GOP senators accuse Pelosi, Schiff, Schumer of 'disinformation'

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. (C-SPAN video screenshot)

Two senior Republican senators have sent a letter to top Democrats in Congress accusing them of spreading disinformation that hurts America.

"It is certainly our goal to eradicate foreign influence from our elections," wrote Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. "But your use of this issue to knowingly and recklessly promote false narratives for political purposes is completely contrary to that goal."

The recipients were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Adam Schiff, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate intel panel.

"One must question whether you are truly concerned about disinformation given the vast amounts of it that you have pushed into the public sphere. … We also call on you to stop playing political games with this issue," the Republican senators wrote.

It was just last month that top Democrats asked the FBI to provide Congress with a counterintelligence briefing on a so-called "concerted foreign interference" campaign targeting Congress and the 2020 election.

That was the immediate trigger for the Republican response, which pointed out the Democrats did not give them a copy of their letter.

"The fact that the press knew more about the content … than we did indicates that you are more interested in grabbing headlines and scoring political points than actually addressing and confronting the issue of foreign interference in our elections," the GOP letter said.

Republicans already have accused Democrats of spreading disinformation with their now-debunked claim that the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

The letter said: "Although it is undisputed that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, as they have done in the past and will continue to do in the future, you have twisted this fact beyond recognition to forge a weapon for the purpose of attacking your political opponents no matter its tenuous relationship with facts or the truth."

In fact, there's now evidence that the Steele "dossier" upon which many of their allegations relied was influenced by Russian disinformation.

"The only relevant disinformation we are aware of are documents that you referenced in your letter and that your colleagues have introduced into our investigations," the senators said. "For example, your letter references a document, created by a Ukrainian national, that mentions our name along with other Republican senators and administration officials to suggest falsely that we might have received information from this individual. Liberal media outlets have picked up that reference, clearly from a leak, even though we have not received any information from that person.

"It is you, not us, who have participated in the spread of disinformation," the letter said.

"As more and more information finally sees the light of day, we are learning just how wrong you were," in the Trump-Russia collusion scandal, the senators explained.

"And not just wrong, but knowingly wrong; you pushed this false narrative even though, behind closed doors, you repeatedly saw and heard evidence to the contrary," the letter said.

"For years you have publicly used the dossier as a cudgel to achieve your political ends at the sacrifice of domestic peace and tranquility."