Adam Schiff's plan to 'unpack' the Supreme Court includes adding more justices
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California is calling to "unpack" the U.S. Supreme Court by adding more justices to the nine-member panel, a proposal that is often characterized by critics as court-packing.
The number of seats on the high court has remained at nine for more than 150 years. "The number of Justices on the Supreme Court changed six times before settling at the present total of nine in 1869," according to the Supreme Court website.
"Expanding the size of the Supreme Court isn't extreme or unprecedented — but the opinions of this Court certainly are," Schiff tweeted.
In addition to adding more seats to the high court, Schiff's call to "unpack" the institution would also include other elements.
"When I say we have to unpack the court, that means three things," the congressman tweeted. "Expand the number of justices on the court," he declared, adding "institute term limits," and "enact a code of ethics, just like every other federal court."
— (@)
"In 2016, Mitch McConnell refused to even consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Over the next four years, Trump and McConnell pushed through three unpopular, problematic, far-right nominees," Schiff tweeted. "That's led to a 6-3, partisan and reactionary court majority that has repealed abortion rights, ended affirmative action, and is chipping away at clean air and water. SCOTUS is supposed to be an impartial and nonpartisan legal body — right now it's quite the opposite," he claimed.
Schiff, who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than two decades, is currently running for a U.S. Senate seat.
Last week, House Republicans voted to censure the long-serving lawmaker. Six GOP lawmakers voted present.
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Democrats chant on the House floor, applaud Adam Schiff after Republicans vote to slap him with censure resolution
A slim majority of House lawmakers voted on Wednesday to censure Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
The measure passed along party lines, with 213 Republicans voting for it and 209 Democrats voting against it. Six GOP lawmakers voted present.
After House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the results of the vote, people began chanting in the congressional chamber.
U.S. House Censures Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) www.youtube.com
The resolution states that "the House of Representatives censures Adam Schiff ... for misleading the American public and for conduct unbecoming of an elected Member of the House of Representatives."
It states that the congressman "will forthwith present himself in the well of the House of Representatives for the pronouncement of censure" and "be censured with the public reading of this resolution by the Speaker." The censure also states that "the Committee on Ethics shall conduct an investigation into Representative Adam Schiff's falsehoods, misrepresentations, and abuses of sensitive information."
After McCarthy requested for Schiff to "present himself in the well," Democrats began applauding their colleague and then started chanting again.
When McCarthy sought to read the censure resolution, Democrats repeatedly interrupted.
Schiff, who has served in the House for more than two decades, is currently running for a U.S. Senate seat in the Golden State. Multiple candidates are vying to fill the seat that will be vacated by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who will not seek re-election in 2024.
"You honor me with your enmity. You flatter me with this falsehood," Schiff said during remarks ahead of the censure vote on Wednesday. "You who are the authors of a big lie about the last election must condemn the truth tellers. And I stand proudly before you."
To my Republican colleagues who introduced this sham resolution: You honor me with your enmity.
You flatter me with this falsehood.
Your words tell me that I have been effective in the defense of our democracy, and I am grateful. pic.twitter.com/ATVFDLaUYT
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) June 21, 2023
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'Schiff just hit the fan': House Republicans poised to censure Rep. Adam Schiff
The GOP-controlled House is poised to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and possibly fine him $16 million for his role in advancing the debunked Russian collusion narrative, abusing the trust afforded him as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and for behaving "dishonestly and dishonorably."
Now, it's just a matter of getting Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's resolution to the floor and seeing it through to a vote.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) indicated that if the resolution comes to the floor, he will vote against it, noting, "I'm still litigating a federal lawsuit against Pelosi over a salary reduction she imposed on me for my refusal to wear a mask. ... The Constitution says the House may make its own rules but we can't violate other (later) provisions of the Constitution. A $16 million fine is a violation of the 27th and 8th amendments."
Republicans will need to present a united front to see the resolution through, as Democrats intend to introduce a motion to table or kill the resolution and are sticking together, reported Axios.
Luna, a member of the Freedom Caucus, suggested the vote will likely be held Thursday morning.
\u201cLooks like my vote to censure & condemn @RepAdamSchiff will likely be held Thursday morning.\u201d— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@Rep. Anna Paulina Luna) 1686676571
The resolution, introduced by the Florida congresswoman May 23, accuses Schiff of abusing the trust afforded him while serving as ranking member and then chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It further condemns him for behaving "dishonestly and dishonorably on many other occasions."
The resolution states Schiff cited evidence of collusion between former President Donald Trump and Russia "that — as is clear from reports by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and Special Counsel Durham — does not exist. ... By repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people."
Luna's resolution also drags Schiff for:
- lending "credibility to the Steele dossier — a collection of debunked collusion accusations funded by President Trump's political rivals — by reading false Steele allegation into the Congressional Record at a HPSCI hearing on March 20, 2017";
- abusing his privileged access to classified information by composing "a false memo justifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application on trump associate Carter Page, which Inspector General Horowitz later found was riddled with 17 major mistakes and omissions, provoking FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer to state unequivocally that the Federal Bureau of Investigation acted to 'mislead the FISC'";
- grossly violating Carter Page's civil liberties by smearing him "as a Russian collaborator and justifying spurious investigations of him";
- "falsely denying that his staff coordinated with a whistleblower to launch the first impeachment of President Trump"; and
- reciting "a false, concocted rendition of a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky."
Luna claimed Schiff owes the American people a debt, as his "lies, misrepresentations, and abuses of sensitive information" resulted in a Russian-collusion investigation that cost taxpayers $32 million.
This figure appears to reflect the cost of the two-year special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller as indicated in an expenditures report circulated by the Department of Justice in August 2019.
To recoup this debt, Luna suggested that Schiff be fined $16 million.
Concerning the forthcoming vote on the resolution, Luna tweeted, "Schiff just hit the fan."
Schiff hit Twitter with a response Tuesday, employing a turn of phrase coined by Adolf Hitler: "Today Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced a resolution to censure & fine me $16 million. Authors of the big lie are attacking me for telling the truth &holding Trump accountable. This is not just an attack on me—it’s an attack on our democracy & the institution of Congress."
\u201cICYMI\u2014Today Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced a resolution to censure & fine me $16 million.\n\nAuthors of the big lie are attacking me for telling the truth &holding Trump accountable.\n\nThis is not just an attack on me\u2014it\u2019s an attack on our democracy & the institution of Congress.\u201d— Adam Schiff (@Adam Schiff) 1686687384
After first seizing upon the Republican effort to hold him accountable as a fundraising opportunity, Schiff later told CNN that he was "flattered" by the "MAGA resolution," which he suggested was a testament to his effectiveness.
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Law professor asks Adam Schiff to show his phantasmal evidence of Russian collusion after Durham report reveals FBI investigation was baseless
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff went on repeated media tours and sounded off on the House floor following the 2016 election, claiming there was "plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight" regarding the Trump campaign and Russia — a false claim originally approved and advanced by failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Schiff's thoroughly discredited claims now appear to be even more damning in light of the release of the final version of special counsel John Durham's report.
Legal scholar and George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley has called on Schiff to account for his apparent lies, suggesting that "this would be a good time for former House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff to reveal that evidence he said showed the Russian collusion ..."
Here are but a few of the televised instances in which Schiff claimed there was evidence of collusion:
\u201cThere is 40+ hours of Adam Schiff blatantly misleading Congress & the American people with his Russian Hoax lies. The Durham report shows Schiff had ZERO evidence. \n\nWhen will Pencil Neck @RepAdamSchiff be prosecuted and stripped of his congressional duties?\u201d— Grand Old Patriots\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@Grand Old Patriots\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1684250482
TheBlaze indicated Monday that Durham's final report paints Schiff, at best, as a maligner.
Durham said the FBI utilized “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence" to open the investigation into the Trump campaign but did not follow the same standard when approaching alleged election interference in relation to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Durham also found that the FBI “did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations” made in the infamous Steele dossier of lurid accusations against then-candidate Donald Trump, and "neither U.S. nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."
“As noted, it was not until mid-September that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators received several of the Steele Reports. Within days of their receipt, the unvetted and unverified Steele Reports were used to support probable cause in the FBI’s FISA applications targeting [Carter] Page, a U.S. citizen who, for a period of time, had been an advisor to Trump,” the report says.
The Durham report further revealed that the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign was virtually baseless and that most of those involved and responsible knew that to be the case, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-President Barack Obama, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, and other partisans briefed on the so-called "Clinton Plan" on Aug. 3, 2016.
These revelations and those accompanying them in the report altogether appear to indicate that the confidence behind Schiff's assertions was either similarly baseless or based on a sense that the actual truth would not ultimately come out.
Turley previously intimated that there might be something to the latter possibility, given Schiff's vigorous and long-standing opposition to Durham's investigation.
For instance, in November 2020, Schiff suggested congressional probes were bad for the country, despite having himself celebrated the initial Trump-Russia collusion investigation, reported Fox News Digital.
Schiff, who led the impeachment efforts against former President Donald Trump, suggested that concerted efforts to ascertain what really happened amounted to an "obstruction of the transition" of then-President-elect Joe Biden into power, then accused Republicans of "tearing down our democracy."
In December 2020, the California Democrat appeared even more uneasy about the prospect that someone might discover it had all been a crock.
Schiff spoke out against then-Attorney General William Barr's selection of John Durham to serve as special counsel and questioned whether Barr even had the authority to do so. He went farther to suggest that Biden's attorney general should shut down the probe, which he claimed was "politically motivated," reported the Daily Caller.
Prior to fighting the Durham investigation, Schiff played defense for the FBI, claiming on Feb. 2, 2018, that "FBI and DOJ officials did not 'abuse' the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign," adding that "DOJ met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA’s probable cause requirement."
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