Kevin McCarthy Booted Adam Schiff for “Lying.” But What About His Lies?

Real eyes realize real lies.

Ron Sachs/CNP/Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) lashed out at reporters who questioned his decision to remove Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) from the House Intelligence Committee, of which Schiff was the ranking Democrat.

McCarthy, who has been repeating these talking points for nearly a year, sounds convincing when he says that Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) made lies that should disqualify them from serving on the intelligence committee. But his comments don’t hold water.

In 2019 and 2020, Schiff was the lead manager in the impeachment proceedings against former President Trump. The investigation was sparked by a whistleblower complaint suggesting that Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into investigating Joe and Hunter Biden. McCarthy suggested that Schiff had information about the whistleblower that he was not sharing with the public.

“When a whistleblower came forward, [Schiff] said he did not know the individual,” McCarthy told reporters yesterday, “even though his staff had met with him and set it up.” That’s partially true. A member of Schiff’s staff did meet with the whistleblower—a fact Schiff denied when speaking to the media. But there’s no evidence that Schiff knew who the whistleblower was, as Glenn Kessler explains in the Washington Post.

McCarthy also accused Swalwell of lying regarding his apparent relationship with a Chinese spy, for which the FBI had cleared him of wrongdoing. It’s a whole thing, explained here.

Both Schiff and Swalwell have made the sort of spin and exaggeration common among politicians. But it’s clear that McCarthy is cherry-picking moments of dishonesty to remove the most outspoken Democratic politicians from one of Congress’ most important committees. What about Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) bad-faith concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election—concerns that have come to be known as the “Big Lie”?

Never mind that habitual liar Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was deemed fit to serve on the Committee on Small Business and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Or that McCarthy himself is serving as Speaker despite his blatant lie that he had never called on Trump to resign. As we reported in April, McCarthy called a New York Times report about his castigation of Trump following the January 6, 2021, insurrection “totally false and wrong.” Ah:

But then, in an extraordinary twist, the reporters went on the Rachel Maddow Show and played an honest-to-God recording of McCarthy detailing a plan to pressure Trump to resign from office. 

The comments took place during a Jan. 10 meeting with Republican lawmakers, in response to a question from Rep. Liz Cheney. In the recording, McCarthy says that he planned to call Trump and recommend that he leave office voluntarily, using the threat of impeachment as leverage. 

“I will not be like Democrats and play politics with these,” McCarthy told reporters yesterday. But it’s hard to think of any other way to describe what he’s doing.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate