On Monday and after a riveting and, at times, surreal intraparty debate process over the course of several days that saw 15 vote rounds held before he officially became Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) confirmed that he would seek for Democrat Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.), Eric Swalwell (Calif.), and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) are to be booted off their committee assignments.
McCarthy gave Punchbowl News the rationale for his decision:
McCarthy told Punchbowl News in an interview published Tuesday that he will act to prevent Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., from sitting on the House Intelligence Committee. He will also seek to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.”Swalwell can’t get a security clearance in the private sector. I’m not going to give him a government security clearance,” McCarthy said, echoing statements he made to Fox News in November. “Schiff has lied too many times to the American public. He should not be on Intel.”As for Omar, McCarthy has previously argued she should be stripped of her committee seat for her outspoken criticism of Israel, which critics say is borderline antisemitic.
In comments made a year ago, McCarthy noted the new Democrat standard of doing this very thing, insinuating it would come back to bite them when they were out of power:
“The Democrats have created a new thing where they’re picking and choosing who could be on committee,” McCarthy said last January. “Never in the history [of Congress] have you had the majority tell the minority who could be on committee, but this new standard, which these Democrats have voted for — if Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the private sector, there’s no reason why he should be given one to be on Intel or Homeland Security.”
Now that Republicans have regained control of the House, McCarthy is engaging in a little payback. Naturally, this has caused some tantrums on the Democratic side from Swalwell, who took to the Twitter machine Tuesday after Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) sat down for a lively interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid in which the issue of committee assignments was hotly debated:
During the interview, Donalds explained the concept of precedence to Reid:
The Twitter responses to Swalwell’s whining were brutal:
Interestingly, Swalwell left out the part where this likely would have happened to him even if Democrats still controlled the House:
The move is largely symbolic, as Swalwell is already due to be rotated off his committee, and Omar’s assignment is subject to a House vote that would likely be rejected by the GOP majority.
Whatever the case may be, the spoils and all that go to the victors. Sorry, not sorry, Eric Swalwell:
Heh.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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