Rep. Matt Gaetz reintroduced the “PENCIL Act” legislation that would ban Rep. Adam Schiff from handling any classified information.
Derived from former President Donald Trump’s nickname for Schiff, Gaetz used the resolution acronym, “Preventing Extreme Negligence with Classified Information Licenses.”
Trump was the first to call Schiff “little pencil neck” during a rally in 2019, and the name has stuck ever since.
Speaking with the Daily Caller, which was the first publication to obtain the legislation text, Gaetz said:
“Congressman Adam Schiff led the effort for years to weaponize lies from the Clinton campaign and a corrupt Department of Justice to smear President Trump while destroying any trust the country had left in America’s intelligence agencies.”
The reintroduction of the ‘Pencil Act’ comes just days after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy booted chiff and fellow California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee.
“Speaker McCarthy kept his promise to remove Rep. Schiff from the Intelligence Committee, and with the PENCIL Resolution, we will express the sense of Congress that he should be barred from accessing any classified information at all,” Gaetz added.
“He can no longer be trusted by his colleagues in Congress or the American people,” Gaetz continued.
Besides booting Schiff and Swalwell, McCarthy has been talking about removing Rep. Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. Omar later responded to the news by accusing McCarthy of trying to “appease Trump.”
As The Daily Fetched reported earlier this week, Schiff jumped on Twitter to moan about being removed from the Committee.
“Kevin McCarthy just kicked me and @RepSwalwell off the Intelligence Committee,” Schiff wrote.
“This is petty, political payback for investigating Donald Trump,” he added.
He later posted on the Chinese-owned TikTok app, saying the speaker pulled him “for doing my job, or holding Trump accountable and standing up to the extreme MAGA Republicans.”
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While speaking with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell earlier this week, Schiff denied taking classified information after being asked if he had taken any records home while serving on the Committee.
“This is what’s so astounding, I think, for all of us on the Intelligence Committee,” Schiff said. “I never take classified documents to my house.”
“I don’t know any reason why people would,” Schiff added.
READ MORE: Adam Schiff Accused of Leaking Classified Information: ‘A Felony at Minimum, Up to Treason’
