Former President Trump slammed the House Republicans who voted with Democrats to block the resolution that would have censured Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Trump said in a Truth Social post on Friday that any Republican who opposed the censure resolution should face a primary challenge for the GOP nomination for their next election.
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“Any Republican voting against his CENSURE, or worse, should immediately be primaried. There are plenty of great candidates out there,” he said.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) introduced the resolution last month and brought it to the floor as a privileged resolution on Tuesday, requiring the House to take action on it. But Democrats were able to successfully pass a motion to table the resolution with 20 Republicans joining them, effectively stopping it from proceeding.
“Anna Paulina Luna is a STAR,” Trump wrote on Friday, adding “She never gives up, especially in holding total lowlifes like Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff responsible for their lies, deceit, deception, and actually putting our Country at great risk…”
Schiff has received widespread criticism from many in the GOP over his role as one of the leaders of the first impeachment inquiry against Trump. Schiff was serving as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at the time.
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He also led Democratic accusations that the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) blocked Schiff from serving on the Intelligence Committee in January, accusing him of lying about Trump’s ties to Russia.
The censure resolution included a nonbinding clause stating that if the House Ethics Committee found that Schiff “lied, made misrepresentations, and abused sensitive information,” he should be fined $16 million. Luna said the amount if half the cost of the investigation into the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of the 20 who voted against the resolution, said he opposed the effort because of the fine, arguing it violates the Constitution.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the current chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was also one of the GOP “no” votes.
Luna is planning to try to bring the censure resolution up again with the recommended $16 million fine removed from the text, Axios reported. At least a couple of the Republicans who voted against the resolution could switch their votes to be in favor without the fine included.
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Schiff said after the resolution was tabled that he was “flattered” by the censure attempt, saying that it is only an effort to distract from Trump’s ongoing legal challenges.
He tweeted on Wednesday that Luna told him that she is filing another censure resolution next week that will pass.
