- Kevin McCarthy vowed to move to kick three Democrats off of various committee assignments.
- McCarthy said his actions are rooted in Democrats removing Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from committees.
- "It is always difficult to take Kevin McCarthy seriously," one Democrat's office said in response.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy vowed to kick three Democrats off of some of their committee assignments if Republicans retake the House in November, pointing to actions Democrats have taken against GOP lawmakers as the reason behind his would-be retribution.
"The Democrats have created a new thing where they're picking and choosing who can be on committees," McCarthy told Breitbart. "Never in the history [of Congress] have you had the majority tell the minority who can be on [a] committee."
Reps. Ilhan Omar, Eric Swalwell, and Adam Schiff are not surprising targets for the top House Republican. McCarthy has previously moved to kick Swalwell off of the House Intelligence Committee due to contact with a suspected Chinese spy that Swalwell disclosed to the FBI and has called for Omar to get booted from the House Foreign Affairs panel due to past comments he called "antisemitic." Omar in 2019 said "I unequivocally apologize" for suggesting that GOP support of Israel is due to campaign donations.
McCarthy is correct in pointing out that House Democrats took an unprecedented step last year when they removed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, from all of her committee assignments for endorsing conspiracy theories and promoting violence against Democratic lawmakers. Top Democrats at the time said their actions were necessary since McCarthy and other GOP leaders refused to punish Greene.
Democrats later stripped Rep. Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona, from his committee assignments after he posted an edited anime video showing him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
McCarthy said he would remove Schiff, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, from the panel due to his use of the discredited dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. Schiff has defended investigating the dossier's claims and pointed to the fact that they showed Russian officials were trying to get President Donald Trump elected.
"It is always difficult to take Kevin McCarthy seriously," Schiff spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement. "Nevertheless, allowing McCarthy to get anywhere near the Speaker's gavel would be catastrophic — not just because of his propensity for falsehoods and smears, but because he will exist solely to do Donald Trump's bidding — even potentially overturning the 2024 results."
Omar's and Swalwell's respective offices did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
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