You remember California Congressman Adam Schiff, the man who exploited his position on the House Intelligence Committee by notoriously lying about having seen evidence that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election? Well, he’s now running for the U.S. Senate, hoping to win the late Dianne Feinstein’s seat. He has a few Democratic opponents, but also a Republican opponent: Steve Garvey was a professional baseball player from 1969 to 1987 who played first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.
All three Democrat candidates, Schiff, Rep. Katie Porter, and Rep. Barbara Lee, faced off in a debate Monday night that included Garvey. The primary in California is an open primary, meaning the top two candidates, regardless of political party, will face off in the general election. That means that Porter and Lee, who are trailing behind Schiff, may lose to Garvey in the primary.
And Garvey certainly deserves a lot of credit for being the only Republican debating three Democrats. They certainly tried to pile on him, attempting to paint him as a “MAGA extremist” or whatever the focus-group-tested anti-Trump buzzphrase of the moment is.
But the big moment of the night was when Garvey called out Schiff for lying to the American people and corrected him on why he was censured by the House.
“I think you’ve been censured for lying,” Garvey said.
After a brief pause, Schiff responded, “I was censured for standing up to a corrupt president,” resulting in bunch of back and forth before the moderator finally gave Garvey a chance to finish speaking without Schiff talking over him.
"Sorry, I was just called a liar by Mr. Garvey,” Schiff began. “Mr. Garvey, I was censured for standing up to a corrupt president. And you know something? I would do it all over again. Because that corrupt president—that president who has been indicted with 94 felony... 91 felony counts—that president that you won't refuse to support? Yeah, he's a danger, and I will stand up to him, and Kevin McCarthy, and Jim Jordan, and any of those MAGA enablers of his in the Congress. The reason why our democracy is in trouble is because folks don't have the courage to stand up when they need to."
Garvey insisted on a chance to respond and told Schiff, "Sorry, you lied to 300 million people. You can't take that back."
The look on Schiff’s face was priceless, and the moderator chose to move the debate along.
Adam Schiff gets called out during the CA Senate debate by Republican Steve Garvey for lying about Russian collusion:
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 23, 2024
Garvey: "I believe you were censured for lying."
Schiff: "I was censured for standing up to a corrupt president"
Garvey: "Sir, you lied to 300 million people… pic.twitter.com/tqv4YD2kZZ
The resolution to censure Adam Schiff noted that all the allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election were completely false and that Schiff, who held positions of significant trust as the ranking minority member and later chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in the House of Representatives, enjoyed privileged access to sensitive intelligence and thus abused this trust by claiming to have personally seen evidence of collusion that doesn’t actually exist.
Had there been any evidence of collusion, the investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and Special Counsel Durham most certainly would have found it, yet none did.
And the look of Schiff’s face in that debate made it clear: he knows he’s a liar.
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