Opinion: Kevin McCarthy's clowns waste your tax dollars and Congress' time

Rep. Adam B. Schiff outside the House chamber Wednesday after the Republican majority voted to censure him for comments he made years ago about investigations into President Trump’s ties to Russia. Separately, Republicans trumpeted a House hearing into a recent report widely derided as a dud — except in their parallel, fact-free, Fox-friendly MAGA universe — that tried to show Democratic bias in the origins of the government investigation, ultimately led by Robert S. Mueller III, into the 2016 Trump campaign’s dalliance with Russian operatives. Which is just the point Schiff made in a fundraising email about his censure: “These political smear tactics divert the resources of the House away from the pressing priorities that Congress should be addressing, and that I want to tackle as your Senator.” Are the Republicans so blinded by Trumpian sycophancy that they didn’t realize what a gift they gave Schiff by singling him out for supposedly misleading voters about Trump? The resolution charged that Schiff, as the former lead Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a Trump impeachment manager, “spread false accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.” But the accusations weren’t false.