Schiff Raises Russia Collusion in Durham Hearing Hours Before Censure Vote for ‘Misleading’ Public

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), whom the House is expected to censure Wednesday evening for “misleading the American public,” doubled down on allegations about Russia collusion hours before the censure vote was set to take place.

Schiff, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, made the remarks during a committee hearing featuring former special counsel John Durham, using his time to question Durham on Trump campaign activity in 2016 and criticize Durham for what he perceived as downplaying.

“Are you really trying to diminish the significance of what happened here?” Schiff asked in one instance, pointing specifically to a 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked lawyer. The meeting was heavily scrutinized by federal investigators, and they declined to charge anyone over it.

Schiff asked, “You think it’s insignificant that he had a secret meeting with a Russian delegation for the purpose of getting dirt on Hillary Clinton and the only disappointment expressed in that meeting was that the dirt they got wasn’t better?”

Durham replied to Schiff, “I don’t think that that [meeting] was a well-advised thing to do,” adding later that the meeting was not illegal.

“Oh, not well-advised? Well that’s the understatement of the year,” Schiff shot back as he continued to harp on the meeting.

Durham’s testimony comes after he released a report in May brutally rebuking the FBI’s handling of the Trump-Russia investigation and ultimately finding the FBI should never have opened a full one.

Schiff also emphasized that former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which was released in 2019 following the FBI’s probe, found that Russia meddled in the 2016 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

Mueller “could not establish the crime of conspiracy [with Trump] beyond a reasonable doubt” but that “does not mean there was no evidence of those facts,” Schiff said, observing that Durham’s report did not contradict Mueller’s.

Schiff’s Democrat colleagues on the Judiciary Committee at times deferred their allotted speaking time to the California Democrat, giving him extra opportunities to air his grievances about the years-long Trump-Russia saga, which Schiff had a key role in probing while serving as the top Democrat on the House Intel Committee.

At one point during the hearing, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) named Schiff directly, highlighting past comments Schiff has made, such as there being “clear evidence on the issue of [Trump-Russia] collusion” and that that evidence was in “plain sight.”

Durham told Kiley he did not believe the Mueller report supported such statements by Schiff:

Schiff, using more time donated to him by his fellow Democrats, dug into his past remarks:

Now he also criticized the use of the word ‘collusion.’ Apparently giving private polling data to the Russians while the Russians are helping your campaign, they don’t want to call collusion. Maybe there’s a better name for it. Maybe they would prefer we just call it good ol’ fashioned GOP cheating with the enemy. Maybe that would be a little bit more accurate description. … They seem allergic to calling it for what it is.

The House is set to vote around 5:00 p.m. Wednesday on a resolution to censure Schiff, a rare move that would formally condemn the California Democrat for “misleading the American public and for conduct unbecoming of an elected Member of the House of Representatives.”

Schiff, by way of his role on Intel, “occupied a position of “extreme trust,” the resolution states.

The resolution reads that Schiff “abused this trust by alleging he had evidence of collusion that, as is clear from reports by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and Special Counsel Durham, never existed.”

The resolution is expected to pass after a vote by Democrats earlier in the day to table the censure failed on party lines.