Sen. Adam Schiff launched a legal defense fund as the California Democrat faces a federal investigation for alleged mortgage fraud and President Donald Trump repeatedly condemns him for years of allegedly promoting the ‘Russiagate’ hoax, according to a report published Tuesday.
‘It’s clear that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies will continue weaponizing the justice process to attack Senator Schiff for holding this corrupt administration accountable,’ a spokeswoman for Schiff told the New York Times. ‘This fund will ensure he can fight back against these baseless smears while continuing to do his job.’
The legal fund, dubbed ‘Senator Schiff Legal Defense Fund,’ was filed with the Internal Revenue Service Thursday, according to the New York Times.
Trump and Schiff have long been political foes, stretching back to the president’s first administration, when Schiff — who was serving in the U.S. House at the time — oversaw the first impeachment trial against Trump in 2020 for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and for repeatedly promoting the narrative that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
‘Russia, Russia, Russia. Totally phony, created by Adam Schiff, Shifty Schiff, and Hillary Clinton and the whole group of them,’ Trump said from the Kennedy Center Wednesday.
Trump was referring to recently declassified documents alleging the Obama administration ‘manufactured and politicized intelligence’ to create the narrative that Russia was attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election, despite information from the intelligence community stating otherwise.
‘It made it very dangerous for our country because I was unable to really deal with Russia the way we should have been,’ Trump continued from the Kennedy Center, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi. ‘And I’m looking at Pam because I hope something’s going to be done about it.’
Schiff also came under fire earlier in August when documents released to Congress by FBI Director Kash Patel reported that a Democratic whistleblower who worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for more than 10 years told the FBI in 2017 that Schiff allegedly approved leaking classified information on Trump that ‘would be used to indict President TRUMP.’
Schiff notably served on the Jan. 6 committee, which investigated the day in January 2021 when Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol, and was among lawmakers who were granted preemptive pardons on President Joe Biden’s final day in office in 2025.
Schiff, however, had publicly condemned the prospect of Biden doling out preemptive pardons as ‘unnecessary’ and setting a bad precedent.
‘First, those of us on the committee are very proud of the work we did. We were doing vital quintessential oversight of a violent attack on the Capitol,’ Schiff said during a media interview in December 2024. ‘So I think it’s unnecessary.’
‘But second, the precedent of giving blanket pardons, preemptive blanket pardons on the way out of an administration, I think is a precedent we don’t want to set,’ he added.
The California Democrat also is facing a federal investigation for mortgage fraud, Fox Digital previously reported. Schiff has denied any wrongdoing, claiming the matter is a ‘baseless attempt at political retribution.’
The U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice in May claiming that in ‘multiple instances,’ Schiff allegedly ‘falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, impacting payments from 2003-2019 for a Potomac, Maryland-based property.’
Fox News Digital reached out to Schiff’s office and the White House for comment on the legal fund but did not immediately receive replies.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.