President Trump called for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to be forced out of office during an interview Wednesday.
Trump, who was being interviewed for the first time since Attorney General William Barr’s Sunday report concluding he did not collude with Russia, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he didn’t just think Schiff should be pushed off the Intelligence Committee but said he should be pushed out of Congress entirely.
“I heard they should force him off the committee, or off the committee chair — he should be forced out of office,” Trump said. “He is a disgrace to our country.”
“And you have plenty of others,” Trump added.
Schiff was, and still is, one of the lawmakers leading the charge to investigate the president amid accusations of wrongdoing. Since Barr released his summary Sunday, Schiff has been roundly condemned by Republicans who say that he was overzealous in his pursuit to accuse Trump of criminal activity.
Trump claimed Wednesday that Schiff knew all along that he did not collude with Russia yet continued to lie.
“Well, Schiff is a bad guy because he knew he was lying. He’s not a dummy,” Trump said. “For a year and a half, he would go on and just lie and lie and leak and call up CNN and others.”
“He would get into the back room with his friends and the Democrat Party, and they would laugh like hell at what they were doing, it is a disgrace,” he added.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has called on Schiff to step down as head of the committee, as have others in the House. Schiff has said he has no such plans to depart his role as chairman.
Trump has called Schiff a “political hack” in the past, saying that the California congressman is only using the investigation to make a name for himself politically.
