Former President Donald Trump called for GOP primary challenges against the 20 House Republicans who voted against censuring Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., for repeatedly lying to Congress and the American people about collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
"Anna Paulina Luna is a STAR," Trump said of the Florida Republican congresswoman in a Truth Social post Friday. "She never gives up, especially in holding total lowlifes like Adam 'Shifty' Schiff responsible for their lies, deceit, deception, and actually putting our Country at great risk, for which he should be imprisoned! He is a Leaker and a Scoundrel. Any Republican voting against his CENSURE, or worse, should immediately be primaried. There are plenty of great candidates out there!”
Schiff, who is running for the Senate seat held by outgoing Democrat Sen. Diane Feinstein, survived a House vote to censure him Wednesday 225-196 with 20 Republicans voting with Democrats to avoid the measure Luna brought to the floor, CNN reported.
"They can introduce all the resolutions they want, [the fine] could be $16 million or $160 million, I'm not going to stop defending our democracy," Schiff told CNN following the vote.
Luna said she would reintroduce the resolution next week, removing the fine, which she said may have caused the GOP members to vote against it.
"Next week, we will be filing a motion to censure and investigate Schiff," Luna tweeted. "We are removing fine as that seems to be what made these Republicans uneasy."
The move to censure is due to myriad lies Schiff told following the 2016 election implying that Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the election from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He even said he "saw evidence" that Trump was involved in the scheme, which later was proved to be a lie.
In the updated resolution, Luna is calling on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Schiff because he "lied, made misrepresentations, and abused sensitive information," the report said.
The resolution says Schiff "abused this trust by saying there was evidence of collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia."
"By repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people," the resolution said.
CNN reported that Schiff's claims have all been discredited and debunked through reports by special counsels Robert Mueller and John Durham, who found no evidence of Trump doing anything wrong, and that the entire affair was concocted and paid for by Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee.