ago.
“Adam is one of the least polarizing personalities you will ever find,” said another Democratic House colleague, Dan Goldman, of New York. “The reason he’s become such a bogeyman for the Republican Party is simply that he’s so effective.” Goldman served as the lead majority counsel during Trump’s first impeachment, working closely with Schiff. “We originally met in the greenroom of MSNBC in June of 2018,” Goldman told me. (Of course they did.)
Schiff understands that some of the rancor directed at him is performative, and likes to point out the quiet compliments he receives from political foes. Trump used to complain on Twitter that Schiff spent too much time on television—in reality, a source of extreme envy for the then-president. Schiff tells a story about how Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, came to Capitol Hill for a deposition from members of Schiff’s Intelligence committee in 2017. “Kushner comes up to me to make conversation, and to ingratiate himself,” Schiff told me. “And he said, ‘You know, you do a great job on television.’ And I said, ‘Well, apparently your father-in-law doesn’t think so,’ and [Kushner] said, ‘Oh, yes, he does.’” (Kushner didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
One of Trump’s most fervent bootlickers, Senator Lindsey Graham, walked up to Schiff in a Capitol hallway during the first impeachment trial and told him how good of a job he was doing. Schiff, who relayed both this and the Kushner stories in his memoir, says he gets that from other Republicans, too, usually House members he’s worked with—including some who lampoon him in front of microphones. A few House Republicans apologized privately to Schiff, he told me, right after they voted to censure him.
“The apologies are always accompanied by ‘You’re not going to say anything about this, are you?’” Schiff said. When I urged Schiff to name names, to call out the hypocrites, he declined.
I asked Schiff if he would prefer the more anonymous, pre-2017 version of himself running in this Senate campaign, as opposed to the more embattled, death-threat-getting version, who nonetheless enjoys so many advantages because of all the attention. He paused. “I’d rather the country didn’t have to go through all this with Donald Trump,” he said, skirting a direct answer.
As with many members of Congress seeking a promotion or an exit, Schiff gives off a strong whiff of being done with the place. “The House has become kind of a basket case,” he told me, citing one historic grandiloquence that he was recently privy to—the episode in which Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called her colleague Lauren Boebert a “little bitch” on the House floor.
“And I remember thinking to myself, There used to be giants who served in this body,” Schiff said. He sighed, as he does.
I met with Schiff at the Capitol in early October, amid the usual swirl of weighty events: Feinstein had died three days earlier; news that Governor Gavin Newsom would appoint the Democratic activist Laphonza Butler as her replacement came the night before. That afternoon, Republican Representative Matt Gaetz had filed his fateful “motion to vacate” that would result in the demise of McCarthy’s speakership the next day. Schiff stood just off the House floor, colleagues passing in both directions, Republicans looking especially angry, and reporters gathering around Schiff in a small scrum.
No matter what happens next November, Schiff is not running for reelection in the House. He told me he has long believed that he’d be a better fit for the Senate anyway, where he has been coveting a seat for years. Schiff said he considered running in 2016, after the retirement of the incumbent Barbara Boxer (who was eventually succeeded by Kamala Harris).
A Democrat will almost certainly win the 2024 California race. Senate contests in the state follow a two-tiered system in which candidates from both parties compete in a March primary, and then the two top finishers face off in November, regardless of their affiliation. In addition to Schiff, Porter, and Lee, the former baseball star Steve Garvey, known also for his various divorce and paternity scandals, recently entered the race as a Republican. A smattering of long shots are also running, including the requisite former L.A. news anchor and requisite former Silicon Valley executive. Butler announced on October 19 that she would not seek the permanent job.
To varying degrees, all of the three leading Democratic candidates have national profiles. Lee, who has represented her Oakland-area district for nearly 25 years, previously chaired both the Congressional Progressive and Black Caucuses. Porter was elected to Congress in 2018 and has gained a quasi-cult following as a progressive gadfly who has a knack for conducting pointed interrogations of executives and public officials that go rapidly viral. A few of her fans were so excited to meet Porter at the Stockton barbecue that three actually spilled drinks on her—this according to the congresswoman, speaking at an event a few days later.
