Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has created a legal defense fund as he prepares to fight an investigation into his Maryland home sparked by the Trump administration.
President Trump has routinely fixed on the California senator, who investigated Russia’s 2016 election interference and served as the lead manager on Trump’s first impeachment. Schiff was also a member of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Since taking office for the second time, Trump has repeatedly bashed Schiff and suggested he wrongly obtained more favorable lending conditions for his Washington-area home, a claim the lawmaker denies.
“It’s clear that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies will continue weaponizing the justice process to attack Senator Schiff for holding this corrupt administration accountable,” Marisol Samayoa, a spokesperson for Schiff, said in a statement.
“This fund will ensure he can fight back against these baseless smears while continuing to do his job.”
Schiff has said the investigation, sparked by a criminal referral from the Federal Housing Finance Authority, is baseless.
“So the president today is accusing me of fraud. And the basis of his accusation is that I own a home in Maryland, and I own my home in California. Big surprise—members of Congress, almost all of them, own more than one home or rent more than one home because we’re required to be on both coasts. So he is using my ownership of two homes to make a false claim of mortgage fraud,” Schiff said in a July video when Trump first raised the charge.
Schiff’s office said his lender was aware he also owned a home in California, and that he considered both homes to be a principal residence. He has only claimed the homestead exemption in California.
Former President Biden signed a preemptive pardon for Schiff and the other members of the Jan. 6 committee – something Schiff said at the time was “unwise.”
“I continue to believe that the grant of pardons to a committee that undertook such important work to uphold the law was unnecessary, and because of the precedent it establishes, unwise,” Schiff said in a statement.
“But I certainly understand why President Biden believed he needed to take this step in light of the persistent and baseless threats issued by Donald Trump and individuals who are now some of his law enforcement nominees.”
Schiff has tapped Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney under Obama, to represent him in the matter.
The Justice Department has appointed a special attorney to oversee the matter, Ed Martin, who was likewise named U.S. Pardon Attorney and the head of the newly formed Weaponization Working Group after the Senate failed to approve his nomination for a U.S. attorney post.
In addition to Schiff, Martin is also investigating a mortgage taken out by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“Mr. Martin is a January 6-defending lawyer who has repeatedly pursued baseless and politically-motivated investigations to fulfill demands to investigate and prosecute perceived enemies. Any supposed investigation led by him would be the very definition of weaponization of the justice process,” Bharara said when the probe was first confirmed.
