Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is campaigning to become the next Speaker of the House in the 118th Congress. If he takes the gavel, he will have the power to add and remove members from committee assignments; a power he said he plans to use.
In an interview on Fox News, McCarthy said he will take Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., off the Foreign Affairs Committee for making antisemitic comments. He also said he will remove Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., from the Intelligence Committee.
“Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the public sector. Why would we ever give him a security clearance and the secrets to America? So I will not allow him to be on intel,” McCarthy said on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures. “You have Adam Schiff who had lied to the American public time and again. We will not allow him to be on the intel committee either.”
Swalwell had a romantic relationship with a Chinese intelligence operative. Schiff has been accused of repeatedly lying about the Trump-Russia investigation.
Schiff shot back and said when Republicans take control of the House in January it will be “chaos.”
“Well I suspect he will do whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do. He’s a very weak leader of his conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator,” Schiff said on ABC’s This Week. “If that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees that’s what they’ll do.”
The political parties typically vote behind closed doors on who they want to serve on each committee. Those nominations are then voted on by the full House with little fanfare.
