The House on Wednesday avoided a vote that would have forced lawmakers to decide whether to censure Rep. Adam B. Schiff for his allegations against former President Donald Trump of Russian collusion in the 2016 election.
Democrats, with the help of 20 Republicans, tabled a censure resolution introduced Tuesday by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Republican.
The motion passed 225-196, with seven lawmakers voting present. Five lawmakers did not vote.
Rep. Steve Cohen, Tennessee Democrat, said that Ms. Luna, a first-term lawmaker, introduced the resolution to make a name for herself by going after a well-known senior House Democrat.
“Mr. Schiff is like a big star. So a lot of these Republicans try to attack big stars to get publicity and get attention. So he’s kind of like Moby Dick,” Mr. Cohen said. “And she’s Captain Ahab and she wants to get the big whale. She ain’t gonna get the big whale. She’ll go down. The big whale will laugh at her.”
Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky was among the 20 GOP House members who voted to table the resolution.
He tweeted Wednesday morning that he thought Mr. Schiff “acted unethically, but if a resolution to fine him $16 million” came to the floor, he would vote to table it.
“In fact, I’m still litigating a federal lawsuit against [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi over a salary reduction she imposed on me for my refusal to wear a mask,” he said.
Rep. Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Republican, voted against the motion to table Ms. Luna’s resolution and called Mr. Schiff a “prolific liar” who caused “angst” across the country. “There has to be some accountability for that,” he said.
Mr. Perry, told The Washington Times he was not disappointed by GOP lawmakers who voted to table the resolution.
“Everybody votes. We respect that. I vote what I think is right. We respect what they do,” he said.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, California Democrat, told The Times that the GOP lawmakers who voted to table the resolution saved themselves and their conference from a “brutal debate.”
“That’s why they joined us,” she said.
Ms. Luna’s resolution, which called for a $16 million fine against Mr. Schiff, condemned the lawmaker “for conduct that misleads the American people in a way that is not befitting an elected Member of the House of Representatives.”
The resolution also noted special counsel John Durham’s recent report that excoriated the FBI’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The censure resolution says Mr. Schiff abused his power against Mr. Trump’s campaign allies when he was a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
According to the resolution, the congressman abused “privileged access to classified information” and “composed a false memo justifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application on Trump associate Carter Page.”
The resolution also says he “exploited his positions on HPSCI to encourage and excuse abusive intelligence investigations of Americans for political purposes.”
Ms. Luna’s resolution came to the floor the same day Mr. Trump, who was investigated in the last Congress by the committee Mr. Schiff led, pleaded not guilty to a 37-count federal indictment from the Justice Department on allegations that he improperly kept classified documents.
In a letter to Democratic colleagues on Tuesday, first reported by CNN, Mr. Schiff called the resolution “false and defamatory” and said that Ms. Luna was bringing the measure to the floor “to gratify the former President’s MAGA allies, and distract from Donald Trump’s legal troubles by retaliating against me for my role in exposing his abuses of power, and leading the first impeachment against him.”
Mr. Schiff was the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for many years until this Congress, when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy removed him and Rep. Eric Swalwell, California Democrat, from the panel. Mr. Schiff, who is among a pool of primary Democrats running to replace the retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein, accused Mr. Trump of colluding with Russia in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.
Mr. Schiff’s Senate campaign sent out an email alert asking for donations and telling supporters that “the authors of the Big Lie are attacking me for telling the truth, and it’s blatant political retaliation for my efforts to hold Trump accountable for his abuses of power.”
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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