Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) on Thursday called for an investigation into House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), citing his past rhetoric about President Trump and his family in the special counsel probe into Russian election meddling.
“Isn’t that the information that we need to know?” Hice, who serves on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told Hill.TV when asked whether he agreed with Trump’s recent comments calling for Schiff to be forced out of office, and he suggested the California lawmaker may have committed a crime.
“Let’s find out,” Hice continued. “Let’s open it up. Let’s bring those people forward.”
“As I said, we need to find out,” he said when asked directly whether he thought Schiff was a criminal.
“I don’t know all that he’s done, but what I do know is that he’s been on the forefront for two years claiming that he had evidence that the president colluded with Russia,” he continued. “I believe thoroughly that was false. He was either misled, or he was misleading, and we need to get to the bottom of it.”
“So Adam Schiff needs to be one that comes forward. If he has evidence, put it on the table. So if he has committed crimes, we need to find out, and I think that is one individual, absolutely, that needs to be brought forward for a thorough investigation,” Hice continued.
Hice’s comments came as Schiff hit back at Republicans on Capitol Hill for calling for his resignation.
“My colleagues may think it is OK the president’s son was offered dirt as part of an effort to help Trump,” Schiff said. “You might think it is OK. I don’t.”
Schiff’s comments were in response to Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who said that the chairman had lost the confidence of the panel by putting out a “demonstrably false” narrative.
“The findings of the special counsel conclusively refute your past and present assertions and have exposed you as abused your position to knowingly promote false information,” Conaway said.
Attorney General William Barr said in a summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election that no evidence of coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Moscow was discovered.
Republicans have since seized on that statement, but Democrats have pointed to Mueller declining to say whether Trump obstructed the probe itself, according to the attorney general’s summary.
Barr, however, said in the summary that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein came to the conclusion that the evidence was “not sufficient” to establish an obstruction of justice charge.
— Julia Manchester
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