Under increasing pressure from state and federal investigators, former President Trump escalated his violent rhetoric this week, heightening tensions as prosecutors weigh whether to bring criminal charges and sparking sharp criticism from Democrats, who are warning of another Jan. 6.

In several social media posts over the past two days, Trump appeared to threaten Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) with a baseball bat and warned any indictments brought against him may lead to "potential death & destruction" around the country.

The messages were remarkably direct, even for a figure with a long history of promoting violence, and they've led to new warnings from Trump's critics that the former president is aggravating partisan hostilities and inflaming national unrest. 

"It's dangerous, and it's obviously a sign that the pressure of the moment is getting to him," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who headed the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. 

"I'm hopeful that they won't take him literally,” Thompson added, referring to Trump’s supporters. “You know, a lot of these people who came to Washington on Jan. 6 came at his invitation, and over time, he weaponized them to attacking the Capitol. And this is that same kind of weaponization — taken to another level."

The concerns arrive just before Trump is scheduled to stage his first 2024 campaign rally on Saturday in Waco, Texas, exactly 30 years after a deadly standoff between federal law enforcement and the Branch Davidians, an apocalyptic cult led by David Koresh, took place just outside the city. The siege ended with a massive fire that engulfed the sect’s compound, left scores of adherents dead and has since become a rallying cry of those who view the government as an abusive force treading on individual liberties. 

Some lawmakers see a connection between Trump’s increasingly violent rhetoric and his choice of Waco to kick-start his campaign. 

"That comment, and being [at] the site of fanatic activity long ago in Texas, is really a dangerous combination,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said Friday in the Capitol. “We saw the harm that it can cause right here in this building. And as usual, it's only about Donald Trump; it's not about the safety and security of families in Texas and around the country.”

On Friday, Trump allies also sought to draw attention to the plight of those arrested and charged for violent assaults on Jan. 6, visiting them in a local D.C. jail and claiming their constitutional rights are being violated.

Trump is facing a series of criminal investigations into his conduct, including his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and the discovery of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his resort-residence in South Florida. 

But the Manhattan case is the longest-running, based on a hush money payment to an adult film actress just before the 2016 election, and Bragg has given recent signals that an indictment against Trump might be imminent. 

Trump has acknowledged that he reimbursed Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, for the $130,000 Cohen initially paid to Stormy Daniels in return for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier — an affair Trump denies. But his defense team has said the payment was made to preserve his marriage, not for purposes related to his political campaign. 

Turning to social media late Thursday, Trump escalated already heated attacks toward Bragg, in one case sharing a pair of side-by-side photos: one of the prosecutor, the other with the former president holding a baseball bat. 

Hours later — just after 1 a.m. on Friday — Trump posted another message to his Truth Social account, warning of a violent backlash if Bragg brings charges. 

“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?” Trump wrote.

“Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely [sic] hates the USA!”

The message drew immediate denunciations from Trump’s critics, most of them Democrats, who voiced concerns that it would serve as a call to violence for some members of Trump’s conservative base, thousands of whom had stormed the Capitol two years ago at his behest. 

“Trump has succeeded in turning Lincoln’s GOP into a messianic and dangerous cult of personality,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who led Trump’s second impeachment after the Jan. 6 attack. “[He] knows how to activate the most violent and unstable elements of his following. And this kind of rhetoric, this serves as incitement to the most rabid and unhinged parts of his base.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Friday Trump’s “rhetoric is reckless, reprehensible and irresponsible.”

“It’s dangerous, and if he keeps it up, he’s going to get someone killed,” Jeffries said.

Other Trump critics have gone a step further, suggesting that his comments may have, themselves, violated the law. 

“Threatening a prosecutor is a crime in NY. In fact MULTIPLE crimes,” Norm Eisen, counsel for Democrats in Trump’s first impeachment and an author on both, wrote on Twitter.

Eisen pointed to several statutes in particular, including harassment, menacing and stalking. 

