Adam Schiff mugged in San Francisco prior to meeting Senate campaign backers

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) was robbed in San Francisco on Thursday before attending a dinner with wealthy backers of his Senate campaign, which caused him to show up to the event without a suit, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Chronicle reported that car thieves stole Schiff’s luggage, including his clothes, before he was set to speak at a dinner attended by lawyer Joe Cotchett, who is supporting Schiff’s Senate run against Republican candidate Steve Garvey. The race will determine who will occupy the seat occupied by Dianne Feinstein before she died.

“Yes, they took my bags,” Schiff told the Chronicle when asked about the theft of his bag from a vehicle in a downtown San Francisco parking garage. “But I’m here to thank Joe.”

The Democratic congressman and U.S. Senate candidate got a rude introduction to San Francisco’s vexing reputation for car burglaries Thursday when thieves swiped his bags from his car while it sat in a downtown parking garage. https://t.co/UCzY5ajWsG

— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) April 26, 2024

Cotchett, a top Democratic donor, praised Schiff after the dinner, saying he would “change” the Senate.

“Adam really showed himself tonight,” Cotchett said. “He’ll be a great senator — he’s going to change the Senate tremendously.”

The dinner took place at the Ristorante Rocca, an Italian restaurant in Burlingame, a city near San Francisco.

“I guess it’s ‘Welcome to San Francisco,’” Cotchett’s press agent Lee Houskeeper told the Chronicle. Houskeeper added that Schiff could maybe go out shopping for new suits with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

“Maybe he can go out with Willie Brown to choose a new suit from one of the many fine clothing establishments in San Francisco,” he added.  “Willie knows them all.”

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The robbery comes as San Francisco has been riddled with crime in recent years after it moved to defund the police in the wake of the death of George Floyd. In July 2020, Mayor London Breed indicated that the city would be moving $100 million from the San Francisco Police Department to social justice programs. Breed later backtracked on her support for defunding the police, saying in December 2021 that the city needed to be tougher on crime.

“It’s time that the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it to come to an end,” Breed said. “And it comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement, more aggressive with the changes in our policies, and less tolerant of all the bulls**t that has destroyed our city, we are going to turn this around.”