Dan Bongino called out Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on his popular podcast just a few days before President Donald Trump named him deputy director of the FBI.
“Why is Adam Schiff so worried? I strongly encourage you to go back and take another look today at the Russia collusion hoax,” Bongino began during a segment.
After noting that the story is now several years old, Bongino added: “I’m gonna be straight with you. I don’t wanna move on.”
“We had the FBI in conjunction with the Department of Justice, officials in Congress, foreign governments and intel people fabricate a story, invent a story that could have caused and done serious long-term harm to international relations with a nuclear-powered foe,” he added. “It’s kind of a big freakin’ deal.”
“Listen to me — this is gonna be very important in the coming days,” he went on, perhaps dropping a hint that he was about to be appointed to the FBI.
“I’m not letting this go. I wanna find out what happened because it can never happen again. Not to a Democrat. Not a Republican. Not to a Libertarian. Not to any United States citizen,” Bongino said.
“You do not get to alter or try to change the course of electoral politics by fabricating a story hijacking the justice system then to give the patina of truth to a fake story,” he continued. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Why do I bring that up now? Because who was the ringmaster of that circus? Yes, Adam Schiff, and no, I’m not letting it go,” he added.
It should be noted that former President Joe Biden granted Schiff a pre-emptive pardon for his role on the Democrat-controlled Jan. 6 Commission, though he went on to call it “unnecessary” and “unwise.”
“I continue to believe that the grant of pardons to a committee that undertook such important work to uphold the law was unnecessary, and because of the precedent it establishes, unwise,” Schiff said in a statement. “But I certainly understand why President Biden believed he needed to take this step in light of the persistent and baseless threats issued by Donald Trump and individuals who are now some of his law enforcement nominees.”
Notably, however, Schiff did not reject the pardon outright.
Those “full and unconditional” pardons cover any offenses tied to the “activities or subject matter” of the committee and are not restricted to a specific time period, The Hill reported. But it isn’t clear — yet — if the pre-emptive pardon covers any potential illegality that Schiff may have allegedly engaged in regarding his repeatedly false claims that Trump was a Russian asset or that he was acting on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) chaired the committee, and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) served as second-in-command as vice chair. Other members included then-Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Elaine Luria (D-Va.) and Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), current Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
In a joint statement Monday, Thompson and Cheney said they were pardoned “not for breaking the law but for upholding it.”
“These are indeed ‘extraordinary circumstances’ when public servants are pardoned to prevent false prosecution by the government for having worked faithfully as Members of Congress to expose the facts of a months-long criminal effort to override the will of the voters after the 2020 elections, including by inciting a violent insurrection to thwart the peaceful transfer of power,” they said in the statement, posted to the social media platform X.
