{"id":159859,"date":"2025-08-20T01:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T01:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/159859\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T01:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T01:34:10","slug":"adam-schiff-forms-legal-defense-fund-to-prepare-for-trump-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/159859\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Schiff forms legal defense fund to prepare for Trump attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Man<\/a>U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff participates in a debate Oct. 8, 2024, against U.S. Senate opponent Steve Garvey. (File photo by Damian Dovarganes\/Associated Press)<\/p>\n

California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, a top target of President Donald Trump\u2019s political wrath, formed a legal defense fund last week, according to documents reviewed by NOTUS.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies will continue weaponizing the justice process to attack Senator Schiff for holding this corrupt administration accountable,\u201d Schiff spokesperson Marisol Samayoa told NOTUS. \u201cThis fund will ensure he can fight back against these baseless smears while continuing to do his job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legal defense fund, which was formed on Thursday, comes as the Trump administration ramps up its efforts against Schiff, who oversaw a congressional investigation into alleged Russian interference in Trump\u2019s election in 2016 and a congressional probe into Trump\u2019s alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election in 2021. News of the legal fund was first\u00a0reported by The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week, Trump called on the Justice Department to investigate Schiff for leading the investigation into the president\u2019s alleged connections with Russia.<\/p>\n

FBI Director Kash Patel also\u00a0sent Congress<\/a>\u00a0declassified whistleblower statements accusing Schiff of leaking classified documents in 2016 to benefit then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

Schiff\u2019s office said the claims are false and politically motivated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese baseless smears are based on allegations that were found to be not reliable, not credible, and unsubstantiated from a disgruntled former staffer who was fired by the House Intelligence Committee for cause in early 2017, including for harassment and potentially compromising activity on official travel for the Committee,\u201d a spokesperson for Schiff\u2019s office told NOTUS.<\/p>\n

Trump has also targeted Schiff on other grounds. In July, the president accused Schiff of engaging in a \u201csustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud,\u201d as he\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in Truth Social. Soon after Trump made the accusation, the DOJ opened an investigation into Schiff\u2019s alleged fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe allegations against Senator Schiff are transparently false, stale, and long debunked,\u201d Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney in New York and Schiff\u2019s lawyer for this case, wrote in a statement sent to NOTUS on Tuesday. \u201cThe bias here is glaring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dave Levinthal<\/a>, a contributing editor at NOTUS and investigative journalist, contributed to this story.<\/p>\n

This story was produced as part of a partnership between\u00a0NOTUS\u00a0<\/a>\u2014 a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and\u00a0NEWSWELL<\/a>, home of\u00a0Times of San Diego<\/a>,\u00a0Santa Barbara News-Press<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Stocktonia<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff participates in a debate Oct. 8, 2024, against U.S. Senate opponent Steve Garvey. (File…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":159860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[38853,5229,1582,276,69,92592,257,3549,7264,92593,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-159859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-adam-schiff","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-legal-defense-fund","14":"tag-russia","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-sandiego","17":"tag-u-s-justice-department","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115058525162676071","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}