Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will “regret” keeping him off the Intelligence Committee, promising to use his free time to be a thorn in the House speaker’s side.
McCarthy has vowed to keep Swalwell and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) off the Intelligence Committee and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) off the Foreign Affairs Committee, a move that Democrats say is retaliation for Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) being stripped of their committee assignments at the beginning of the last Congress.
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Swalwell was booted from the committee for a past relationship with an alleged Chinese spy, and Schiff was booted for pushing the theory that former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Republicans ousted Omar for antisemitic comments about Israel.
“He’s going to regret the day that he has given me more free time, Lawrence, because I’m not going to be quiet. I’m not going to back down,” Swalwell said on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC Monday night.
His defiance echoes Greene feeling liberated after losing her committees for past social media posts supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory. In February 2021, she said she was “free” to work for her constituents instead of on committees controlled by Democrats.
“I’ve been freed. I do. I feel free because — you know what’s happening on these committees? You see, we have basically a tyrannically controlled government right now,” Greene said at the time.
Swalwell appeared on the program along with Omar and Schiff after Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) requested that they serve on their previous committees, a request McCarthy will reject. Schiff was the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, and Omar had a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
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“What we’re seeing here is that the new McCarthy looks a lot like the old McCarthy — an individual who would abuse their political power to exact political vengeance,” Swalwell continued. “And in my case, he’s doing it under the fig leaf of false claims that, as the Washington Post fact-checker pointed out, gave him four Pinocchios in the same, just as bogus claims about Chairman Schiff and Ms. Omar.”
McCarthy allowed Greene and Gosar, who was punished last Congress for posting an animated video depicting violence against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), to have committee assignments again after Republicans took control of the lower chamber earlier this month.
