President Trump said Wednesday that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) should be removed from office after Attorney General William Barr said the Mueller report did not conclude that his campaign conspired with the Russian government in 2016.
“I heard they should force him off the committee, or off the committee chair … he should be forced out of office,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “He is a disgrace to our country.”
{mosads}“Schiff is a bad guy because he knew he was lying.”
Trump’s comments came days after Barr sent a letter to Congress stating that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation did not find evidence of coordination between Trump’s campaign and Moscow.
Since that revelation, Republicans and members of the Trump administration have called out Schiff for his insistence that coordination did occur.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called for Schiff to step down as Intelligence Committee chairman.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday that he should resign for his continued lies about the investigation into Trump.
“[Schiff] owes the American public an apology,” McCarthy said in an interview with Politico. “Schiff has met the standard that he has imposed on other members of Congress of when they should step back from their positions.”
Schiff, an outspoken critic of Trump, has said for months that there is evidence of collusion in “plain sight.”
“For a year and a half he’d go on and just lie and lie and lie and leak and call up CNN and others,” Trump said Wednesday.
Trump also suggested Schiff’s comments about collusion could be criminal.
“He knew it was a lie, and therefore in one way you could say it’s a crime what he did.”
Schiff’s committee is currently conducting its own Russia investigation and has spoken with multiple Trump associates on the matter.
Schiff said after Barr’s letter that he trusted Mueller’s judgment, but also called for the full release of the report.
“Mueller did not find sufficient evidence to establish conspiracy, notwithstanding Russian offers to help Trump’s campaign, their acceptance, and a litany of concealed interactions with Russia,” Schiff tweeted. “I trust Mueller’s prosecutorial judgement, but the country must see the evidence.”