House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is defending Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) amid an effort to remove him from the panel by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
In a statement on Thursday, Schiff called Swalwell a “trusted member” of the committee and said he was “given a counterintelligence briefing in 2015 and acted fully in accordance with his responsibilities.”
Schiff noted an FBI official familiar with the investigation into Swalwell’s previous relationship with an alleged Chinese spy said he was “completely cooperative and under no suspicion of wrongdoing.”
He characterized Swalwell as a “hard-working and diligent member.”
Schiff continued, “Mr. Swalwell will continue to make great contributions to our national security. It’s disturbing that Kevin McCarthy is attempting to weaponize classified counterintelligence briefings as a political cudgel, and use them to smear a House colleague in the process. Members face real counterintelligence risks from sophisticated actors, and bad faith political attacks on Members will only make it more difficult to respond.”
Schiff responds to McCarthy’s continued attacks on Swalwell, upping the ante a bit by accusing McCarthy of "attempting to weaponize classified counterintelligence briefings as a political cudgel.”
— Tal Kopan (@TalKopan) March 18, 2021
For Schiff, these are fighting words pic.twitter.com/EpHtdKoEOs
McCarthy’s resolution argues Swalwell “has not denied public reporting that a suspected Chinese intelligence operative helped raise money for Representative Swalwell’s political campaigns and facilitated the potential assignment of interns into Representative Swalwell’s offices.”
Swalwell fired back at McCarthy on Twitter. He wrote, “Meet the New McCarthyism. Multiple sentences in resolution state ‘Swalwell has not denied…’ Yet fails to include multiple FBI statements of ‘no wrongdoing’ and did nothing but ‘cooperate.’ All of this to deflect from [McCarthy’s] support for QAnon.”
This is not the first time Schiff has criticized McCarthy. During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press” last month, Schiff said, “Kevin McCarthy stands for nothing except the perpetuation of his own position. He has no values, and in my view, cares about little except for hoping to be speaker one day.”
He also blasted McCarthy for visiting former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida in January, as IJR previously reported.
“That photo you showed of Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump… What Kevin McCarthy is saying in that photo is, ‘I don’t stand for anything, I don’t care about anything, I accept my own personal ambition,’” Schiff said.
He continued, “‘And if I have to embrace someone who just incited an insurrection against the Capitol that resulted in multiple deaths, then I will do it.'”
