Their fundraising was in AOC territory. Why Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff are raking it in
The House Intelligence Committee’s work has typically operated mostly behind closed doors, and leaders of the committee don’t tend to be household names.
That has changed in 2020 — and it shows in the fundraising power of Reps. Adam Schiff and Devin Nunes.
Their personal campaign finance accounts amassed a total of more than $45 million in the 2020 cycle — $19 million for Schiff, D-Burbank, the current chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and $26 million for Nunes, R-Tulare, the top Republican on the committee and former chair.
Only members of House leadership and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, raised more than either in their personal accounts.
Schiff’s campaign said he raised more than $40 million total this cycle, including money he has raised for other candidates. Nunes’ office did not return a request for comment.
Neither Nunes nor Schiff are in highly competitive districts that attract huge fundraising by necessity, nor are they in top leadership spots that command widespread name recognition and more dollars. Heads of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence historically haven’t had huge fundraising power, and even Nunes and Schiff didn’t command anywhere near $10 million and above until recently.
So what changed?
“It really has nothing to do with the Intelligence Committee, and everything to do with Donald Trump,” said Jamil Jaffer, a former senior counsel to the House Intelligence Committee.
The House Intelligence Committee was formed to have oversight over the nation’s intelligence community. That means they operate heavily in secret with classified information.
The House impeachment investigation — led by Schiff — and Trump’s quest against the intelligence community that conducted surveillance on his 2016 presidential campaign — led by Nunes — flipped that on its head. They both made frequent appearances on TV to talk about those investigations and both developed “enormous public profiles as a result,” according to Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution who has studied national security for decades.
“It’s not a good thing when any member of the Intelligence Committee walks out of the hearing to a microphone to do a press conference,” Jaffer said.
Schiff’s campaign disputed that his fundraising was connected to his work on the Intelligence Committee, pointing to his appointment to leadership positions with House Democrats’ fundraising arm in both the 2018 and 2020 cycles. The campaign said he would continue to do that kind of work in the 2022 cycle.
Wittes and Jaffer both disagreed that the Intelligence Committee played no role in the increased fundraising power.
“It’s absolutely about increased partisanship of the committee, but it isn’t just that,” Wittes said. “It’s the increasingly high visibility.”
It’s unclear how both men will use that visibility.
Schiff has not ruled out running for a California Senate seat. Gov. Gavin Newsom doesn’t seem likely to appoint him to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ old seat, but he could run for it in 2022 or for Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat in 2024.
He could also accept a post in President-elect Joe Biden’s administration or run for a House leadership position in the future. But he seems to be biding his time, not publicly indicating his desire for other positions yet.
Nunes, meanwhile, never took an appointment in the Trump administration, despite being one of Trump’s closest allies — possibly his top ally in Congress. He’s been in Congress nearly two decades and hasn’t expressed public interest in a leadership post. And running for statewide office in California as a Republican isn’t typically a winning endeavor.
Wittes thought it was more simple.
“Maybe the explanation for why they raise so much money is just: ‘Because I can,’” Wittes said.
Where does that leave the House Intelligence Committee? Both Wittes and Jaffer were optimistic that the committee would eventually level back out on partisanship levels, especially since Biden would be president in 2021.
“Trump lent himself to this very well. I don’t think this cycle of the FBI investigates you, and then you want to turn around and investigate the FBI, is a natural cycle. That’s a product of Donald Trump,” Wittes said. “I don’t think it’s very likely that the next Republican or Democratic candidate, or the current incoming president, is going to lend themselves to these kinds of questions.”
But they also don’t think anyone should think the problems of the committee will reset at the snap of a finger in January. Wittes said to get ready for “a cycle of revenge, because that’s the way we do things.”
“It’s going to outlast Trump being out, there’s a lot of bad blood at this point,” Jaffer agreed.
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Their fundraising was in AOC territory. Why Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff are raking it in."
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