How Kevin McCarthy has attacked House Democrats for 'lying' while telling 'blatant lies' himself: journalist

26 January 2023

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has drawn plenty of criticism from Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, for removing Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell, both of California, from the House Intelligence Committee. McCarthy has cited “lying” as a reason for his decision, although he has no problem with Rep. George Santos, a Queens/Long Island Republican serving on the House Science Committee. Santos, according to publications ranging from the New York Times to NBC News, lied repeatedly during his 2022 campaign.

To McCarthy’s critics, barring Schiff and Swalwell from the Intelligence Committee is pure partisanship. In an article published by Mother Jones on January 25, journalist Abigail Weinberg lays out some reasons why McCarthy’s arguments against the congressmen “don’t hold water.”

“In 2019 and 2020,” Weinberg observes, “Schiff was the lead manager in the impeachment proceedings against former President Trump. The investigation was sparked by a whistleblower complaint suggesting that Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating Joe and Hunter Biden. McCarthy suggested that Schiff had information about the whistleblower that he was not sharing with the public…. A member of Schiff’s staff did meet with the whistleblower — a fact Schiff denied when speaking to the media. But there’s no evidence that Schiff knew who the whistleblower was, as Glenn Kessler explains in the Washington Post.”

Weinberg adds, “McCarthy also accused Swalwell of lying regarding his apparent relationship with a Chinese spy, for which the FBI had cleared him of wrongdoing…. Both Schiff and Swalwell have made the sort of spin and exaggeration common among politicians. But it’s clear that McCarthy is cherry-picking moments of dishonesty to remove the most outspoken Democratic politicians from one of Congress’ most important committees.”

Moreover, Weinberg writes in her Mother Jones piece, McCarthy told a “blatant lie” when he said that he had “never called on” former President Donald Trump to “resign” after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Weinberg notes, played, on her show, an actual recording of McCarthy calling for Trump to resign.

Read Mother Jones’ full story at this link.

From Your Site Articles