Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said his election campaign for the U.S. Senate has raised over $8.1 million during the second quarter in a record haul coming after his removal from the House Intelligence Community and subsequent Russiagate-related censure.
“When I say we are a grassroots campaign, I mean it!” said Schiff, who is in a race to succeed retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) soon-to-be vacant seat.
“It’s still very early, and while the polls will shift, Adam continues to lead in every metric that is critical to running an effective campaign,” Elkins said in a memo to Politico. “Our campaign continues to build up significant advantages that will propel Adam forward.”
‘Trump is Threatening Me’
Schiff’s strong donation numbers suggest that portraying Trump as a boogeyman who threatens American democracy can be a successful fundraising strategy for Democrats as they look to trigger voters into reaching for their wallets.Seemingly with an eye on this tactic, Schiff took to Twitter on July 3 to complain that Trump was attacking him on social media.
Trump has long been a critic of Schiff, who he accused of pushing false Russia collusion narratives to hurt him politically.
Schiff shared a screenshot of Trump’s post, saying the former president’s “obsession is the highest compliment” while asking for donations in a follow-up message.
Schiff’s fundraising on the back of Trump’s scathing message was met with a flurry of critical reactions on Twitter.
“That’s not holding [Trump] accountable. That’s misleading an entire nation by the use of your political office,” she continued, while calling on Schiff to resign.
Schiff’s Still Convinced of Trump-Russia
A recent report (pdf) by special counsel John Durham, who spent nearly three years investigating the origins of the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign, concluded that the probe into Trump should never have been launched.The special counsel concluded that “neither U.S. nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
The FBI responded to the Durham report hours after its release with a statement that acknowledged “missteps” in its investigation into alleged Trump–Russia ties.
However, despite the Durham report’s scathing conclusions, Schiff remains convinced that Trump’s campaign conspired with Russian intelligence operatives to steal the 2016 election.
“If you read Mr. Durham’s report, what he said is that there wasn’t evidence of collusion before they began the investigation. That’s obviously a very important distinction,” Schiff told The Epoch Times when asked about the report’s conclusion of no Trump-Russia collusion.
Schiff then pointed to what he described as “secret meetings” between Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian intelligence agent. The California Democrat accused Manafort of “providing that agent with internal polling data with their strategy for key battleground states, while that unit of Russian intelligence was engaged in trying to help Donald Trump win.”
For “most Americans, that looks like plain collusion,” Schiff added.
However, the FBI’s top expert on Russian intelligence found no such evidence, per Durham’s report.
“The FBI Intelligence Analyst who had perhaps the most in-depth knowledge of particularly sensitive Russian intelligence information in FBI holdings during the relevant time period disclosed that she never saw anything regarding any Trump election campaign conspiracy with the Russians, nor did she see anything in FBI holdings regarding Carter Page, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, or Paul Manafort engaging in any type of conspiracy with the Russians regarding the election,” the report said.
Durham’s report called the FBI’s handling of key parts of the Trump-Russia probe “seriously deficient” while finding that the FBI used a different standard when considering investigating allegations of election interference by then-candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Trump said in statements on social media following the release of the Durham report that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was part of a criminal and treasonous plot to overthrow his presidency.
Besides acknowledging “missteps,” the FBI told The Epoch Times in a statement that the agency has since implemented dozens of corrective actions, including more rigorous requirements for applying for surveillance and expanding its internal oversight and auditing programs.
