McCarthy plans to eject Democrats from committee seats

It is expected by speaker Kevin McCarthy and the leading Republicans to keep three Democrats from seats on influential committees in the new House. Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, two California lawmakers who have served on the House Intelligence Committee, as well as Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, are McCarthy’s main focus.

Rep. Troy Nehls, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, tweeted: “Speaker McCarthy confirms that Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar are getting kicked off the Intel and Foreign Affairs Committees. Promises made. Promises kept!”

Citing objections to their behavior and the precedent of the previous House removing committee assignments for Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, McCarthy has long pledged to oust the three, reported ABC News.

The Democratic majority and some Republicans in the House voted to remove Greene and Gosar over their inflammatory conduct in those cases, including Gosar sharing an animated social media video depicting violence against President Joe Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Gosar said amid the controversy, “I do not espouse violence.”), and Greene spreading conspiracy theories – some of which she has since renounced.

Last year, the two far-right Republicans were also denounced for attending a white nationalist rally in Florida. At the time, McCarthy, who was fresh off a trip to Israel said that “there’s no place in our party for any of this. … The party should not be associated any time, any place with somebody who is antisemitic.”

But despite her past controversies, sources have since said that Greene will likely have a seat on the House Oversight Committee in the new Congress.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said no one had yet been assigned to committees, but suggested removals were a new standard first set by Democrats.

“As we see what comes out, the Democrats set a precedent that we urged them strongly not to go down last Congress,” said Scalise.

He then continued by saying that “They decided that they were going to break the precedent that had been in place for over 200 years and remove members of the opposing party that our party selected to be on committees.”

“And so that was a practice they set and so, obviously, we’re going to be looking very closely at who they appoint. They haven’t appointed anybody yet to committees, but we’re gonna see if they do,” he added.

McCarthy said after Republicans won back the House in November that he planned to keep the three Democrats from their committee posts.

The chair of the House Democratic caucus, Rep. Pete Aguilar, declined to elaborate on next steps should Schiff and Swalwell be blocked or booted by Republicans from the intelligence panel, saying: “We will send the names of the individuals who this caucus supports and are qualified to serve on committees. What the speaker does beyond that is something that we will handle … but it isn’t anything we’re going to get in today.”

In November, during an interview with ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, the potential removal of his committee assignment was discussed by Schiff.

This is what Schiff said of McCarthy: “I suspect he will do whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do. “He is a very weak leader of his conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator. And if that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees, that’s what they’ll do.”

Schiff was accused by McCarthy of lying to the public during references to a disputed dossier that claimed to outline links between former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

Stating there’s no way he should be allowed to serve on the committee, McCarthy has also called Swalwell a “national security threat” for Swalwell’s reported run-ins with an alleged Chinese spy.

According to the Associated Press, Swalwell has not been accused of wrongdoing and he has said he stopped contact with the woman after federal authorities briefed him.

In Trump’s first Senate trial, Schiff served as the lead impeachment manager, and both he and Swalwell were managers for Trump’s second impeachment trial.

As a speaker, McCarthy has the power to keep Schiff and Swalwell off the intelligence panel. But the full House would need to vote by simple majority for any other committee – like Omar on foreign affairs – in order to block her.

But for some of her statements, Omar has previously apologized, including the one about lobbyists on behalf of Israel’s government. Omar was criticized by McCarthy over what he described as her “repeated antisemitic and anti-American remarks.”

In November, Omar said in a statement that “McCarthy’s effort to repeatedly single me out for scorn and hatred – including threatening to strip me from my committee – does nothing to address the issues our constituents deal with. It does nothing to address inflation, healthcare, or solve the climate crisis.”

“What it does is gin up fear and hate against Somali-Americans and anyone who shares my identity, and further divide us along racial and ethnic lines,” added Omar.