House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters Friday that Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., will be out of the job if Republicans take back the majority.
"The Democrats have politicized our Intelligence Committee. You've watched it year after year since Adam Schiff has become the chair. No, he doesn't warn us about Ukraine or Afghanistan or what's happening around the world. He tells you about politics. But the worst part of it is you cannot trust what he tells you," McCarthy said during a press conference Friday. "Two years ago, Schiff stated the emails found from Hunter Biden were all a whole smear on Joe Biden that comes from the Kremlin. That's what the head of the Intel said. … After Schiff said this to the American public, remember the elections in November, the [former] Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said, 'No, that's not the case.'"
McCarthy said that Schiff is peddling the Russian smear story even though "there is no intelligence out there to base it upon."
"Why is he still chair of the committee? And why is he even on the committee? In a new Congress, if it's a new majority, he will not be," McCarthy said. "You cannot make this committee political. You cannot use it as a position of a chairman to lie, and you should be focused on what the American people want you to be focused on around the world."
In a story from the Associated Press in September 2020, Schiff criticized a Senate Republicans report on Hunter Biden's laptop, saying it was "boosting a Russian disinformation campaign."
"With the release of this report and two Senate Committee Chairs promoting the same Russian disinformation, the Kremlin must be very pleased," Schiff said in the statement at the time. "Everyone should see this report for what it is: an election year hit job that uses as its very basis Russian disinformation."
The GOP report by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said there were conflicts of interest with President Joe Biden's son sitting on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, while his father was the sitting vice president.
Democrats now, and at the time of the report, scoff at the idea that Hunter Biden was using his father's position to enrich himself.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., lashed out at his GOP colleagues for the report prior to the 2020 election.
"Mr. Johnson has diverted our committee's time and taxpayer resources away from our mission to protect the health and security of Americans and instead has generated a partisan, political report that is rooted in Russian disinformation and intended to influence the presidential election," Peters said at the time.
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