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OPINION

The Corruption of Rep. Adam Schiff Is Reaching a Tipping Point

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
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Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP

It is no secret that far left Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff uses sleazy tactics to go after his political opponents. While most members of Congress usually skate on ethics charges, or receive light penalties, once in a great while their behavior is so overtly criminal that they end up prosecuted. Although Democrats are far more likely to use lawfare against Republicans than vice versa, when the behavior is so criminal, even Democrats — such as New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez who is being prosecuted for bribery — can’t escape justice. 

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Schiff is getting dangerously close to this stage. When he became chair of the House Intelligence Committee in 2019, he made it a personal mission to investigate Donald Trump's supposed connections to Russia, completely separate from and in addition to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

When Mueller concluded there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, Schiff dismissively blew off the exoneration, hinting that he would continue his own investigation. “[T]here may be, for example, evidence of collusion or conspiracy that is clear and convincing, but not proof beyond a reasonable doubt," he said during an interview in February 2019.

The nine Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee called for Schiff to resign in March 2019 due to his false claims of collusion. The Center for Renewing America sent a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics in June 2023, outlining Schiff’s improper actions, including his attempts to get X to censure unfavorable posts and claiming the Hunter Biden collusion in Ukraine was a product of Russian disinformation. The letter asked for discipline up to expulsion.  

That same month, the House of Representatives censured Schiff over the Russia collusion hoax. They listed specific instances of wrongdoing. First, they cited his memo that falsely claimed that the warrant application for the FISA wiretap of Trump associate Carter Page was accurate. The application was “later found by Inspector General Horowitz to have 17 major mistakes and omissions, provoking FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer to state unequivocally that the Federal Bureau of Investigation ‘misled the FISC,’” the censure said. 

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Next, the censure accused Schiff of “publicly, falsely denying that his staff communicated with a whistleblower to launch the first impeachment of President Trump.” Finally, the censure stated that “Schiff misled the public by reading a false retelling of a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.” 

Now it’s come out that Schiff paid the daughter of the judge handling New York DA Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Trump $4 million to push the Russia collusion hoax. Loren Merchan’s hatred of Trump is so extreme that she used a photo of Trump behind bars as her profile picture on X. She runs a digital marketing agency that works with Democrats and progressive groups. 

Yet New York Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order against Trump prohibits him talking about his daughter. Merchan has not slapped a gag order on the prosecution or their witnesses, so Trump’s turncoat former attorney Michael Cohen has been blabbing endlessly about him, posting rants about the trial on TikTok every evening. 

I would predict that any guilty verdict will be overturned based on this obvious bias by the judge, but after former Trump associate Hope Hicks surprised the politically motivated prosecutors by exonerating Trump last week, there is unlikely to be a conviction. Hicks said the money allegedly paid to porn star and liar Stormy Daniels was to protect Trump’s wife Melania, not to protect the campaign. The crux of the case against Trump is that it was an illegal campaign contribution.

An ethics complaint was filed against Schiff recently, alleging election fraud and mortgage fraud. Schiff is running for the U.S. Senate in California, but has been living in Maryland while voting in California. Former Oklahoma Rep. Steve Watkins was prosecuted for allegedly voting in the wrong Topeka City Council race after listing a UPS Store as his voting address.

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While running for the U.S. Senate, Schiff has brazenly engaged in sleazy tactics. He spent $10 million promoting his Republican opponent during the primary. Since California uses “top 2” voting, which means the top two vote getters in the primary move on to the general, he wanted to ensure that Republican Steve Garvey ended up with the second most votes instead of his two Democratic challengers. On the campaign trail, Schiff brags about his political persecution of Trump as a campaign platform. 

Schiff isn’t a principled leftist. In the late 1990s, he sponsored bills in the California Legislature which would have made it a felony to hire an illegal immigrant, and to allow minors 14 or older accused of serious crimes to be tried as adults. 

If the roles were reversed, and Schiff had engaged in this corruption as a Republican, aggressive progressive DAs put in their positions by left-wing billionaire George Soros would have begun multiple prosecutions. His law license is safe, however, since it has been inactive since 2001.  

Hinting at guilt, Schiff admitted he feared that a Trump administration might prosecute him. Trump has said that Schiff and other members of the January 6th committee, whom he labeled as corrupt, should face prosecution and imprisonment. 

Schiff wants the prosecutions against Trump to occur quickly, obviously in order to influence the voters. He complained about Trump’s immunity claim, “The claim is borderline frivolous … they’re drawing it out just enough to make it almost infeasible to try [the cases] before the election,” he said. “It’s still possible to get it done. And I think voters deserve to have that information.”

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Will anything be done to Schiff other than the House censure, which is meaningless in practical terms? Maybe eventually. He shows no sign of slowing down the corruption. He’s gotten so brazen about it, since no one has intervened to stop him, that he may finally engage in criminal activity so outrageous that even compromised judges draw the line. 

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