Schiff, Porter, and Lee all identify as progressive Democrats on most issues, though Schiff tends to be more hawkish on national security. He voted to authorize the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and supported the 2011 U.S. missile strikes against Libya. Lee, who opposed all three, recently criticized Schiff’s foreign-policy views as “part of the status quo thinking” in Washington. (Porter was not in office then.) Schiff expressed “unequivocal support for the security and the right of Israel to defend itself” after last month’s attacks by Hamas. Lee has been more critical of the Israeli government, and called for a cease-fire immediately after the Hamas attacks. As for Porter, she has been a rare progressive to focus her response on America’s Iran policy, which she called lacking and partly to blame for the attacks.
Although Schiff is best known for his work as a Trump antagonist—and happily dines out on that—he is also wary of letting the former president define him entirely. “This is bigger than Trump,” he reminds people whenever the conversation veers too far in Trump’s inevitable direction. Schiff dutifully pivots to more standard campaign themes, namely the “two hugely disruptive forces” he says have shaped American life: “the changes in our economy” and “the changes in how we get our information.” He reels off the number of cities in California that he’s visited, events he’s done, and endorsements he’s received as proof that he is a workmanlike candidate, not just a citizen of the greenroom.
A group of hecklers in a boat floats by near the barbecue. (Photographs by Austin Leong for The Atlantic)
Recently, he lamented that many of his Republican colleagues are now driven by a “perverse celebrity” that he believes the likes of Greene and Boebert have acquired through their Trump-style antics and ties to the former president. I pointed out to Schiff that he, too, has received a lot of Trump-driven recognition. Doesn’t being affiliated with Trump, whether as an ally or an adversary, have benefits for both sides?
“Well, I don’t view it that way at all,” Schiff said. “I don’t view it as having any kind of equivalence. On one hand, we’re trying to defend our democracy. And on the other hand, we have these aiders and abettors of Trump by these vile performance artists. It’s quite different.”
Schiff’s biggest supporter has been Pelosi, who endorsed him over two other members of her own caucus and delegation. This included Lee, whom Pelosi described to me as “like a political sister.” I spoke by phone recently with the former speaker, who was effusive about Schiff and scoffed at any suggestion that he benefited from his resistance to Trump and the counter-backlash that ensued. “If what’s-his-name never existed, Adam Schiff would still be the right person for California,” Pelosi said. It was one of two occasions in our interview in which she refused to utter the word “Trump.”
“I just don’t want to say his name,” she explained. “Because I worry that he’s going to corrode my phone or something.”
In one of my conversations with Schiff, I asked him this multiple-choice question: Who had raised the most money for him—Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, or Donald Trump? My goal was to get Schiff to acknowledge that, without Trump, he would be nowhere near as well known, well financed, or well positioned to potentially represent the country’s most populous state in the Senate.
“I’m not sure how to answer that,” he said. After a pause, he picked himself. “I am my own biggest fundraiser,” he declared. Okay, I said, but wasn’t Trump the single biggest motivator for anyone to donate?
“It’s the whole package,” Schiff maintained, ceding nothing. He then made sure to mention the person who’s been “most formative in helping shape my career and phenomenally helpful in my campaign—Nancy Pelosi.” He was in no rush to give what’s-his-name any credit.
Just a few days after terrorists attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001, as Congress rushed to give President George W. Bush wide-ranging power to invade Afghanistan, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) faced a decision that would come to define her career.
As she weighed her vote, Lee thought of a lesson she’d learned in an earlier job running a community mental health center: “Don’t make critical decisions when you’re grieving and mourning, angry, confused.”
Lee decided that the authorization as written “could set the stage for forever wars,” she told The Times in a recent interview. After intense deliberation, she decided to vote no — the only member of Congress to oppose the bill.
Twenty-two years later, Lee, Burbank Rep. Adam B. Schiff, and Irvine Rep. Katie Porter are the top Democrats in the race for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Dianne Feinstein, for decades a key player on foreign and national security policy.
California voters now face a choice among candidates with vastly divergent approaches to — and experience with — foreign policy.
“Our country has a responsibility, I believe, to call for a cease-fire and to call for the whole world to come together to try to stop the escalation of what is taking place in the Middle East. And peace is possible if we can bring all parties together to talk,” she said at a candidate forum the weekend of the attack.
Schiff sounded a different note:
“The only sentiment I want to express right now when Israel is going through its own 9/11 is unequivocal support for the security and the right of Israel to defend itself,” he said.
Lee and Schiff’s decades of work on foreign policy issues contrast with the relative inexperience of Porter, a third-term lawmaker whose House career has focused more on domestic issues.
In her answer at the forum, Porter pivoted to a hawkish line about Iran that sounded a lot like what some leading Republicans said in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
“I stand with Israel in this time and I condemn the loss of lives — both of Palestinians and Israelis who are being victims of this terror,” she said, asserting that “the United States has allowed terrorism to flourish and has refused to take a strong enough stance against Iran” — which backs the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
When asked what specific Iran policy Porter was referring to, a spokesperson pointed to President Trump’s withdrawal from the treaty aimed at curtailing Iran’s nuclear program.
Lee and Schiff have long differed on foreign policy.
Besides voting against the war in Afghanistan, Lee voted against authorizing the Iraq war and the Patriot Act, which expanded government surveillance powers. Schiff voted for all three. (He has since said he regretted his Iraq vote.) Lee opposed the Obama administration’s 2011 missile strikes in Libya, while Schiff conditionally supported them.
Schiff voted to approve final passage of the last seven annual defense funding bills; Lee, who has long pushed to slash Pentagon spending, voted against every one. (Porter voted against the most recent two spending bills but voted for them the first two years she was in Congress.)
Lee told The Times before the Hamas attack that Schiff was “part of the status quo thinking” in Washington on foreign policy, and argued that Porter “doesn’t have a foreign policy record to stand on because she just hasn’t been in Congress long enough.”
Schiff declined to directly contrast his record with his opponents’ in an interview shortly before the Hamas attack. But he emphasized his years as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and the opportunity that’s given him to get to know world leaders.
“I’ve been deeply engaged in both foreign policy issues, national security issues and intelligence issues,” Schiff said. “It’s given me, I think, a wealth of experience to deal with and address some of the paramount national security challenges facing the country.”
Schiff’s years leading the House Intelligence Committee helped prepare him to prosecute Trump at his first impeachment trial — where diplomats and military officials testified that the then-president had tried to pressure Ukraine into launching an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for U.S. weapons the country wanted to defend itself against Russian aggression.
“In terms of his impeachment efforts, he did a very good job,” Lee said of Schiff.
Lee got her introduction to Capitol Hill foreign policy debates in the 1980s as a senior staffer for longtime Oakland Rep. Ron Dellums, then chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. During that time, Dellums led the bipartisan charge to sanction apartheid-era South Africa.
In recent years, she’s been able to gain allies in her quest to rein in presidents’ expansive war powers — partly because elements of both parties had moved her way. Lee helped draft the Democratic National Committee’s national platform in 2016 and pushed the party’s official foreign policy stance in a much more dovish direction. Her once-lonely crusade to repeal the 2001 and 2002 authorizations of military force has gained strong bipartisan support.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) said Lee’s views on war and peace were a key reason for his decision to endorse her.
“I view Barbara Lee as the strongest voice against endless war, not just in the race, but in the entire Congress,” he told The Times
Schiff leads the Senate race in delegation endorsements — 22 of California’s 40 House Democrats have backed him, compared with three for Lee and none for Porter.
A number of his colleagues cited his foreign policy experience and work leading the Intelligence Committee as a major reason they’re backing him.
“That was a big part of why I chose to endorse Adam,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-Elk Grove) said. “There’s only 100 senators. So foreign policy experience is incredibly important.”
Whoever wins the seat will be replacing a senator who played a crucial role on foreign policy, privacy and civil liberties issues for decades — at times to her fellow Democrats’ consternation.
Feinstein was the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee from 2009 through 2016, and often hewed in a more interventionist direction than many in her party.
She voted to authorize the war in Iraq and was a major supporter of the Patriot Act. One of U.S. intelligence agencies’ staunchest Democratic allies for much of her career, Feinstein sided with Republicans to expand the government’s ability to covertly monitor Americans’ calls and emails without a warrant and supported giving immunity to telephone companies that had allowed the U.S. government to listen in on calls between suspected terrorists and people on American soil. When former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of the government’s vast data-gathering operation, Feinstein accused him of treason. She also was a fierce defender of drone strikes and blocked President Obama from moving control of the drone strike program from the CIA to the Defense Department.
