You know things are looking a bit dire when your former congressional BFF and longtime House Intelligence Committee ally is dropping completely out of politics due to numerous rape and sexual misconduct allegations stretching back years, and that’s not the worst narrative you’re facing this week.
But alas, Sen. Adam Schiff of California — while distancing himself from his former buddy Eric Swalwell — is probably a bit grateful that potential criminal charges from a growing throng of women are distracting people from his own unforced error. “There, by the grace of God, goes someone else,” one can hear Schiff saying.
So, in case you’re catching up, Schiff has been responding vociferously to stories in the media that President Donald Trump plans to pardon members of his administration as he leaves office because the Democrats have made it clear they want legal scalps. And, given what they did to Trump, we know they mean it.
How true these stories are and what the pardons will cover is kind of amorphous at this point, and Trump himself has provided little light on that. But Schiff is a man who makes hay when the sun shines, even when he gets some serious sunburn doing it.
“Step one in creating a culture of corruption and lawlessness? Promise impunity,” he said on X in response:
Step one in creating a culture of corruption and lawlessness?
Promise impunity. pic.twitter.com/XmtZ1ag4h1
— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) April 13, 2026
The proposed community notes on this one are already glorious, but they basically all revolve around some variation on this:
This you? pic.twitter.com/8OFvUtKo7a
— Rep. Chris Hemsworse (@GodofBlunder247) April 13, 2026
Didn’t you get a pardon from Joe Biden? (You did) pic.twitter.com/3lOuUpIS4m
— 👣ℙ𝕖𝕕𝕣𝕠’𝕤 𝕄𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕙𝕖🇺🇲 (@OfAthenry) April 14, 2026
From KQED-TV in San Francisco on Schiff’s autopen pardon:
As President Biden leaves the Oval Office on Monday, three California lawmakers were among those he pardoned in an attempt to protect them from retribution for their involvement in the bipartisan investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The preemptive pardon covers Sen. Adam Schiff, South Bay Rep. Zoe Lofgren and San Bernardino Rep. Pete Aguilar — all Democrats — as well as committee staff and police officers who testified.
In a joint statement from the nine-member committee, the lawmakers said they were pardoned “not for breaking the law but for upholding it.”
“We and our families have been continuously targeted not only with harassment, lies and threats of criminal violence, but also with specific threats of criminal prosecution and imprisonment by members of the incoming administration, simply for doing our jobs and upholding our oaths of office,” the statement reads.
Huh. How about that. And that was on Jan. 20, 2025. In 2020, when there was speculation that Trump would preemptively pardon his family before leaving office, Swalwell again jumped into the fray, back when Joy Reid had an MSNBC show, saying that a preemptive pardon was tantamount to guilt!
“Have you ever heard of somebody getting a preemptive pardon who was innocent of all crime?” Reid asked. TL;DR: Nope!
Adam Schiff said that innocent people don’t get preemptive pardons.
Adam Schiff got a preemptive pardon.pic.twitter.com/lcZY1qQpLR https://t.co/2Q8DmsyHua
— MAZE (@mazemoore) April 13, 2026
“But no, I think it’s an effort to prospectively pardon people for things they have not yet been charged with, and may never be charged with, but also, it’s the president’s own family,” Schiff said.
“It’s people that have been covering up for the president in addition to his own family. This is the nature of those the president has surrounded himself with, including his family, and … it’s been essentially a den of thieves environment. And I think the president views it as his way of trying to protect those who have protected him.”
This was also before President Joe Biden pardoned his own son on gun and tax evasion convictions, it’s worth noting. How ’bout that.
The reason this was necessary, of course, was that the Jan. 6 kangaroo committee was a Democrat-run sham that used Congress as a paid political advertisement. What’s hilarious is that this pardon wasn’t even enough for Schiff, who may still face issues due to his close ties with Swalwell; a whistleblower came to the FBI and said the two Russiagate hoaxers planned to hide behind the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution to air dubious, classified parts of the Russiagate hoax without confirmation, parts that turned out to be false.
At least this didn’t all involve sex abuse victims and prostitutes, however. So there is that. Dire, yes, but not Swalwell dire. That’s also not something I’d brag about, but knowing Schiff, he probably will.
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