Adam Schiff's GOP colleagues told him to hide from rioters on January 6: 'You can't let them see you'
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Rep. Adam Schiff recounts in a new book his harrowing experience fleeing the House on January 6.
GOP colleagues told Schiff to stay out of rioters' sight because of his high profile from the Trump years.
Schiff spearheaded major investigations and the first impeachment inquiry into Trump.
Rep. Adam Schiff says a Republican colleague advised him to stay out of sight of rioters as they fled the House chamber on January 6 because of Schiff's high-profile work investigating and pursuing the first impeachment case against former President Donald Trump.
The Democratic congressman from California recounts his experience escaping the Capitol as it was under siege by insurrectionists in an excerpt of his forthcoming book,"Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy And Still Could," which was published in Vanity Fair on Wednesday.
Schiff wrote that he wished he had paid more attention during his freshman orientation to Congress in 2001 as rioters descended on the House chamber and his colleague, Rep. Ruben Gallego, a US Marine veteran, advised him how to breathe properly as he put on an escape hood.
"You can't let them see you," Schiff recalled one of his Republican colleagues saying of the rioters, who were then breaking windows and doors to the chamber, as members evacuated to a secure location through a path cleared by Capitol Police.
"He's right," another GOP member said, according to Schiff. "I know these people, I can talk to them, I can talk my way through them. You're in a whole different category."
In that moment, Schiff wrote, he realized he and his Republican colleagues were "on opposite sides of a much more dangerous divide" that went beyond just partisan politics.
"At first I was oddly touched by these GOP members and their evident concern," Schiff wrote. "But by then, I had been receiving death threats for years, and that feeling soon gave way to another: If these Republican members hadn't joined the president in falsely attacking me for four years, I wouldn't need to be worried about my security, none of us would."
Schiff also wrote about assuring a freshman Republican member who found himself carrying a wooden post with a hand sanitizer dispenser as a possible weapon just three days after being sworn in. "It isn't always like this," Schiff told him.
The insurrectionists ultimately didn't end up breaching the House chamber itself, but they did breach the Senate chamber, cause hundreds of injuries among Capitol Police, and leave widespread property damage in their wake. Five people died on January 6 itself and four police officers who responded to the riots have died by suicide in the months since.
Schiff, the longtime top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, is now on the 13-member select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. His book "Midnight in Washington" is set to be published on October 12.
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