“And that’s just for starters,” he said.  

Across the aisle, Republicans were much less willing to take on the former president, who leads the nascent GOP field vying for the White House in 2024. 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) deflected questions about Trump’s “death and destruction” remarks, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a close Trump ally, told an NBC reporter that he couldn’t read the comments without his glasses. 

Some others took steps to condemn any talk of violence, though without criticizing Trump directly.

“I don't condone political violence,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). “I haven't seen those statements,” he continued, “but in general, I've been very outspoken because it relates just to political violence in general.”

Rebecca Beitsch and Mychael Schnell contributed.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday filled out the final spots for the party's committee roster in the new Congress, naming the members of the select committees on Intelligence, China, COVID-19 and the "weaponization" of government.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) secured the party's top spot on the House Intelligence — an expected ascension that came after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) blocked Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) from the panel.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, will take the top Democratic seat on the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, a panel created last month with broad bipartisan support.

Leading the Democrats on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will be Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), a former emergency room physician who will likely face off against Republicans over both the origins of COVID-19 and the federal response to the pandemic.

And Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.) will serve as ranking member of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Plaskett served as a manager in the second impeachment of former President Trump, following the Jan. 6, 2021, rampage at the Capitol, and will now have the responsibility of leading the Democrats' defense of the Biden administration — and federal institutions more broadly — in the face of Republican charges of a "deep state" conspiracy against conservatives.

In making the announcements, Jeffries vowed that Democrats will collaborate with select committee Republicans whenever the opportunity arises, but will fight back against political attacks when the situation demands.

"Under the leadership of our four Ranking Members, House Democrats will endeavor to work in a bipartisan fashion where possible and will also stand up to extremism from the other side of the aisle wherever and whenever necessary," he said. 

Jeffries's decision to seat Democrats on all the select committees — even the most polarizing panels — marked a departure from McCarthy's strategy in the last Congress, when Republicans boycotted the special committee created to investigate Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Many Republicans criticized that decision — including Trump — after the investigation went public with a long series of televised hearings, where the former president was without a line of defense.

Democrats have adopted a different approach, placing members on even the most controversial committees to ensure that Biden and his administration have voices in their corner to counter the Republican attacks.

The weaponization committee, which was created along strict party lines, is expected to be the most polarizing, with GOP leaders tapping Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a pugnacious Trump ally, as the chairman. Jordan has accused the federal government, particularly the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, of an inherent bias against conservatives — a charge that both the agencies and congressional Democrats refute.

“This committee is nothing more than a deranged ploy by the MAGA extremists who have hijacked the Republican Party and now want to use taxpayer money to push their far-right conspiracy nonsense," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said during the vote to form the panel.

Plaskett was one of several Democrats who fell off of the powerful Ways and Means Committee this year as part of the reshuffling that saw Democrats lose seats as they fell into the minority.  

Aside from Plaskett, the Democrats on the panel will be Reps. Stephen Lynch (Mass.), Linda Sánchez (Calif.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), Gerry Connolly (Va.), John Garamendi (Calif.), Colin Allred (Texas), Sylvia Garcia (Texas) and Dan Goldman, a New York freshman.

The COVID-19 panel, led by GOP Rep. Brad Wenstrup (Ohio), is also expected to be an arena of partisan combat.

Since the pandemic hit three years ago, Republicans have bashed public health officials — particularly Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — for recommending masks, commercial shutdowns and other precautionary measures to fight the virus. They've also accused Fauci and other health officials of disguising the origin of the coronavirus and the government's gain-of-function research in China — highly partisan topics that are sure to surface quickly when the panel begins its work.

Providing the defense, Ruiz will be joined by Democratic Reps. Debbie Dingell (Mich.), Kweisi Mfume (Md.), Deborah Ross (N.C.) and Robert Garcia, a freshman from California.

