(DCWatchdog.com) – HAPPENING NOW: Rep. Adam Schiff announced his candidacy for the 2024 Senate race in California on Thursday, stating that Democrats “need a fighter” in the wake of being removed from the House intelligence committee by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Schiff, who gained national attention as a leading opponent of former President Donald Trump, was the lead impeachment manager in the 2020 Senate trial for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Biden family’s business dealings.
In his statement, Schiff said, “We’re in the fight of our lives for the future of our country. Our democracy is under assault from MAGA extremists, who care only about gaining power and keeping it. And our economy is simply not working for millions of Americans, who are working harder than ever just to get by.” He added that Democrats “need a fighter in the U.S. Senate who has been at the center of the struggle for our democracy and our economy.”
Schiff will be facing fellow Reps. Katie Porter, Barbara Lee, and potentially incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the Democratic primary.
The 62-year-old Schiff represents a safely Democratic House district that includes West Hollywood and parts of Burbank and Glendale north of downtown Los Angeles.
Republicans have accused Schiff of using his position on the intelligence committee to mislead the public during the investigation of Trump’s possible conspiracy with Russia, which concluded with special counsel Robert Mueller finding no such evidence.
In response to Schiff’s removal from the committee, McCarthy said, “integrity matters” and “the misuse of this panel during the 116th and 117th Congresses severely undermined its primary national security and oversight missions – ultimately leaving our nation less safe.”
Porter has also faced negative press after a former aide, Sasha Georgiades, revealed that the lawmaker blamed her for giving her COVID-19 and banned her from the office. Porter, who represents Laguna Beach and Irvine in Orange County, refused to answer questions about the incident during a recent encounter on Capitol Hill.
Lee, who has not yet formally launched her Senate campaign, represents Oakland and would be just the third black woman elected to the upper chamber in U.S. history. Lee became a favorite of anti-war and pro-civil liberties activists following 9/11 when she was the sole “no” vote in Congress against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor and a senator since 1992 has not yet announced if she will seek reelection. However, recent reports have raised questions about her mental fitness to remain in office.
“It’s bad, and it’s getting worse,” one Democratic senator told the San Francisco Chronicle of Feinstein’s condition in April last year. “I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea,” a member of California’s congressional delegation told the paper at the time. “All of that is gone. She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring. Because there was just no trace of that.”
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