This week, in a partisan political stunt, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally stripped two of us — Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell — from our positions on the House Intelligence Committee, where the latter serves as ranking member. And the speaker is attempting to remove another one of us, Ilhan Omar, from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, despite opposition from within his own party.
Combined, Reps. Swalwell and Schiff have served on the Intelligence Committee for more than two decades. Both have a wealth of experience overseeing our intelligence agencies and both have investigated misconduct at the highest levels of our government. One of those investigations led to the impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
We will not dignify or amplify the flimsy pretexts McCarthy has given for removing us from our committees by repeating them here.
A survivor of civil conflict herself, Omar is the first African-born member to serve in the House, has sat on the full committee for four years, and enjoys the full support of our caucus to continue that important responsibility.
We will not dignify or amplify the flimsy pretexts McCarthy has given for removing us from our committees by repeating them here. Nor do we accept the fallacious argument that Republicans are merely echoing Democrats’ past removals of representatives from committees. Two GOP members, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, were removed from their committees last session on a bipartisan basis for encouraging violence against their colleagues, even after a deadly insurrection. There is no suggestion of any such basis for the purely partisan removal of the three of us from our committees. Doing the right thing is never a precedent for doing wrong.
Republicans say they believe in freedom of speech and debate, in exchange of ideas, and they say they are against cancel culture. But if you don’t agree with their policies, they will try to forcibly remove you from a committee you serve on because they’re afraid to debate.
McCarthy’s fallacious reasoning is also belied by his eager appointment of Rep. George Santos to the Science and Small Business committees. If ever there were a human embodiment of the Trump GOP’s disdain for truth, it was the election of this human fabrication to Congress. Even after Santos’ own New York Republican colleagues have called on him to resign, McCarthy has called on him to serve on two important legislative bodies. The hypocrisy could not be more stunning.








