Trump acting as 'alter ego' for speaker ousted House Intelligence Committee head: senator

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Thursday made clear who he thinks is pulling the strings in the House of Representatives: President-elect Donald Trump.

Schiff made the comments in response to House Speaker Mike Johnson ousting Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) as chair of the powerful House Intelligence Committee overnight, which has been attributed to pressure from Trump.

“I think he didn't pass the test at Mar-a-Lago,” Schiff said in an interview on MSNBC Thursday, where he went after the House committee, Johnson and Trump’s influence over it all.

“Trump is really already had his way in choosing to change the character of that committee,” Schiff said. “So, I think we're seeing Donald Trump both as president-elect and in some sense as an alter ego for speaker exerting extraordinary influence over the House.”

Schiff went on to tell MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace that as a result of Johnson “doing the bidding of Donald Trump,” the House Intelligence Committee has been stacked with Trump loyalists like Reps. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) and Scott Perry (R-PA) – “not folks that we can have a lot of confidence in upholding that responsibility on that committee.”

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The California senator added that the danger in Trump wielding such influence over the powerful House committee is that it would be less willing to ask “hard questions” of federal agencies or challenge assertions made by the incoming administration.

“You have to be willing to push back and probe,” said Schiff, who chaired the House committee from 2019 to 2023. “If you have nothing but sycophants for the administration on that committee, it can't do its job.”

He added that foreign intelligence partners will also be less likely to share information “if people are put on as partisans, or that are not trustworthy, on that committee.”

“They're already less likely to share key information because they have some distrust of the incoming president,” Schiff said.

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