WASHINGTON _ Not during the fierce competition of Harvard Law School, or the rough-and-tumble of life as a federal prosecutor. Not when he convicted the first FBI agent accused of spying for a foreign government. Not even when he won one of the most furious campaigns for a seat in the House of Representatives, defeating a Republican who had relentlessly pursued President Bill Clinton.
Not once in the political origin story of U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff does the record show him being labeled as "shifty." But, then, the 10-term California Democrat never faced an opponent quite like his current one, a president of the United States happy to turn a rival's name into a potty joke and a schoolboy's taunt.
To President Donald Trump and millions of his loyalists, it's now "Shifty Schiff," though other insults will do. "Liar" and "traitor" skitter across the internet and even rained on Schiff at what was supposed to be a friendly event last month in his district. The relentless rebranding comes with a financial bonus for Trump's reelection campaign _ $34 for every "Pencil-Neck Adam Schiff" T-shirt sold.
Schiff initially countered Trump with gentle corrections, leading The New York Times to say that, as an attack dog, he was "more labradoodle than Doberman." But his tone has hardened. In September, he compared Trump's furiously debated phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to a mob boss engaged in a "shakedown." Speaking with the Los Angeles Times recently, he had some salty new words for the president.
Democrats have responded with something like adoration. They line up for selfies and autographs. Some wear "I Stand With Schiff" T-shirts. His campaign even attempts to own the put-downs. Pencils labeled "This Pencil Neck Won't Break" and "This Pencil Neck Will Investigate" go for $8 a pack.
This is Schiff's reward for becoming not just Trump's chief interlocutor, but superego to his id. In a hearing room on one end of Pennsylvania Avenue the poker-faced lawmaker presides, embracing Washington institutions and a belief that government can do good. On the other end, the unpredictable chief executive unleashes grievances against his opponents and encourages doubts about the government he leads.
Schiff had no idea he would end up here. The self-improvement obsessive earned a brown belt in karate, dabbled in Slovak and wrote screenplays before he committed fully to politics. His early academic career had him on a path to medicine.
When he first turned to elected office, he lost badly, then lost again, and again, before winning. Confronted with a president whom he has called the worst in modern history, he agitated some in his own party by hesitating to pursue impeachment. Now he is all in and, allies say, not retreating.
"They can try to scream at him. They can try to run him out of the room, but it's not going to work," said Barbara Boxer, the former senator from California, who encouraged Schiff to run for his House seat 20 years ago. "The moment has really found him, and he is ready."
Schiff, 59, was named Wednesday as the lead among seven House managers of the impeachment trial, who, starting Tuesday, will try to persuade two-thirds of the members of the Senate to convict Trump of at least one of two articles of impeachment.
He knows the temperature is about to spike. Again.
"What I've discovered is that ... in an irrational time when you have an erratic hothead in the Oval Office, there is a real premium on not having your hair on fire," Schiff reflected, sitting in a room off the House chamber. "I suspect that part of it is just my own temperament, which I couldn't change even if I wanted to."