The China committee is expected to be more cordial, as both parties are voicing concerns that Beijing's growing global presence poses a direct threat to America's national security and economic well-being. The panel was created with broad bipartisan support, and is chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), a member of the Intelligence Committee who has worked well with Democrats. He and Krishnamoorthi have already co-sponsored legislation to ban Tim-Tok across the country.

The other Democrats on the China panel will be Reps. Kathy Castor (Fla.), André Carson (Ind), Seth Moulton (Mass.), Ro Khanna (Calif.), Andy Kim (N.J.), Mikie Sherrill (N.J.), Haley Stevens (Mich.), Jake Auchincloss (Mass.), Ritchie Torres (N.Y.) and Shontel Brown (Ohio).

In choosing a top Democrat for the Intelligence Committee, Jeffries faced a bounty of options: Virtually every Democrat on the panel, including Carson and Krishnamoorthi, was interested in replacing Schiff. Himes, however, was the expected pick of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), had she remained in power, and Jeffries didn't stray from that plan.

Joining Himes on Intel will be Democratic Reps. Carson, Joaquin Castro (Texas), Krishnamoorthi, Jason Crow (Colo.), Ami Bera (Calif.), Plaskett, Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Jimmy Gomez (Calif.), Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.) and Abigail Spanberger (Va.).

The panel is led by Chairman Michael Turner (R-Ohio).

Updated at 7:54 p.m.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday formally rejected two Democrats — Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (Calif.) — from serving on the House Intelligence Committee, escalating the two-year tit-for-tat battle between the parties over who is qualified for certain positions on Capitol Hill. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) had written to McCarthy on Saturday asking that both Schiff and Swalwell be seated on the Intel panel, where membership assignments come solely at the discretion of the Speaker. 

But McCarthy said Schiff's and Swalwell's previous actions make them unfit to serve on a panel with jurisdiction over and access to sensitive issues of national security.

“In order to maintain a standard worthy of this committee’s responsibilities, I am hereby rejecting the appointments of Representative Adam Schiff and Representative Eric Swalwell to serve on the Intelligence Committee,” he wrote in a letter to Jeffries on Tuesday.

The move was no surprise. 

Republicans have been up in arms over the issue since 2021, when Democrats staged votes to remove GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) from their committees following revelations that they had promoted violence against some of their Democratic colleagues. The eviction votes came after McCarthy declined to punish either lawmaker internally within the GOP conference, which is typically where such disciplinary actions are meted out.

Still, McCarthy on Tuesday denied that his decision regarding Schiff and Swalwell was retribution for Greene and Gosar.

“This is not not anything political. This is not similar to what the Democrats did,” McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday evening just outside his office in the Capitol.

Schiff, the former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, had led a series of investigations into former President Trump, serving as the lead impeachment manager of Trump’s first impeachment, which both heightened his national profile and made him radioactive among Trump’s supporters. 

McCarthy has accused him of lying to the public about Trump’s ties to Russia — a charge that Schiff has dismissed as political retribution. 

“His objection seems to be that I was the lead impeachment manager in Donald Trump’s first impeachment and that we held him accountable for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid from Ukraine in order to try to extort that country into helping his political campaign,” Schiff told reporters Tuesday night. 

Schiff also noted that McCarthy’s road to the Speakership was successful only after he secured the support of former critics, including Greene, charging that the process had left him beholden to those conservatives. 

“I think it’s just another body blow to the institution of Congress, that he’s behaving this way, but it shows just how weak he is as a Speaker that he has to give in to the most extreme elements of his conference, in this case the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Paul Gosars,” Schiff said.

The accusations surrounding Swalwell are of a different sort. The California Democrat was associated with a suspected Chinese spy who had fundraised for his 2014 campaign — a revelation that was not made public until 2020 — and McCarthy has said that a confidential FBI briefing on the episode has left him convinced that Swalwell is a national security risk. 

“When Eric Swalwell would be in the private sector and can’t get the security clearance there, we are not gonna provide him with the secrets to America,” McCarthy told reporters.

