Incoming California Senator Rep. Adam Schiff (D) demanded Sunday that the Senate reject the nomination of Kash Patel to be director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), continuing a long personal vendetta against Patel.
Schiff has been trying to destroy Patel ever since 2017, when Patel helped expose the fact that members of the outgoing Obama administration abused their power to “unmask” the names of Americans caught on foreign wiretaps, a practice that was thought to have led to the unjust firing and prosecution of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn over false allegations of collusion with Russia.
FILE – Kash Patel, former chief of staff for President Donald Trump, speaks at a rally in Minden, Nev., Oct. 8, 2022. Patel who has said he was present as Trump declassified broad categories of materials appeared before a federal grand jury Thursday, Nov. 3, after being given immunity for his testimony, according to a person familiar with the matter. Patel appeared after the Justice Department agreed to grant him immunity from prosecution for his testimony and after a federal judge in Washington entered a sealed order to that effect. (AP Photo/José Luis Villegas, File)
Schiff, then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote a memorandum in which he attempted, unsuccessfully, to counter the claims of the Republican majority that the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page, an aide to then-candidate Donald Trump, was justified.
Schiff’s claims were later debunked by a report by the Department of Justice Inspector General, which validated Republican concerns about the abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court by the FBI in its efforts to target Trump.
During the first impeachment investigation of President Trump, which Schiff led as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrats tried, in vain, to find evidence that Patel had been a “back channel” for Russia to Trump. The impeachment report cited a phone call between then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Patel — which proved nothing but the fact that the committee had violated the president’s Sixth Amendment rights by spying on his legal counsel.
Schiff then served on the one-sided January 6 Committee, which pursued Patel again. Once again, it found no wrongdoing, and only belatedly released the transcript of his closed-door interview with the committee.
The claim that Patel wants to arrest members of the media and the government refers to his declaration that “conspirators” who broke the law in their effort to bring down Trump should be investigated and prosecuted.
That might well include Schiff himself, who violated the rights of witnesses in the impeachment and January 6 Committee investigations; lied to the public about Russia “collusion,” while referring to his access to intelligence information; and did not preserve the documentary evidence collected by the January 6 Committee for review, thus denying defendants in numerous criminal cases access to potentially exculpatory evidence in their defense.
As of Monday morning, Schiff had not commented on President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter, for crimes dating back to Hunter’s appointment to the board of the corrupt Ukrainian gas company, Burisma. Schiff’s entire case against Trump was premised on the false claim that there was no reason to suspect Hunter Biden’s role was corrupt, and that Trump had abused his power for political gain by asking Ukraine to investigate the matter.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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