Twenty Republicans joined House Democrats on Wednesday in voting to table a resolution censuring California’s Adam Schiff (D). One of the votes to table came New Jersey freshman Republican member Tom Kean Jr. of the 7th Congressional District.
Kean and the 19 other Republican members have weathered a large volume of criticism from the GOP base and conservative media on social media over the ensuing 24 hours.
However, in a statement obtained by Save Jersey, Rep. Kean clarified that he supports referring Schiff to the Ethics Committee but doubts the constitutionality of the attached $16 million fine.
“I am deeply disturbed by the actions of Representative Schiff, which is why I supported his removal from the Intelligence Committee earlier this year. I share the concerns of my fellow Republican colleagues that a multi-million dollar financial penalty included in this resolution raises constitutional issues. Without that provision included, I would support censuring Rep. Schiff and referring him to the Ethics Committee for further investigation.”
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s Mike Fitzpatrick (who also voted to table the resolution) reported on Thursday that he’s actively working with the sponsor to “fix” the language. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is on record expressing concerns that the fine itself isn’t constitutional as violative of the 8th and 27th Amendments…
https://twitter.com/RepBrianFitz/status/1669369370374467584
“By repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people,” the resolution alleges, citing the report of Special Counsel John Durham which contradicted Rep. Schiff’s public claims of Russian collusion involving Donald Trump.
“Representative Schiff lent credibility to the Steele dossier — a collection of debunked collusion accusations funded by President Trump’s political rivals — by reading false Steele allegations into the Congressional Record,” the resolution continued.
“Representative Schiff composed a false memo justifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application on Trump associate Carter Page, which Inspector General Horowitz later found was riddled with 17 major mistakes and omissions, provoking FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer to state unequivocally that the Federal Bureau of Investigation ‘[misled] the FISC,'” Luna’s resolution added.
