In an interview for MSNBC, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) accused leading Republicans in elected office of having essentially abandoned their oaths in service of the political ambitions of Donald Trump. The party elevated election denial-involved Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) to serve as Speaker, going with someone who helped spearhead in multiple venues the House GOP’s opposition to the certification of the evidence-supported results from the 2020 presidential election.
“And what we found out in that Speakership fight was the prerequisite to being the leader of the Republican Party in Congress is you must be willing to lie for Donald Trump,” Schiff remarked on the air. “You must be willing to undermine our democracy. If you’re not, you’re not qualified to run this conference. And so we did end up with a Speaker who was very involved in the litigation to overturn the election. And we still have a Judiciary Committee chairman who ignored subpoenas.” The latter reference is to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who infamously rebuffed attempts by the House committee that investigated January 6 and surrounding circumstances to secure his cooperation. Schiff was on that panel.
Schiff characterized Republicans in that corner of their party following Trump as showing they “care far more about holding their office than they ever did about the oath of office.” Helping lead the January 6 committee was ex-GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who in recent media appearances has been sounding a rhetorical alarm about both the Republicans in Congress and Trump as the latter seeks another term.
“He’s told us what he will do,” Cheney told CBS. “It’s very easy to see the steps that he will take. People who say, ‘Well, if he’s elected, it’s not that dangerous, because we have all of these checks and balances’ don’t fully understand the extent to which Republicans in Congress today have been co-opted. One of the things that we see happening today is sort of a sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States.” Cheney herself was essentially pushed from Congress by fellow Republicans in a primary after she consistently spoke against Trump’s obsessive election lies. See the commentary from Schiff below, earlier highlighted by Raw Story:
