Speaker McCarthy Boots Reps. Schiff and Swalwell From House Intelligence Committee

By 

Jay Sekulow

|
January 25, 2023

Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell have been denied seats on the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made good on his promise to reject the two Congressmen from the committee and to block them from accessing sensitive information.

As is being reported:

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday formally rejected two Democrats — Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (Calif.) — from serving on the House Intelligence Committee, escalating the two-year tit-for-tat battle between the parties over who is qualified for certain positions on Capitol Hill. . . . McCarthy said Schiff’s and Swalwell’s previous actions make them unfit to serve on a panel with jurisdiction over and access to sensitive issues of national security.

“In order to maintain a standard worthy of this committee’s responsibilities, I am hereby rejecting the appointments of Representative Adam Schiff and Representative Eric Swalwell to serve on the Intelligence Committee,” he wrote in a letter to Jeffries on Tuesday.

Rep. Eric Swalwell called this move “political vengeance,” but it was Swalwell himself who may have compromised national security. Previously, we told you that Rep. Swalwell had a personal relationship with a Chinese national with ties to the Communist Party, even allowing her access to his offices. This man cannot have access to classified intelligence.

And as for Rep. Schiff, whom I dealt with personally during the impeachment proceedings against former President Trump, we’ve told you before he’s had no problem lying to the American people:

Rep. Adam Schiff was caught once again trying to lie to and mislead the American people. In 2019, he was caught doing this during the impeachment trial, creating his own transcript of former President Trump on a phone call with the president of Ukraine. When the actual transcript was released, it did not match up to what Rep. Schiff said.

Speaker McCarthy also vowed to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has made openly antisemitic statements and minimized the atrocities of 9/11:

Mr. McCarthy has also threatened to remove Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, from congressional committees for criticism of Israel that Republicans and some Democrats have condemned as anti-Semitic. Ms. Omar apologized in 2019 for saying that support for Israel in Washington was “all about the Benjamins baby,” a comment that members of both parties denounced as a reference to an anti-Semitic trope. She was criticized again in 2021 when she made statements that appeared to compare human rights abuses by Israel with acts committed by Hamas and the Taliban, and later said she had not meant to equate them.

If you were concerned that Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t be strong enough in the role of House Speaker, he just demonstrated true leadership. These moves were not about revenge. They were about preserving the security of our republic. The lack of candor shown by both Rep. Schiff and Rep. Swalwell disqualified them from having access to sensitive and potentially dangerous information.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast includes more analysis of Speaker McCarthy’s bold decision to block Swalwell and Schiff from their committees. We also gave you a critical update about our work defending pro-life pregnancy centers, which are being targeted and vandalized by extreme abortion activists all over the country.

Watch the full broadcast below: