Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has been threatened by Republicans who want to remove him from the House Intelligence Committee because he was an impeachment lawyer for Donald Trump's first trial over the bribery of the president of Ukraine. But speaking to "The View" on Thursday, Schiff made it clear that being kicked off of a committee is the least of his concerns.
"There are much bigger concerns, frankly, about what they will do," Schiff said of the fringe members of the GOP. "McCarthy wanted to overturn the last election even after the violence of that day, and my primary concern is what if we have a truly contested election next time? What if we have one that is very close? We could see McCarthy leading Republicans to try to overturn the result. It was a grave danger to our democracy two years ago. It would be another grave danger to our democracy in the future, but before McCarthy threatens to throw anybody off their committee, you've got to be focused on whether he even gets that job."
Schiff explained that he thinks the reason McCarthy was going to throw him off of the Intelligence Committee came from a promise McCarthy made to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was removed from the Education Committee in 2019 after concerning behavior led to a full House vote to remove her.
"But they need to get their act together because the Congress needs to begin its work," he continued. "We can't even go back to the Intelligence Committee because until the committee isn't seated, we don't have access to classified information. It's really become a big problem, and not just an embarrassment for the Republicans."
Former communications aide to Donald Trump, Alyssa Farah Griffin asked Schiff about what the Republicans will do to the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress. She noted that there were a number of people who testified to the committee who also were not named publicly. There is a fear that the Jan. 6 committee was willing to protect them but that the new GOP-led House will not be.
"Some of these far-right Republicans are pushing for all of the unredacted Jan. 6th Committee evidence to be released," she went on. "As you and I know, that could put anonymous witnesses at risk to face harassment and threats. If a speaker candidate committed to protecting these witnesses, could you see yourself backing them, someone like a Fitzpatrick, a Bacon, even a Liz Cheney?"
"Look, I would hope they will pick someone who is responsible at least, as Speaker," Schiff lamented. "Someone who wouldn't make a condition of their getting the speakership endangering the lives of witnesses, but in terms of whether Democrats could support anyone, I don't think the Republican conference would go for anything like that. I don't know that ours would either."
He said that the Republicans must "get their act together" and that if they can't, they should "step aside and let Democrats govern."
Schiff went on to call for two functioning political parties, noting that as it stands currently, there's only one.
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