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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who relied on leakers and big media to go after President Donald Trump, now has his turn on the wobbly three-legged stool of politics, law enforcement and the settling of scores.

Unlike D.C. Democrats, who used their perches to go after Trump by any means necessary, the president isn't even pretending that his goal is justice. His goal in investigating Schiff, I'd say, is payback -- to do unto others as they have done unto him.

Trump's lead is Ed Martin, who could not win confirmation as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, but now heads the Trump Department of Justice Weaponization Working Group.

The group is looking into allegations that Schiff, the lead Democrat during Trump's first impeachment hearings, leaked classified material.

Martin also is looking at whether Schiff wrongly claimed his Maryland and California homes as primary residences to qualify for a low mortgage rate, and he's poking around New York Attorney General Letitia James' real estate.

Last week, the FBI released a memo about a former Democratic staffer of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) turned whistleblower who saw "rampant leaking" of classified materials when Schiff was the committee's ranking Democrat in 2016 and 2017.

As CNN reported, the FBI interview notes reported that the staffer who brought the leak allegations to the FBI was fired from the committee in 2017. He told other aides he was terminated because "there was an expectation of leaking and he refused to participate."

As an elected official, Schiff might have enjoyed immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause if he were found to have leaked classified information. But committee employees had no such protection. Some even told themselves that leaking was not wrong because the country was facing a "constitutional crisis."

Others hitched their wagons to Schiff's career with the belief that, someday, the high-profile Democrat would become a U.S. senator or even president. And look where he is now.

The worst nuggets from the committee are claims that Schiff knew his case against Trump was weak, but he pursued it anyway.

Worse, his goal was not to investigate a specific crime but to destroy a specific person.

Schiff's attorney, the able Preet Bharara, whom Trump fired as his U.S. attorney in New York in 2017, responded with a statement that dismissed Martin as "the most brazenly partisan and politically compromised person possible for the task."

Brazenly partisan and compromised -- that definition applies to Schiff as well.

The now-senator often claimed he saw "ample evidence of collusion" between Trump Tower and the Kremlin. But former Attorney General Bill Barr determined there was no evidence of coordination or collusion after special counsel Robert Mueller released his report in 2019.

Not that Democrats cared.

They manufactured a collusion story and leaked tidbits -- which is why Trump refers to the California Democrat as "Shifty Schiff." The then-congressman rode the story well enough to be elected to the Senate.

And so did Trump, who took the Oath of Office for a second time in January.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.

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