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Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is hitting back at Kevin McCarthy over the Republican House leader’s threat to remove him from his committee assignments if elected House speaker in January. 

McCarthy has vowed to strip Schiff, as well as Reps. Eric Swalwell of California and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, of committee assignments for various reasons.

In 2021, Democrats ousted Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona from panels, prompting Republicans, including McCarthy, to vow retribution for what they saw as Democrats’ abuse of power. 

Democrats voted to strip Taylor Greene of her committees over a series of comments and actions, including expressing support on social media for the execution of several prominent Democratic lawmakers, promoting conspiracy theories that included QAnon and staged school shootings, and expressing racist, antisemitic and anti-Muslim views.

Gosar was censured and removed from his committee assignments for posting a photoshopped video online depicting him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and attacking President Joe Biden.

Both Taylor Greene and Gosar apologized for their conduct on the House floor before the votes.

McCarthy was elected Republican House leader earlier this month, shortly after the GOP won back control of the chamber. He still must secure 218 votes to be elected speaker. If elected, he would not solely have the power to strip any members from committees. A majority of the House would have to vote against resolutions placing them on committees. But McCarthy could also block the resolutions from reaching the floor in an attempt to pressure Democrats into pulling the assignments.

McCarthy has promised to remove Schiff from the Intelligence Committee, which he has chaired the past four years, because he says he’s “lied to the American public time and again,” particularly about Donald Trump and Russia.

“You look at Adam Schiff — he should not be serving on Intel when he has openly, knowingly now used a fake dossier, lied to the American public in the process and doesn’t have any ill will [and] says he wants to continue to do it,” McCarthy told Brietbart earlier this year.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found “numerous links between the Russian government” and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign but did not find sufficient evidence the campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the election. The Mueller report also laid out several instances in which Trump may have obstructed justice, but Attorney General William Barr declined to bring charges.

Schiff was an impeachment manager in Trump’s first impeachment trial, in which the Senate acquitted the president of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over U.S. aid withheld from Ukraine while Trump pressured Kyiv to investigate Biden and his son Hunter. Schiff also is a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, a panel McCarthy is expected to disband.

Schiff said Sunday that he believes McCarthy will do anything to get elected speaker.

“McCarthy’s problem is, he can’t get to 218 without Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar and Matt Gaetz,” Schiff tweeted. “And so he will do whatever they ask. And right now they’re asking for me to be removed from our committees. And he’s willing to do it. He’s willing to do anything they ask. And that’s the problem.”

The California Democrat made similar comments Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

McCarthy, meanwhile, also has vowed to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, accusing her of “repeated antisemitic and anti-American remarks.”

“I remember what she said about Israel, remember what she said about the relationship,” McCarthy said in a video he tweeted earlier this month. “I remember it so much I promised you last year that, as speaker, she no longer would be on Foreign Affairs. And I’m keeping my promise.”

Omar has made multiple comments that angered both Republicans and members of her own party. 

In 2019, she spoke of Israel’s political influence in the U.S., remarks critics decried as anti-Semitic because they believed they played on an old trope about Jewish Americans’ dual allegiance. Weeks earlier, Omar wrote in a tweet that the reason Israel enjoys widespread support in Congress was “all about the Benjamins,” which critics viewed as a reference to the anti-Semitic stereotype involving Jews and money.

And in a 2021 tweet, Omar accused the United States and Israel, along with Hamas, Afghanistan and the Taliban, of committing “unthinkable atrocities.” The post drew condemnation from Republicans and Democrats, who accused Omar of equating the U.S. and Israel with Hamas, a terrorist group, and the Taliban.

Following McCarthy’s latest threat, Omar, who is Muslim, issued a statement in which she accused Republicans of making “it their mission to use fear, xenophobia, Islamophobia and racism to target me on the House Floor and through millions of dollars of campaign ads.”

Removing her from her committee assignment will “gin up fear and hate against Somali-Americans and anyone who shares my identity, and further divide us along racial and ethnic lines,” she said. “It is a continuation of a sustained campaign against Muslim and African voices, people in his party have been trying to ban since Donald Trump first ran for office.”

McCarthy also says he hopes to oust Swalwell from the Intelligence Committee.

Republicans have repeatedly attacked Swalwell since it was reported in December 2020 that a suspected Chinese spy targeted Swalwell, as well as other politicians, by working as a fundraiser on his 2014 campaign. 

Swalwell severed contact with the woman immediately after receiving an FBI briefing in 2015 and has not been accused of any wrongdoing by law enforcement.

“Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the public sector,” McCarthy told Fox News earlier this month. “Why would we ever give him a security clearance in the secrets to America? So I will not allow him to be on Intel.”

McCarthy, meanwhile, has promised to place Taylor Greene to committees in the new Congress.

“Marjorie Greene is going to have committees,” the House Republican leader told CNN. “Yes, she’s duly elected by her district and has a right to serve.”

He did not mention Gosar in the interview but has previously signaled support for returning him to committees as well.