CNN Host Confronts Schiff On Multiple Trump-Russia Falsehoods

After House Democrats voted to remove two outspoken Republicans — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) — from their respective committees during the last legislative session, GOP leaders followed suit by booting three controversial Democrats from their high-profile congressional panels.

The move came after the House Republican Steering Committee gave Green and Gosar their new assignments on the House Homeland Security Committee and House Natural Resources Committee, respectively. Both were also selected to sit on the House Oversight Committee.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced his plan to remove Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from the House Intelligence Committee and kicked Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Although there has been some GOP resistance to McCarthy’s bid to remove Omar, the effort has generally received support from across the party. Of course, Democrats are united in their opposition — and all three targeted lawmakers recently appeared on CNN to plead their case.

To her credit, “State of the Union” host Dana Bash held Schiff accountable for some of his previous lies about supposed evidence of Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election. 

McCarthy has cited the California Democrat’s spotty record of honesty as a factor in the decision to remove him from the intel panel. 

“You said that there was direct evidence of the fact that Donald Trump colluded with Russia back in 2016,” Bash told Schiff. “Special Counsel Robert Muller said in his report: ‘The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.’ Republicans argue that’s proof that you used your position on the Intelligence Committee to intentionally mislead Americans, which is why you should not be on that committee.”

Schiff responded by asserting that Muller’s report did not include a definitive conclusion on the matter, which supposedly gives him the latitude to spread unsubstantiated allegations about the former president.

Bash was not finished holding his feet to the fire, however, and called him out on his previous claim that the panel did not hear from a whistleblower prior to the first effort to impeach Trump. Subsequent media reports confirmed that Schiff and others did hear from the individual in question.

Instead of acknowledging and apologizing for his apparent lie, Schiff equivocated and only acknowledged that he “should have been more clear.”