Video shows Cornyn criticizing Schumer, not asking for his removal from office | Fact check

The claim: Video shows John Cornyn asking Supreme Court to remove Chuck Schumer

A May 20 Facebook video (direct link, archive link) shows Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, giving a speech on the Senate floor.

"'THE WORDS ARE SH0CKING' C.ornyn asks SCOTUS for Chuck Schumer's removal after 'K.avanaugh' (sic) attack," reads the video's caption.

The video was shared more than 1,000 times in four days.

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Our rating: False

The video is miscaptioned. It shows Cornyn briefly criticizing Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, but he makes no mention of any attempt to remove Schumer from office. The Supreme Court has no role in removing senators from office.

Cornyn does not mention removing Schumer

The video shows Cornyn speaking on the Senate floor on May 2. In a news release on Cornyn's Senate website, he characterizes the speech as calling out "Democrats’ continued attempts to defame, intimidate and coerce the federal judiciary."

Cornyn mentions Schumer in the speech, criticizing him for a comment he made about Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in March 2020. But the Texas senator does not mention removing Schumer from office, and there are no credible reports of such an effort.

Cornyn's full speech is available on C-SPAN and has been uploaded to his verified YouTube channel.

Fact check: Schiff can't be impeached, and there's no ongoing effort to remove him from office

The Supreme Court does not have a role in removing members of the House or Senate from office. Instead, the Constitution gives both the House and Senate the ability to expel their own members with a two-thirds vote, according to the Senate's website.

"The House can expel a member of the House, and the Senate can expel a member of the Senate," Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri, previously told USA TODAY.

The Senate has expelled only 15 members in its history, and 14 of those were expelled during the Civil War for supporting the Confederacy.

"In several other cases, the Senate considered expulsion but either dropped those proceedings or failed to act before the member left office," the Senate's website says. "In those cases, corruption was the primary cause of complaint."

USA TODAY has debunked numerous posts that pair false captions with videos of politicians or cable news programming, a type of misinformation known as "false framing." Experts say it is effective since many users watch videos with the sound off and don’t realize the caption doesn’t match the audio track.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Our fact-check sources:

• John Cornyn website, May 2, Cornyn: Democrats’ Threats Against Federal Judiciary Must Stop

• John Cornyn website, accessed May 23, News

• Vox, March 5, 2020, The controversy over Chuck Schumer’s attack on Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, explained

• C-SPAN, May 2, Senate Session, Part 2

• John Cornyn (YouTube), May 2, Cornyn: Democrats’ Threats Against Federal Judiciary Must Stop

• Senate, accessed May 23, About Expulsion

• USA TODAY, July 26, 2022, Fact check: Supreme Court did not, cannot rule to impeach Nancy Pelosi

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video shows Cornyn attacking Schumer, not seeking removal | Fact check