McCarthy has also vowed to block Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from sitting on the House Foreign Affairs Committee as a rebuke for previous comments she made that were critical of Israel and its supporters, some of which have sparked allegations of antisemitism. In 2019, the congresswoman — who is a Somali refugee — apologized after suggesting that wealthy Jews were buying congressional support for Israel.

Omar’s situation, however, is different from that of Schiff or Swalwell. While McCarthy has the unilateral authority to block appointments to the Intelligence Committee, the full House must ratify committee membership for the Foreign Affairs panel — meaning a majority of the chamber will have to vote to block the congresswoman from serving.

That effort is already proving to be an uphill battle. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) announced Tuesday that she will not support keeping Omar off the Foreign Affairs committee, and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has expressed a coolness to the idea.

Republicans can afford to lose only four votes in the narrowly split House amid united Democratic opposition, which means the party can afford only two more defectors to still block Omar. That number could shrink to one if Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), who is recovering in Florida from a fall, misses the vote. The congressman on Monday said he will be “sidelined in Sarasota for several weeks.”

It is unclear when a vote to block Omar from the panel will come to the floor. The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee is slated to meet this week and finish committee assignments, and Omar is expected to return to the Foreign Affairs Committee. The full chamber would then be tasked with ratifying the rosters.

Asked on Tuesday how confident he is that there will be enough support to block Omar from the Foreign Affairs panel, McCarthy told reporters that “it would be odd to me that members would not support that based upon her comments against Israel.”

Pressed on those character allegations Tuesday, Omar told reporters that “all of those have been addressed three years ago.”

Schiff, Swalwell and Omar issued a joint defense minutes after McCarthy sent his letter, tying the GOP leader to the right flank of his party.

“It’s disappointing but not surprising that Kevin McCarthy has capitulated to the right wing of his caucus, undermining the integrity of the Congress, and harming our national security in the process,” the trio said. “He struck a corrupt bargain in his desperate, and nearly failed, attempt to win the Speakership, a bargain that required political vengeance against the three of us.”

Updated at 8:26 p.m.

House Democrats are itching for a fight with the new GOP majority over who should qualify for committee assignments, tapping Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (Calif.) to sit on the Intelligence Committee in the face of Republican vows to keep them off of the powerful panel.

A similar collision is likely to play out in a separate arena over Rep. Ilhan Omar, the third-term Minnesota lawmaker who is expected to be named by Democrats this week to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, despite GOP promises to boot her from the panel.

The Democrats’ moves — and the imminent clashes they’re certain to spark — indicate party leaders are confident the public battle over what constitutes disqualifying behavior will play to their political advantage, particularly after Republicans granted a pair of committee seats to Rep. George Santos, the embattled New York freshman who is under fire over lies about his background and questions about his finances.

In nominating Schiff and Swalwell to the Intelligence Committee, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) made sure to name-check Santos, emphasizing his new committee posts and hammering GOP leaders for elevating a “serial fraudster” to the panels.  

“The apparent double standard risks undermining the spirit of bipartisan cooperation that is so desperately needed in Congress,” Jeffries wrote in a Jan. 21 letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

The debate arrives as the controversy surrounding Santos has shifted from one focused on resume fabrications to more serious questions about his campaign finances — allegations that have led some Republicans to call for Santos to resign from Congress altogether. Dismissing those concerns, party leaders last week nominated Santos for two committee assignments, on the House Small Business panel and the Science, Space and Technology Committee.

McCarthy himself has defended Santos, saying he was fairly elected by Long Island voters who now deserve his representation in Washington. He’s deferring questions of potential misconduct to the House Ethics Committee. 

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, unlike most other panels, has special rules empowering the Speaker to assign every member. The selections are to be made in consultation with the minority leader, but the final roster requires the endorsement of the Speaker alone, granting McCarthy the unilateral authority to block Jeffries’s recommendations.

