Adam Schiff Slams Republicans Who Won’t Stand Up to Trump for Commuting Stone Sentence: He’s Got Them ‘Cowed’

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) took shots at Republican lawmakers for largely refusing to condemn President Donald Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s prison sentence.

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos held an interview with Schiff on Sunday, and he led by asking for Schiff’s reaction to Trump granting clemency to his longtime adviser despite multiple charges of witness tampering, lying to Congress, and obstruction.

“I think anyone who cares about the rule of law in this country is nauseated by the fact that the president has commuted the sentence of someone who willfully lied to Congress,” Schiff said. He went to say that Stone’s commutation should be “offensive” to everyone, regardless of politics, and he continued by outlining Stone’s relevance to the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia’s 2016 election-meddling.

“The president through this commutation is basically saying ‘if you lie for me, if you cover up for me, if you have my back, then I’ll make sure that you get a get-out-of-jail-free card,'” Schiff said. “Other Americans, different standard. Friends of the president, accomplices to the president, they get off scot-free.”

Schiff went on by recognizing that the House would be challenged by the Senate over their efforts to pass a bill to limit the president’s capacity for granting clemency. This led to him slamming Republicans because, with only a handful of exceptions, they “won’t stand up for the rule of law,” by condemning the commuting of Stone’s sentence.

“Here you have no more than a couple of Republicans willing to say a single word about someone who came before Congress and lied to them, intimidated witness, and obstructed them. And why? Because he did it to cover for a president of their party,” Schiff said. “Donald Trump understands that he has these Republicans cowed. They won’t stand up to him, they won’t defend the rule of law.”

Watch above, via ABC.