Kevin McCarthy boots House panel for Lying Schiff, Spy Sleeper Swalwell and Vicious Omar

 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy confirmed late Monday that he will make good on his pre-midterm pledge to remove three high-profile Democrats — Reps. Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar — from their House committees.

McCarthy (R-Calif.) told the Associated Press that he would move to strip the trio of their assignments, following through on a vow of payback for Democrats ousting Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from their panels during the last Congress.

Schiff and Swalwell, both from California, would be removed from the House Intelligence Committee while Minnesota’s Omar would be kicked off the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

McCarthy vowed almost exactly a year ago that he would remove the three Democrats if Republicans won back the House in the 2022 midterm elections and repeated that promise last November after his prediction was realized.

“The Democrats have created a new thing where they’re picking and choosing who could be on committee,” McCarthy said last January. “Never in the history [of Congress] have you had the majority tell the minority who could be on committee, but this new standard, which these Democrats have voted for — if Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the private sector, there’s no reason why he should be given one to be on Intel or Homeland Security.”

McCarthy has said he fears that Swalwell may be compromised after reports emerged in 2020 that a suspected Chinese spy infiltrated his campaign and got close to the congressman.

“Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the public sector. Why would we ever give him a security clearance in the secrets to America? So, I will not allow him to be on Intel,” McCarthy told Fox News in November. “You have Adam Schiff, who had lied to the American public time and again. We will not allow him to be on the Intel Committee either.”

Schiff drew Republicans’ ire after he headed up the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump and was a member of the House select committee that examined Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. 

McCarthy has said he would boot Omar, a member of the progressive “Squad” along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), from the Foreign Affairs Committee because of her anti-Semitic remarks. 

“I promised you last year that as speaker she will no longer be on Foreign Affairs, and I’m keeping that promise,” he told a crowd at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s 2022 leadership meeting last November.