News Release

Adam Schiff “No Friend of Progressives”

Share

STEPHEN ZUNES, zunes at usfca.edu, @SZunes

Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. He was extensively quoted in the recently published article “Adam Schiff Is No Friend of Progressives.”

Said Zunes: “Schiff’s record on foreign policy, civil liberties, human rights and other key issues has often put him more in line with Republicans than with liberal Democrats. … It is ironic, therefore, that Trump and the Republicans are portraying him as some kind of left-winger.”

The article, by Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, notes: “Alignment with the most powerful Democrat on Capitol Hill has paid off for Schiff. This month, Speaker Pelosi skipped over Jerrold Nadler — who, as Judiciary Committee chair would have ordinarily taken the lead — instead choosing to appoint Schiff to drive the impeachment train.

“Schiff is tenaciously challenging a despicable president who should be impeached. At the same time, while Schiff has emerged as a marquee foe of Trumpism, we should be aware that he remains deeply enmeshed with corporatism and militarism.

“Schiff is significantly more hawkish than Nadler. While Nadler was one of the 59 House Democrats who voted against the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2019, Schiff voted yes on that landmark measure — which abetted Trump’s push for a massive two-year 11 percent boost in military spending.”

Zunes added: “Schiff was among the right-wing minority of House Democrats who sided with Bush and Cheney over the broad consensus of Middle East experts, international legal scholars, independent arms control analysts and others who warned that an invasion of Iraq was unnecessary, illegal, and would be utterly disastrous.”

Zunes continued: “Contrary to the wishes of the majority of his liberal California constituents, Schiff effectively renounced the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles by voting to authorize it and lied about Iraq having ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ In doing so, he contributed to the deaths of 4,500 young Americans and close to 1 million Iraqis and others, wasted $2 trillion of our tax dollars, helped destabilized the region, and helped inflict enormous environmental damage, including a huge carbon footprint.”

Also see “What in the world is Adam Schiff thinking with his domestic terrorism bill?” in The Hill by Michael German, a former Special Agent with the FBI who is now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program.