House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) formally asked Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) this weekend to seat Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Jeffries requested in a letter shared by Punchbowl News that McCarthy “honor past practice” and accept Jeffries’ recommendations of Schiff and Swalwell to the committee.
“It is my understanding that you intend to break with the longstanding House tradition of deference to the minority party Intelligence Committee recommendations and deny seats to Ranking Member Schiff and Representative Swalwell,” Jeffries wrote. “The denial of seats to duly elected Members of the House Democratic Caucus runs counter to the serious and sober mission of the Intelligence Committee.”
Jeffries’ letter comes after McCarthy indicated to reporters at a press conference on January 12 that he intended to follow through on a plan he first revealed in an interview with Breitbart News more than a year ago that he would strip Schiff and Swalwell of their seats on the Intel Committee, as well as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of her seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
McCarthy’s revelation came after Schiff, while serving as chair of the Intel Committee, perpetuated the Trump-Russia collusion theory, which the Justice Department later shut down as false. Schiff once said he had “more than circumstantial evidence” of collusion, ultimately leading all GOP members of the committee to call for his resignation as chairman.
Schiff, while serving as the lead impeachment manager in the first impeachment against former President Donald Trump, also famously read out a made-up call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for dramatic effect amid Democrats moving to impeach Trump.
“Adam Schiff openly lied to the American public,” McCarthy told reporters at the press conference. “He put America for four years through an impeachment that he knew was a lie at the same time we had Ukraine, at the same time we had Afghanistan collapse. Was that the role of the Intel Committee? No.”
Swalwell, for his part, became a target for McCarthy because Swalwell was found by the FBI to have ties to a Chinese spy named Fang Fang.
“If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy said at the press conference. “He cannot get a security clearance in the private sector.”
In 2021, the House voted to remove Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) from their committees following inflammatory rhetoric and social media posts from Greene and Gosar targeting Democrats.
McCarthy told Breitbart News last year he would use their removal as precedent for his forthcoming actions with Schiff and Swalwell, but Jeffries countered that Greene and Gosar were removed by a bipartisan House vote whereas the speaker, in consultation with the minority leader, appoints — or in this case, rejects — members to select committees.
“It does not serve as precedent or justification for the removal of Representatives Schiff and Swalwell, given that they have never exhibited violent thoughts or behavior,” Jeffries added.
Jeffries did not mention in his letter that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refused in 2021 to accept McCarthy’s appointments of Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jim Banks (R-IN) to the select committee established to investigate the January 6 Capitol riot.
Jeffries did however cite an “apparent double standard” of McCarthy allowing “serial fraudster” Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to be seated on the Small Business Committee and the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, two low-profile panels whose members do not have access to classified information the way the Intel Committee members do.
“I urge you to honor past practice of the House of Representatives and our mutual interest in working together for the good of the American people by accepting my recommendation of Adam Schiff to serve as Ranking Member and Eric Swalwell to continue his service as a Member of the Intelligence Committee,” Jeffries concluded.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.