Traditionally, that biennial process has been a routine rubber stamp, and the minority party’s picks have been seated without controversy. 

But those dynamics have shifted since 2021, when Democrats staged successful votes to strip two Republicans — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — of their committee assignments. 

That feud was exacerbated when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) vetoed two of then-Minority Leader McCarthy’s picks for the select panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — a move that prompted McCarthy to boycott the probe altogether.

Since then, McCarthy has vowed to keep Schiff and Swalwell from returning to the Intelligence panel — a pledge he amplified on Capitol Hill this month, when he accused the pair of politicizing the committee. 

“I’m doing exactly what we’re supposed to do,” McCarthy said.

The accusations Republicans are leveling against Schiff and Swalwell are unique to each lawmaker. 

Schiff, as former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, had led the investigations into former President Trump’s ties to Russia, and he was the lead manager in Trump’s first impeachment, which centered around charges that Trump had leveraged U.S. military aid to pressure Ukrainian leaders to investigate his political rivals. Republicans have accused Schiff of lying to the public during the course of those probes. 

In Swalwell’s case, Republicans are pointing to his association with a suspected Chinese spy who had helped fundraise for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign — an episode first revealed publicly in 2020. After the FBI informed Swalwell of their concern, he cut ties with the Chinese national, who fled to Beijing. But that’s done nothing to temper the attacks from Republicans accusing Swalwell of being a national security risk.  

“If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy told reporters this month.

Fact-checkers have repeatedly found the GOP accusations to be false. And Democrats maintain that McCarthy’s threats are just another of the many concessions he had to make to the conservative detractors who fought to deny him the gavel earlier in the month. 

“This is Kevin McCarthy once again catering to the most right-wing elements of his conference and doing the will of the former president as well,” Schiff said Monday in an interview with MSNBC. “It’s just a further destruction of our norms and, I think, deterioration of our democracy.”

Jeffries, in his letter to McCarthy, sought to distinguish between each party’s standards when it comes to committee evictions, noting that both Greene and Gosar were removed by a vote of the full House after revelations that they had promoted violence against Democrats. Both votes, Jeffries emphasized, had some Republican support.  

“This action was taken by both Democrats and Republicans given the seriousness of the conduct involved, particularly in the aftermath of a violent insurrection and attack on the Capitol,” Jeffries wrote. “It does not serve as precedent or justification for the removal of Representatives Schiff and Swalwell, given that they have never exhibited violent thoughts or behavior.”

In nominating the California Democrats, Jeffries went out of his way to force McCarthy’s hand. 

Under Intelligence Committee rules, rank-and-file members are limited to four cycles — a cap Swalwell has hit — meaning that Jeffries could have simply replaced Swalwell with a less controversial Democrat. Instead, he waived the term limit in order to force McCarthy to take the aggressive step of intervening to block Swalwell from the panel. Schiff, as ranking member, is exempt from the cap. 

It’s unclear when McCarthy will announce the expected decision to block the pair. The Speaker was in Florida on Monday for an annual gathering of GOP leaders. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. 

Separately, the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee is scheduled to meet this week to finalize the party’s committee rosters, including the expected move to put Omar, one of three Muslim lawmakers in Congress, on the Foreign Affairs panel, according to several sources familiar with the Democrats’ plans. 

The Minnesota Democrat, a Somali refugee, has been highly critical of the Israeli government and its supporters, particularly on issues related to human rights in Palestine, leading to charges of antisemitism. In one 2019 episode, Omar was forced to apologize after suggesting wealthy Jews are buying congressional support for Israel.

Unlike the Intelligence panel, the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee are chosen by each party and ratified by the full House, meaning McCarthy cannot unilaterally block Omar from taking her seat. Instead, GOP leaders are expected to remove her from the panel on the House floor, as was the case with Greene and Gosar.

The head of House Democrats has submitted Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) to sit on the powerful Intelligence Committee, setting up a battle with Republican leaders who are vowing to keep them off the panel.

