U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s renewed effort to impeach Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday on a 213-209 vote.
The resolution is the latest high-profile action by Luna, a freshman Republican member of Congress from Pinellas County. The resolution also shows the growing influence of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-line conservative Republicans in the US House, of which Luna is a member.
A crowd of Democrats shouted “shame” toward the Republican side of the floor as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy repeatedly tried to bring members to order. Schiff was formally censured shortly thereafter and referred to the House Ethics Committee for an investigation.
The resolution accuses Schiff, of California, of misleading the public about collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia during a congressional investigation when Schiff served on the House Intelligence Committee.
“Adam Schiff launched an all-out political campaign based on baseless distortions against a sitting president of the United States at the expense of all the citizens of this country,” Luna said on the House floor Wednesday.
In a letter to his colleaguesSchiff called the settlement a false and defamatory attempt to distract from Trump’s legal troubles.
The Russia investigation concluded that the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and hoped to benefit from it, but had not coordinated with the Russian government’s attempts to influence the 2016 election.
Luna introduced a different version of the resolution last week, but it was killed after 20 Republicans crossed party lines to vote against it. Part of that resolution suggested that the House Ethics Committee fine Schiff $16 million, half the cost of the Russia investigation. This week’s version of the resolution did not have that requirement.
Last week’s vote came a day after Trump was arraigned in a federal court in Miami after being indicted on possible mishandling of classified documents. Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges.
On the House floor Wednesday, Schiff said the resolution was “little political payback” and a waste of congressional resources on “empty soup for the MAGA crowd.”
“Extreme MAGA Republican Anna Paulina Luna is a fake politician who wastes her time in Congress catering to the far right instead of focusing on the issues Floridians care about,” said Justin Chermol, spokesman for the Committee on Democratic Congressional Campaign.
Luna has aligned herself with more conservative Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus such as Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Caucus members tend to clash with more moderate members of the party and tend to be pro-Trump.
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In January, Luna joined several other Republicans in a rebellion against McCarthy before he was elected Speaker of the House.
