California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, a longtime adversary of President Donald Trump, has formed a legal defense fund, amid the Justice Department probe into his finances.
Schiff, who led the first impeachment effort in the House against Trump and aided the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, has become a frequent target of the president in his second term. Earlier this summer, Trump alleged in a post on Truth Social that the California Democrat “engaged in a sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud” — an allegation Schiff vehemently denies.
“It’s clear that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies will continue weaponizing the justice process to attack Senator Schiff for holding this corrupt administration accountable,” Marisol Samayoa, a spokesperson for Schiff, said in a statement. “This fund will ensure he can fight back against these baseless smears while continuing to do his job.”
Trump specifically alleges that Schiff illicitly claimed his primary residence was Maryland for financial benefit, and his administration has tapped Ed Martin — now pardon attorney and director of DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group — to oversee the matter.
Just a few months ago, Schiff vowed he would place a hold on Martin’s nomination to be U.S. Attorney in D.C., an effort to slow his confirmation prospects. Martin ultimately failed to gain enough support among the Senate GOP to secure his confirmation after Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he would oppose Martin over his past defense of Jan. 6 rioters and his comments about the attack. Trump ultimately selected him for another post at the Department of Justice.
Schiff’s attorney, Preet Bharara — who has had his own confrontations with Trump as the top federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York — has argued that Martin’s involvement into the Schiff probe represents “the very definition of weaponization of the justice process.”
FBI Director Kash Patel, who was once a House Intelligence Committee staffer working to undermine the investigation into election interference, has also released materials that suggests the California Democrat supported leaking information during his time on the House Intelligence Committee to damage the president’s reputation. A spokesperson for Schiff has called the allegation “absolutely and categorically false” and “the latest in a series of defamatory attacks from the President and his allies.”
The acrimony between Schiff and Trump dates back to Trump’s first term, when Schiff, then among former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top allies in the House, served as the top prosecutor in the president’s first impeachment trial. The case centered around allegations of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” though the GOP-controlled Senate eventually acquitted Trump. Schiff parlayed the celebrity brought on by that trial into a successful Senate campaign in California.
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to criticize Schiff.
“They got this phony investigation going on, ‘Russia Russia Russia,” he said at a press conference ahead of his Alaska meeting with Vladimir Putin last week. ”Totally phony, created by Adam Schiff, Shifty Schiff and Hillary Clinton and the whole group of ‘em. And it made it very dangerous for our country.”
