Washington – The House voted to reject it on Wednesday a resolution supported by the GOP to censure Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff for his role in congressional investigations into former President Donald Trump, effectively killing the effort to publicly impeach him.
House Democrats introduced a resolution introduced by Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a staunch Trump supporter. The motion succeeded by a vote of 225 to 196, with 20 Republicans voting with the Democrats. A simple majority was needed to pass it.
“I’m surprised by the vote,” Schiff told reporters. “Basically, almost one in 10 Republicans voted against this resolution.”
The resolution called for the House Ethics Committee to investigate Schiff, the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and current Senate candidate in California, and said he should be fined $16 million if the committee determined that he “lied, misrepresented and misused sensitive information.” Luna said the fine represents half the cost of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign in 2016 and Russia.
Schiff has been one of Trump’s most ardent and prominent critics for years, having served as the lead House prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial. In a letter to his colleagues on Tuesday, Schiff wrote that the impeachment effort was “not only a terrible misuse of House precedent and resources, but a clear attack on our constitutional system of checks and balances “.
Censure is essentially a public reprimand by the House to punish misconduct that does not warrant expulsion. Twenty-four House lawmakers have been impeached in US history, the most recent in 2021, when Republican Rep. Paul Gosar was censored for tweeting a video showing violence against President Biden and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The impeachment resolution alleged that Schiff “intentionally misled his Committee, Congress, and the American people” and “used his position and access to sensitive information to instigate a fraud-based investigation, which then used to accumulate political gains and fund-raising money.” It also accused him of acting “dishonestly and dishonestly”.
After the vote to table the resolution, Luna said she would try again next week.
Schiff said Tuesday that the resolution was an effort to distract Trump indicted on federal charges for his alleged mishandling of classified information after leaving the White House, as well as retaliation for Schiff’s vote to impeach Trump.
“This is political compensation. But it’s also, frankly, quite flattering. They have to see me as very effective. They want to go after me to gratify the former president,” Schiff. he told CNN on Tuesday. “But it will hurt the House to bring this kind of frivolous censure resolution.”
Schiff said the effort to censure him would not silence or intimidate him.
Luna filed the motion to censure Schiff the same day Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he kept and hid classified documents, then obstructed government efforts to recover them.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said earlier Wednesday that he would vote to introduce the resolution because he believed the proposed fine against Schiff was unconstitutional. Although he added that he thought Schiff “acted unethically.”
“The Constitution says the House can make its own rules, but we cannot violate other (subsequent) provisions of the Constitution,” Massie tweeted. “A $16 million fine is a violation of the 27th and 8th Amendments.”
Massie said he was told later Wednesday that “a constitutional version will now be offered.”
Nikole Killion contributed to this report.
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