But she also was key in defending Obama’s deal to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons and led the charge to investigate and declassify a report on the CIA’s secret torture program. The document would never have seen daylight if not for her work.
Schiff is probably the closest of the three candidates to Feinstein in terms of worldview and experience.
The two worked closely together as the top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, they pushed hard for the Obama administration to publicly call out Russia for meddling in the election. After being rebuffed, they put out a joint statement in late September 2016 declaring they’d seen evidence Russia was trying to influence the U.S. election — weeks before Obama officials finally said the same.
“Far too late,” Schiff lamented.
In recent years, the foreign policy differences between Schiff and Lee have not been as far apart as earlier in their political careers.
While Lee has fought to severely limit the CIA’s long-running drone strike program, Schiff hasn’t gone as that far — but in 2015 introduced legislation to put the program under Defense Department control. Schiff has also backed Lee’s work to repeal the 2002 law authorizing military force in Iraq. That effort has strong bipartisan support, including from Biden, and passed the House back when it was in Democratic hands in 2021 but has yet to become law.
Schiff worked across the aisle to reform the Patriot Act and end its warrantless wiretapping program. He also said the lesson he drew from his vote to back the Iraq invasion based on incorrect intelligence provided by the Bush administration led him to push to reform American intelligence-gathering services’ reports so that dissenting views are aired and “group think” is avoided.
“Seeing how an administration could mislead the country and use intelligence to do it was a very powerful motivator for me to work on reforms of the intelligence community,” he told The Times.
Both Schiff and Lee criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, but praised him for deciding to do so.
All three leading Democratic Senate candidates generally have strongly backed U.S. military aid for Ukraine, but voted against supplying that nation with cluster munitions.
The candidates overlap on some issues regarding Israel as well.
Schiff pointed out at the forum that he has criticized Israeli settlers’ expansion into the West Bank as well as Israel’s recent “move away from democracy” — alluding to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to undermine the independence of the judiciary.
Lee has consistently voted to provide funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. But she was also one of 16 House Democrats to vote against a nonbinding resolution that condemned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which looks to block investments in Israel, and co-sponsored legislation to bar U.S. aid from going toward Israel’s annexation of West Bank land or detention of Palestinian children.
The reemergence of Israel as a global flashpoint puts their differences back on display.
Schiff continues to offer a full-throated defense of Israel.
“It is crucial that Congress works quickly to provide Israel with the security assistance, humanitarian aid and intelligence support it needs to defend itself and to safely recover the hostages taken,” he said in a statement. “Words matter and our allies around the world — as well as our adversaries — are watching us closely. It’s important, now more than ever, for the U.S. to stand united with Israel.”
Lee recently joined a letter from the Congressional Progressive Caucus to President Biden expressing deep concern about Israel’s actions in Gaza and calling for an end to the siege and a humanitarian corridor to deliver lifesaving supplies.
“Israel has the right to defend itself from Hamas, but must do so within the framework of international law,” she wrote in a statement, calling on the U.S. to “protect innocent civilians & ensure delivery of humanitarian assistance.”
Porter released a five-minute video a few days later touting her support for Israel, strongly criticizing Iran and making only brief mention of Palestinian civilians’ suffering.
“We cannot give in to Iran’s efforts to weaken our long-standing special relationship with Israel,” she said.
Porter, whose district includes a large Iranian American community, has long spoken out against the Iranian government’s brutal oppression of women and other protesters.
Porter’s campaign declined to make her available for an interview, but pointed to her work to trim defense spending and her successful push for an amendment banning senior Pentagon officials from owning stock in defense contractors as examples of her foreign policy work.
At the forum, Porter was asked a question about her lack of foreign policy experience and responded that she was a quick study.
“I have done the work and always do the work. I was a professor, so I take doing your homework pretty seriously,” she said. “I’m committed to continuing to learn.”
The political fight over whether workers on strike should be allowed to collect unemployment benefits is reigniting in Washington.
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who is running for Senate, is planning to introduce legislation on Tuesday that would provide unemployment benefits nationwide to workers on strike. Most states don’t allow striking workers to collect unemployment with the exception of New York and New Jersey. Eligibility requirements and the amount of weekly unemployment pay also varies by state.
