Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a meltdown of sorts on the chamber floor on Wednesday after Republicans voted to censure her California colleague, Rep. Adam Schiff. Pelosi chastised GOP members and accused them of moving to censure Schiff in an attempt to placate former President Donald Trump, claiming they “look miserable” in the process.
“Today, we are on the floor of the House where the other side has turned this chamber, where slavery was abolished, where Medicare and Social Security and everything were instituted, they’ve turned it into a puppet show,” she said before calling Trump “the puppeteer.”
“You look miserable,” she continued, adding again: “You look miserable.”
“You’re wasting your time,” she said.
Wednesday evening, the resolution to censure Schiff passed by a vote of 213-209; only Republicans voted for the censure, with all Democrats voting against it. Six GOP members voted “present.”
Immediately following the vote, Democrats gathered on the floor and chanted “Shame!” and “Disgrace!” as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., tried to gavel the House in order for several minutes. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was heard calling McCarthy a “spiteful coward” and accusing him of “weak leadership.”
McCarthy then asked Schiff to present himself in the well of the House, and Democrats clapped and cheered as he approached. After being interrupted several times by Democrats, McCarthy said, “I have all night.”
Schiff then stood in well of the House as required by the resolution, and was hugged and cheered by dozens of Democrats who surrounded him. The measure also requires the House Committee on Ethics to investigate Schiff’s “falsehoods, misrepresentations, and abuses of sensitive information.”
The resolution was introduced by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who said it was necessary to punish Schiff for spreading the falsehood that Trump “colluded” with Russia to win the 2016 election. Several investigations, including one by the FBI and another by special counsel Robert Mueller, failed to find any evidence of the accusation, though Schiff falsely claimed for years he had proof.
A recently completed investigation by special counsel John Durham found that the FBI essentially conducted a politicized investigation into Trump and his 2016 campaign after the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton leveled the falsehood.
“As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff launched an all-out political campaign built on baseless distortions against a sitting U.S. president, at the expense of every single citizen in this country and the honor of the House of Representatives,” Luna said before the vote on Wednesday.
“With access to sensitive information unavailable to most members of Congress and certainly not accessible to the American people, Schiff abused his privileges, claiming to know the truth while leaving Americans in the dark about his web of lies… lies so severe that they altered the course of the country forever,” she added.
Last week, she filed a resolution to both censure and fine Schiff $16 million — what she claimed was half the cost of the Mueller investigation. But that effort failed after 20 Republicans sided with all Democrats to defeat it over the fine.
Schiff was also the leader of the first impeachment of Trump, alleging that he threatened to withhold funds from Ukraine unless its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, vowed to conduct an investigation into now-President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has said he has seen FBI documentation proving that the two of them took millions in bribes from a Ukrainian energy official while Joe Biden was serving as Barack Obama’s vice president.
Rep. Lauren Boebert announced earlier this week she will be introducing a privileged resolution that would force every House member to vote on whether to impeach Joe Biden over his mishandling of the U.S. border and for other breaches of his oath of office.