Rep. Matt Gaetz said Wednesday he knows of some Democrats who are fed up with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the embattled House Intelligence Committee chairman, because of his insistence that there is evidence of collusion between President Trump and Russia.
The Florida Republican made the claim on Fox News after he introduced a resolution calling for Schiff to be kicked from the intelligence panel and his security clearance revoked.
“There are Democrats in Congress who feel betrayed, because like the rest of the country … they were told that there was actual evidence of collusion, that this was going to happen, and a lot of those very Democrats went out on a limb in the campaign, right, and promised their voters that this evidence would be turned up,” Gaetz said on Fox News without naming anyone in particular.
Accusing Schiff of spreading a “narrative” that has been a “cover-up for the fact that under the Obama administration,” Gaetz explained he introduced his Preventing Extreme Negligence with Classified Information Licenses Resolution against Schiff after the chairman criticized Attorney General William Barr for saying “spying did occur” on President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The shorthand for the resolution is PENCIL Resolution, which appears to be a reference to one of Trump’s nicknames for Schiff: “Pencil-neck Adam Schiff.”
#BREAKING: Today I filed the “PENCIL Act,” expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that “Congressman Adam Schiff should be removed from the House Intelligence Committee and his security clearance immediately revoked.” pic.twitter.com/1FsMt6NUjr
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) April 11, 2019
“I have filed legislation today sent to the House that Adam Schiff needs to be removed from the intelligence committee because, how are the rest of us supposed to be able to rely on a man who … lied to the American people when he said that there wasn’t spying or when he lied and said there was actual evidence of collusion or clear evidence of collusion?” Gaetz said.
Earlier in the day Schiff tweeted in response to Barr’s testimony before a Senate panel: “The casual suggestion by the nation’s top law enforcement officer of ‘spying’ may please Donald Trump, who rails against a ‘deep state coup,’ but it strikes another destructive blow to our democratic institutions. The hardworking men and women at the DOJ and FBI deserve better.”
Schiff’s insistence on there being collusion has become a flashpoint between Democrats and Republicans, particularly after special counsel Robert Mueller submitted his final report last month. Mueller did not establish that there was conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, according to a summary from Attorney General William Barr.
In a tremendous move to display their frustration, all of the House Intelligence Committee Republicans called on Schiff to resign as chairman last month because they had “no faith” in his leadership given his repeated assertion there was “more than circumstantial evidence” that Trump colluded with Russia.
Schiff, who has the backing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., attributed this partisan divide to blind loyalty to Trump. “Look, I think there is a different standard here between the Republicans and the Democrats,” Schiff said during an interview Sunday on CNN. “The Republicans seem to think that, as long as you can’t prove it’s a crime, then all is fair in love and war, that it’s all OK, what the Trump administration, the Trump campaign does.”
