California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reportedly had a heated argument on June 22 that entailed McCarthy allegedly threatening to fight Swalwell after the Democrat called him a “p***y.”
The conflict allegedly started during the vote to censure California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, according to the Daily Beast, which cites two unidentified members of Congress. The measure in the U.S. House of Representatives against Schiff was proposed by Republican Anna Paulina Luna of Florida. The vote was held on June 21.
“This is pathetic,” Swalwell reportedly told McCarthy while the speaker was presiding over the House. “You’re weak. You’re a weak man.”
Swalwell reportedly left the chamber the following day to use the restroom before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s joint address to Congress.
McCarthy reportedly saw Swalwell and said, ‘If you ever say something like that to me again, I’m gonna kick the sh*t out of you,’” an unnamed member of Congress told The Daily Beast.
“They were in each other’s faces. Basically nose-to-nose,” the source said, per the Daily Beast. Swalwell reportedly responded with something like, ‘Are we really gonna do this?”
“Call me a p***y again, and I’ll kick your a**,” McCarthy allegedly said.
Swalwell and McCarthy did not end up fighting, but the sources said the back-and-forth was tense.
Schiff was censured by a majority of House members late last month and, as a result, has gone down in U.S. history, though not in a favorable manner.
Schiff is one of just two dozen members of Congress since the country’s founding to have been censured and had to stand in front of Congress and be humiliated by his colleagues.
The effort to censure Schiff began with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who labeled him a “criminal” for allegedly leveraging his former position as head of the House Intelligence Committee to falsely accuse former President Donald Trump of “colluding” with Russia to undermine the 2016 election.
During an interview on Fox News, Paulina Luna discussed the House Oversight Committee’s ongoing efforts to hold former Schiff accountable for lying about the Trump-Russia investigation without any significant evidence to back claims of alleged collusion
“I will speak to Adam Schiff. Maria, I have a privileged resolution that I’m bringing to the floor, and we are going to fine that man 16 million dollars for using his position to lie to the American people and ultimately push something that not only destroyed our country but ripped us apart and I believe, maybe even permanently damaging foreign relations. He is a criminal, and Adam Schiff, you will be held accountable,” Luna said.
“And yet, he was privileged to information that not even I or many of my colleagues would be able to see,” Luna went on to say. “He used that position. He absolutely aided and abetted a corrupt FBI into investigating a sitting president.”
“Adam Schiff lied to the American people. He used his position on House Intelligence to push a lie that cost American taxpayers millions of dollars and abused the trust placed in him as Chairman. He is a dishonor to the House of Representatives. The Durham Report makes clear that the Russian Collusion was a lie from day one and Schiff knowingly used his position in an attempt to divide our country,” she added.
Earlier this year, Schiff was accused of leaking highly classified information for years in order to damage then-President Donald Trump.
Former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently claimed that he was forced to limit how much information he gave to Schiff and his staff out of fear that it would be weaponized and selectively leaked to the media.
“During my time as CIA director and secretary of state, I know that he leaked classified information that had been provided to him,” Pompeo said.
“Outnumbered” co-host Emily Compagno, after emphasizing what a huge problem that is, asked Pompeo why there hadn’t been any accountability if leaking that kind of information is “a felony at a minimum, up to treason.”
“It’s a complicated process, right? It’s difficult to pin down precisely what happened,” Pompeo said. “But I could tell you that when we provided information to him and to his staff, it ended up in places it shouldn’t have been with alarming regularity. We could see it. In the end, I decided I held back information from them as a result.”
