Last month was the anniversary of the Senate hearings for Joe McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who spread the fear of Communism and espionage by Soviet agents in America six decades ago.

McCarthy alleged that numerous Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated our government, universities and the film industry.

For three months, the story dominated national television and newspaper headlines in 1954.

McCarthy was ultimately censured, making him one of the few senators ever disciplined in that way by colleagues. He continued, however, to speak against communism and socialism until his death in 1957.

Fast forward to March 24, 2019.

On that day, a special counsel headed by Robert Muller delivered findings to Attorney General Bill Barr, whose summary found no evidence that President Trump or anyone associated with the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated or conspired with the Russian government or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 election.

Despite those findings, a number of Democrats, like Reps. Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters, continued their collusion claims.

For two years, Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman peddled his Trump conspiracy theory. Despite proclaiming the evidence of collusion is in “plain sight,” he never produced that evidence.

Schiff’s litany of bogus statements included:

“There is more than circumstantial evidence now” of a relationship between Russia and Trump’s associates (MSNBC in 2017);

“The Russians offered help, the campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help and the president made full use of that help” (CNN in 2017);

“The Russian trolling of Democratic National Committee emails is like Watergate in the sense that you had a break in at the Democratic headquarters, in this case a virtual one, not a physical break in, and you had a president as part of a cover-up” (ABC in 2018).

Last week, Schiff lost the confidence of all nine Republican members on the House Intelligence Committee, which he chairs.

“Your willingness to continue to promote a demonstrably false narrative is alarming,” their letter stated.

“The findings of the special counsel conclusively refute your past and present assertions and have exposed you as having abused your position to knowingly promote false information.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Schiff “unfit” for the job.

“It’s over,” McCarthy said. “There’s no more rocks to be overturned.”

“He was being dishonest with the American people about what was happening in the Intel Committee,” Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio added. “It’s a personal vendetta by Adam Schiff at this point.”

The chorus grew louder as Schiff refused to face up to his lies. In calling for his resignation, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway cited his frequent appearances on cable news.

“He’s been on every TV show 50 times a day for practically the past two years promising Americans that this president would either be impeached or indicted,” Conway said.

Former Secret Service official Dan Bongino fired even harder, calling Schiff “a fraud, a liar, (and) a disgrace.” He added that new documents show Schiff to be “the lead hoaxer and lying to every one of you in an effort to distract the entire country on a hoax Russia scandal.”

Sixty-five years ago, the gavel-to-gavel coverage of the McCarthy hearings eventually led to the Wisconsin senator’s censure by colleagues and to his ultimate decline in popularity on the national stage.

After a two-year run of political grandstanding and lying in front of the cameras, Adam Schiff is deserving of the same fate.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com