The monitoring group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust filed a complaint on Friday saying that Rep. Adam Schiff was accused of using footage of himself giving a speech in announcing his candidacy for the US Senate, should be investigated.
Schiff’s two-minute video shows the California Democrat addressing senators in his role as impeachment manager during former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Members of the House of Representatives are prohibited from using House and Senate footage for campaign purposes, even if the footage comes from a news agency.
“This is a clear violation of House ethics rules and federal law. Rep. Schiff has been in Congress for over two decades and undoubtedly knows that official government resources cannot be used for political purposes,” FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold said in a statement.
‘Rep. Schiff must immediately remove the video and stop distributing the footage, and the Office of Congressional Ethics should act quickly to investigate and sanction Rep. Schiff for this violation,” she added.
The monitoring group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust filed a complaint on Friday saying that Rep. Adam Schiff was accused of using footage of himself giving a speech in announcing his candidacy for the US Senate, should be investigated
Our democracy is in great danger. Because GOP leaders care more about power than anything else.
And because our economy isn’t working for millions of hard-working Americans.
We are in the fight of our lives – a fight I am ready to fight as California’s next US Senator. pic.twitter.com/H0Pa0EhhMu
— Adam Schiff (@AdamSchiff) January 26, 2023
Schiff announced a run Thursday and launched a bid to take the place of 89-year-old incumbent Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Schiff’s announcement video heavily touts his prominent role in Trump’s first impeachment.
“I wish I could say the MAGA extremist threat is over,” he says in the two-minute spot. ‘It is not. Today’s Republican Party is cannibalizing the middle class and threatening our democracy. You won’t stop. We have to stop them.”
Schiff is the second Democrat to officially enter the California race while Feinstein has not said she is retiring.
It comes two days after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy removed Schiff, the former leader, from the House Intelligence Committee, with the California Republican accusing the Democrat of lying about Russiagate and the veracity of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Rep. Adam Schiff announced Thursday that he is running for the Senate and launched a bid to speak on the seat of 89-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein
The 89-year-old incumbent, Senator Dianne Feinstein, has yet to announce her resignation, but Reps Katie Porter and Adam Schiff have already announced their intention to run for her seat
With Schiff entering the race, there will likely be a lengthy primary.
Earlier this month MP Katie Porter said she would run.
At the same time, Rep. Barbara Lee has told lawmakers that she plans to compete in the race, but has not made an official announcement, Axios reported.
And it could get ugly.
A ‘Source near Adam Schiff‘ called it an ‘incredible mistake’ by Porter to announce her candidacy at a time when California was being hit by dangerous rains and flooding.
NBC reported in the same story that Schiff met with Feinstein to tell her he was planning to walk.
Feinstein told the Los Angeles Times in December that she plans to serve out her term and announce her plans for 2024 “in due course.”
For months, Feinstein has been plagued by reports that her memory is failing.
If she left her post early, California Gov. Gavin Newsom could name a temporary replacement. The state’s other senator, Sen. Alex Padilla, was appointed first to his position, replacing current Vice President Kamala Harris after she was sworn in.
Earlier this month, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter announced via a video posted to Twitter that she was seeking the seat, arguing that “California needs a warrior in the Senate.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who served as Sen. Bernie Sanders’ national co-chairman in the 2020 presidential primary, told NBC he would make his decision about jumping into the Senate race in the next few months.
Schiff became one of the most high-profile House Democrats during the Trump years — so much so that he earned the nickname “little pencil neck” from the former president, which Schiff included in his campaign launch video.
Colleague California Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed him lead impeachment manager during Trump’s first impeachment in January 2020.
He hinted at that role during a news conference on Wednesday, after McCarthy removed both him and MP Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee.
“The cardinal sin appears to be that I led the impeachment of his master at Mar-a-Lago for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid from Ukraine, a nation already at war with Russia, in order to protect them to blackmail this country into supporting Donald Trump’s re-election campaign,” Schiff said.
McCarthy said he removed Schiff because he “lied to the American public.”
“When Devin Nunes published a memo, [Schiff] said it was wrong. When we had a laptop, he used it before an election [play] Politics and say it was wrong and said it was the Russians even though he knew otherwise,” said the Speaker of the House.
“He used his position as chairman because he knew he had information that the rest of Americans don’t have and he lied to the American public,” McCarthy continued.