Under the Empowering Striking Workers Act of 2023, workers would be able to collect unemployment pay after two weeks on strike, according to a draft of the bill viewed by The Times. Workers would also be eligible for unemployment benefits starting on the date a lockout begins, when the employer hired permanent replacement workers or if the worker becomes unemployed after a strike or lock-out ends, whichever is earlier.
Democratic U.S. Reps. Donald Norcross of New Jersey and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York also are sponsoring the bill. Labor unions SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild of America, the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO are supporting the legislation as well, according to Schiff’s office.
But with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives, the odds that the bill will pass are slim. Businesses have strongly opposed the idea because they said it would lead to higher employer taxes. Employers pay state and federal payroll taxes to fund the unemployment insurance program.
The expected introduction of a federal bill comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed state legislation in September to provide unemployment for striking workers. Newsom said he did so because of financial concerns, a move highly criticized by labor leaders.
California borrowed billions of dollars from the federal government to cover unemployment benefits, and the state’s unemployment fund debt was projected to be nearly $20 billion by the end of the year. California’s unemployment pay is $450 a week for a maximum of 26 weeks. Business fought the bill because they said they would pay additional taxes annually to repay California’s loan from the federal government.
The WGA and SAG-AFTRA lobbied for the expanded benefits, saying that they would help workers pay their bills. While members rely on side jobs and strike funds to stay afloat, that income dwindles the longer a strike goes on. The 148-day Hollywood writers strike ended after WGA members ratified a new contract. Actors and crew members represented by SAG-AFTRA have been on strike for more than 100 days.
Democrats have expressed support for labor unions ahead of the 2024 elections. Labor unions including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Communication Workers of America and the Amalgamated Transit Union have endorsed Schiff for Senate, while other unions have endorsed his main Democratic rivals in the race.
During an October debate in Los Angeles, Schiff, along with California Democratic Senate candidates Barbara Lee and Katie Porter, disagreed with Newsom’s decision to veto the bill to provide striking workers unemployment benefits. He mentioned during that event he was working on federal legislation.
“When they go and strike for better work and better wages for themselves and others, they need to have unemployment compensation, because they’re striking for all workers,” Schiff said at the debate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee has dropped its subpoena against former President Donald Trump as it wraps up work and prepares to dissolve next week.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s Democratic chairman, wrote in a letter to Trump lawyer David Warrington on Wednesday that he is formally withdrawing the subpoena. “As you may know, the Select Committee has concluded its hearings, released its final report and will very soon reach its end,” Thompson wrote. “In light of the imminent end of our investigation, the Select Committee can no longer pursue the specific information covered by the subpoena.”
The committee had voted to subpoena Trump during its final televised hearing before the midterm elections in October, demanding testimony and documents from the former president as it has investigated his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat.
Lawmakers on the panel have acknowledged the subpoena would be difficult to enforce, especially as Republicans are poised to take over the House in January. But the move had political and symbolic value.
“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion,” Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the panel’s vice chair and one of two Republicans on the nine-member committee, said at the time. “And every American is entitled to those answers.”
Trump then sued the panel in November to avoid cooperating. The lawsuit contended that while former presidents have voluntarily agreed to provide testimony or documents in response to congressional subpoenas in the past, “no president or former president has ever been compelled to do so.”
The committee’s request for documents was sweeping, including personal communications between Trump and members of Congress as well as extremist groups. Trump’s attorneys said it was overly broad and framed it as an infringement of his First Amendment rights.
While the panel never gained Trump’s testimony, the committee interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, including most of his closest White House aides and allies.
Many of those witnesses provided substantive detail about his efforts to sway state legislators, federal officials and lawmakers to help him overturn his defeat. And White House aides who were with him on Jan. 6 told the panel about his resistance to tell the violent mob of his supporters to leave the Capitol after they had broken in and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
In its final report issued last week, the committee concluded that Trump engaged in a “multipart conspiracy” to upend the 2020 election and failed to act on the violence. The panel also recommended that the Justice Department investigate the former president for four separate crimes, including aiding an insurrection.
On social media Wednesday evening, Trump and his lawyers construed the move as a victory. “They probably did so because they knew I did nothing wrong, or they were about to lose in Court,” Trump wrote on his social-media site. He called the panel “political Thugs.”
On Twitter, Trump lawyer Harmeet Dhillon said the panel had “waved the white flag.”
