House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sunday renewed his promise to remove Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) from the House Intelligence Committee if he becomes Speaker in the next Congress.
“Another change you’re going to get: Adam Schiff will no longer be on the Intel Committee when I become Speaker. I promised that more than two years ago,” McCarthy told “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.
The minority leader, who won the GOP conference’s nomination to be Speaker last month, has vowed to oust Schiff over what he sees as unchecked Democratic control over the Intel Committee.
“[Democrats] also used the intel community as well to lie to the American public. Should those people keep their clearances? Should those people still be allowed to have information? If they’re going to be political individuals, then, no, they should not. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of what we need to investigate going forward,” McCarthy said.
The Republican meanwhile lauded Twitter CEO Elon Musk, whose recent takeover of the company has been wrought with controversy, for sharing alleged Twitter emails related to the social media platform’s treatment of a New York Post article about President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
“What Elon Musk has been able to do, now we know why the White House wanted to fight so strongly against him owning Twitter. All he’s done is put out the truth. Now we need to start looking at Facebook, at Google. These now have become arms of the Democratic Party, arms of the Biden administration,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy has also said he’ll remove Democratic Reps. Eric Swalwell (Calif.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) from their committee posts if he becomes Speaker.
Schiff last week hit back at McCarthy’s attacks, accusing him of bending to extremists in his party in order to get the votes he needs to get the top leadership spot when the next Congress convenes.
“Kevin McCarthy has no ideology. He has no core set of beliefs. It’s very hard not only to get to 218 that way. It’s even more difficult to keep 218. That’s his problem,” Schiff said.
On Sunday, McCarthy also repeated promises to head up a select committee to investigate China over the origins of COVID-19, among other matters.