Separately, Democrats this week are also expected to seat Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to a source familiar with the Democrats’ plans, which will likely prompt GOP leaders to hold a floor vote to remove her. 

In a letter sent Saturday to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Schiff, the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel, and Swalwell are both “eminently qualified” to continue their service on the committee. Jeffries requested that McCarthy seat them there.

“Together, these Members have over two decades of distinguished leadership providing oversight of our nation’s Intelligence Community, in addition to their prosecutorial work in law enforcement prior to serving in Congress,” Jeffries wrote.

The developments were first reported Monday by Punchbowl News.

Unlike most committees, however, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has special rules empowering the Speaker to assign the panel’s members, in consultation with the minority leader. That means McCarthy can also decline to seat members without relying on a full House vote.

Historically, that process has proceeded without controversy and the minority party’s recommendations have been seated. But Republicans have been up in arms since 2021, when Democrats staged successful votes to remove two Republicans — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — from their committee assignments. And McCarthy has vowed since then to keep Schiff and Swalwell from returning to the Intelligence panel — a pledge he amplified on Capitol Hill last week. 

“What I am doing with the Intel Committee [is] bringing it back to the jurisdiction it’s supposed to do. Forward-looking to keep this country safe, keep the politics out of it,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol. 

“So yes, I’m doing exactly what we’re supposed to do,” he added.

Schiff, as former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, had led the investigations into former President Trump’s ties to Russia, and Republicans have accused him of lying to the public during the course of those probes.

In Swalwell’s case, Republicans have highlighted his ties to a suspected Chinese spy who had helped fundraise for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign, which were first revealed in 2020. After the FBI informed Swalwell of their concern, he cut ties with the Chinese national and has said McCarthy’s decision to remove him from the Intelligence Committee is “purely vengeance.” 

Schiff also served as a lead House manager for Trump's first impeachment trial, while Swalwell served as a manager for the second.

Fact-checkers have repeatedly found the GOP accusations to be false. And Democrats maintain that McCarthy’s threats are merely another promise to the conservative detractors who fought to deny him the Speaker's gavel earlier in the month. 

Jeffries, in his letter, sought to carve out a distinction between the scenarios, noting that both Greene and Gosar were removed after revelations that they had promoted violent actions against Democrats, and both votes received some Republican support.  

“This action was taken by both Democrats and Republicans given the seriousness of the conduct involved, particularly in the aftermath of a violent insurrection and attack on the Capitol,” Jeffries wrote. “It does not serve as precedent or justification for the removal of Representatives Schiff and Swalwell, given that they have never exhibited violent thoughts or behavior.”

He also pointed out that McCarthy and the Republicans recently gave two committee posts to Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who is under fire for a series of résumé fabrications and questionable campaign finance activities. Jeffries called him a “serial fraudster.”

“The apparent double standard risks undermining the spirit of bipartisan cooperation that is so desperately needed in Congress,” Jeffries wrote. 

Under Intelligence Committee rules, rank-and-file members are limited to four cycles — a cap Swalwell has hit — meaning that Jeffries waived that limit in order to force McCarthy to make good on his promise not to seat him. Schiff, as ranking member, is exempt from the cap. 

Separately, the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee is scheduled to meet this week to finalize the party’s committee rosters, including the expected move to put Omar, one of three Muslim lawmakers in Congress, on the Foreign Affairs panel. 

The Minnesota Democrat, a Somali refugee, has been highly critical of the Israeli government and its supporters, particularly on issues related to Palestinian rights, leading to charges of antisemitism. In one 2019 episode, Omar was forced to apologize after suggesting wealthy Jews are buying congressional support for Israel. 

Unlike the Intelligence panel, McCarthy cannot block members of the Foreign Affairs Committee unilaterally. GOP leaders are expected to stage a vote to remove her from the panel, as was the case for Greene and Gosar.