Schiff Busted After Appearing as Likely Candidate to Replace Feinstein: Is His Past Catching Up to Him?
During the Donald Trump presidency, Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff spent years in the media limelight pushing the false theories that led to Trump’s first impeachment.
Now, as a potential candidate for Senate to replace the failing Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Schiff is under a different kind of spotlight, and what it’s showing might not be good for his Senate bid.
Schiff is the leading name so far to take Feinstein’s seat, ahead of second-place rival Rep. Katie Porter, another Democrat from Southern California.
A University of California, Berkeley, poll released Sept. 7 showed Schiff with 20 percent support, followed by Porter at 17 percent. About a third of those polled said they were undecided.
So far, 16 candidates are at least nominally competing for the seat, Spectrum News 1 reported.
In his battles with Trump, Schiff cultivated a media image of a congressman unafraid to take on the power of the White House on behalf of the people. (The anti-Trump establishment media was more than willing to promote Schiff’s sham.)
But a Politico report published Monday shows Schiff has a history of cultivating powerful interests when it suits his political ambitions — and rewarding them with taxpayer money.
According to Politico, Schiff has long been a proponent of financial earmarks in Congress. “Earmarks” allow lawmakers to direct federal funding toward favored projects in their districts or states, enabling them to reward donors for support with taxpayer money.
The practice was officially banned in both the House and Senate from 2011 to 2020, Politico noted, but has made a limited return since 2021 in the form of “community project funding,” which is restricted from helping for-profit companies.
But Schiff, who has been in the House since 2001, has rarely been shy about taking advantage of the earmark process to benefit preferred subjects in his district, Politico found. Beneficiaries of Schiff’s work — in turn — have donated to Schiff’s political ambitions.
“In fiscal year 2008, Schiff guided nearly a third of his earmarks to for-profit companies that were run by campaign donors,” Politico reported.
For instance, Schiff directed $6 million between 2003 and 2006 to Smiths Detection, a defense company in his district developing what Politico called “warfare sensors.”
In 2004, another defense company in Schiff’s district, Phasebridge Inc., got $3 million in federal funding through Schiff while developing what Politico called a “radar frequency distribution system” for the Navy.
Both companies were clients of the high-powered lobbying firm PMA Group, founded by Paul Magliocchetti, a staffer for then-Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat. Before his death in 2010, Murtha was chairman of the House subcommittee on defense appropriations, with the power to steer billions in taxpayer money, according to Reuters.
Between 2004 and 2008, Schiff got $8,500 in campaign donations from PMA as well as from Magliocchetti’s son and daughter. The son’s and daughter’s donations were made the same day, indicating that they were either coordinated, or that the siblings both had a sudden, coincidental impulse to send money Schiff’s way.
And, speaking of coincidences, Magliocchetti ended up pleading guilty in 2010 to making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions and getting a 27-month prison sentence.
When Magliocchetti was sentenced, The New York Times called the case “one of the largest schemes to evade limits on campaign donations ever uncovered.”
As Politico noted, Schiff’s donations weren’t part of the case against Magliocchetti, but the association is hard to get around.
There were other earmarks, according to Politico.
Schiff directed $1 million to Eureka Aerospace in Pasadena. The company was working on technology to enable the military to stop vehicles that blow through checkpoints, according to Politico. Not only did CEO James Tatoian contribute $24,600 to Schiff between 2006 and 2016, but others in his household gave another $9,950 through 2020.
Schiff also directed $1 million to Tanner Research Inc. of Monrovia, California, for research into ways the U.S. military could detect the kind of explosive devices being used against U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tanner’s CEO, John Tanner, donated a total of $15,800 to Schiff’s campaigns from 2003 to 2012, according to Politico.
All of that plays into a picture of Schiff very different from the ones liberals like to paint of him. (Conservatives, of course, have had his number for years as the loathsome liar from Los Angeles.)
For Schiff, getting busted by a typically liberal outlet like Politico marks a stark difference in coverage after years of being coddled for his Trump antagonism.
“Earmarks have emerged as an unlikely source of intense debate in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate primaries. Schiff’s sales pitch — that earmarks are essential to making Washington work for California — hearkens back to his early days in the House, before both parties raced to crack down on the practice,” Politico reported.
“Porter said she views the spending items as a symbol of broken Washington and doesn’t file requests for them.”
For years, Schiff was a darling of the left and one of the most vocal proponents of the Trump-Russia hoax in a bid to delegitimize Trump’s election. During Trump’s first impeachment trial, over a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy, Schiff was the face of the prosecution team.
Now, Schiff is claiming to be on the side of law and order in the midst of the indictments against the former president.
All of that feeds his popularity with the Democratic voters who will decide who will fill the Senate seat now held by Feinstein.
But the Politico report shows a side of Schiff that hasn’t gotten enough attention in the establishment media — a machine politician using machine tactics, and taxpayer money, to foster his own career.
It’s the kind of exposure that’s been a long time coming.
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