After nine Republican lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee submitted a letter on Thursday calling on Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to resign his chairmanship over the results of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, Schiff shot back, outlining a multitude of bad behaviors by the Trump campaign: “You might say that’s all okay. … but I don’t think it’s okay!”
“My colleagues may think it’s okay that the Russians offered dirt on the Democratic candidate for president as part of what is described as the Russian government’s effort to help the Trump campaign. You might think that that’s okay,” Schiff said. “My colleagues might think that’s okay, when that was offered to the son of the president who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the President’s son did not call the FBI he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help, no instead that son said that he would ‘love’ the help of the Russians.”
He continued to outline efforts by Trump and his aides to “conceal” the purpose of the Trump Tower 2016 meeting, Paul Manafort’s contacts with Russian oligarchs, efforts to offer polling data to Russia, Trump’s calls for Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails and touched on Roger Stone and Michael Flynn’s various crimes.
“You might say, ‘that’s all okay,’ you might say, ‘that’s just what you need to do to win,’ but I don’t think it’s okay,” he said. “I think it’s immoral, I think it’s unethical, I think it’s unpatriotic, and yes, I think it’s corrupt and evidence of collusion. And I have always said that evidence of whether this amounts to proof of conspiracy was another matter …. But I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is okay and the day we do think that’s okay, is the day we will look back and say that is the day America lost it’s way.”
Schiff responds to GOP call for him to resign his chairmanship over Mueller report findings pic.twitter.com/0MCrjyPtLf
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) March 28, 2019
The Republicans who called on Schiff to resign were Reps. Mike Conaway (R-TX), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Michael Turner (R-OH), Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), Chris Stewart (R-UT), Eric Crawford (R-AR), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Will Hurd (R-TX) and John Ratcliffe (R-TX).
The 9 Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have signed a letter calling on House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff to resign as chairman pic.twitter.com/kV4rVdGQ7S
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 28, 2019
The nine lawmakers join the growing group of conservatives, including President Trump, who have called on Schiff to resign from Congress, apparently because he spoke to the media about his belief that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the election. The calls come in response to Attorney General William Barr’s assessment of the Mueller report, which found no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, but left the question of obstruction of justice open.
Since the findings came out, Schiff has doubled down on his belief that collusion occurred and has joined other Democrats in calls for the release of the full Mueller report.
