Adam Schiff launches Senate bid to replace Dianne Feinstein

WASHINGTON — Rep. Adam Schiff joined the crowded 2024 Senate race in California on Thursday, saying Democrats “need a fighter” just days after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy booted him from the House Intelligence Committee.

The polarizing 62-year-old will face fellow Reps. Katie Porter, 49, Barbara Lee, 76, and potentially incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, in the Democratic primary.

Schiff gained national prominence as a leading opponent of former President Donald Trump — who nicknamed him “Shifty Schiff” — and was the lead impeachment manager in the 45th president’s 2020 Senate trial for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Biden family’s business dealings.

McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday banned Schiff from the intelligence committee, which the Democrat had chaired for the past four years, for allegedly lying about the existence of evidence showing Trump conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election.

“We’re in the fight of our lives for the future of our country. Our democracy is under assault from MAGA extremists, who care only about gaining power and keeping it,” Schiff said in a statement. “And our economy is simply not working for millions of Americans, who are working harder than ever just to get by.”

Democrats “need a fighter in the U.S. Senate who has been at the center of the struggle for our democracy and our economy,” Schiff said.

Schiff represents a safely Democratic House district that includes West Hollywood and parts of Burbank and Glendale north of downtown Los Angeles.

Republicans accuse Schiff of using his perch on the intelligence committee to mislead the public during the more than two-year investigation of Trump’s possible conspiracy with Russia, which concluded with special counsel Robert Mueller finding no such evidence.

In March 2017, Schiff said, “I don’t want to go into specifics, but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of investigation, so that is what we ought to do.”

In booting Schiff from the intelligence committee, McCarthy said “integrity matters” and “the misuse of this panel during the 116th and 117th Congresses severely undermined its primary national security and oversight missions — ultimately leaving our nation less safe.”

Porter also has been on the receiving end of negative press after a former aide,
Sasha Georgiades, revealed that the lawmaker blamed her for giving her COVID-19 and banned her from the office.

Porter, who represents Laguna Beach and Irvine in Orange County, refused to answer The Post’s questions about the episode during a recent encounter on Capitol Hill, walking with a stern look past a reporter and refusing to utter a word.

Lee, who has not yet formally launched her Senate campaign, represents Oakland and would be just the third black woman elected to the upper chamber in US history.

Lee became a favorite of anti-war and pro-civil liberties activists following 9/11 when she was the sole “no” vote in Congress against the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor and a senator since 1992, hasn’t yet announced if she will seek re-election. However, a series of recent reports have raised questions about her mental fitness to remain in office.

“It’s bad, and it’s getting worse,” one Democratic senator told the San Francisco Chronicle of Feinstein’s condition in April last year.

“I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea,” a member of California’s congressional delegation told the paper at the time. “All of that is gone. She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring. Because there was just no trace of that.”