Did Congressional Democrats hold an inaugural meeting of something they described as a "shadow government" in the United States in April 2025? No, that's not true: On April 7, Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Jamie Raskin led Democratic members of the Senate and House Judiciary committees in a meeting held without the involvement of members of the other party -- in this case the Republican party. That practice is known as a "shadow hearing", and this was likely the source of the misrepresentation.
The claim appeared in an April 7, 2025, post on X (archived here), which consisted of a clip of Schiff speaking at the meeting earlier that day, and the following text:
House Democrats have held their inaugural hearing as part of what they're calling a "shadow government."
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot)
In reality, the Congressional Democrats involved did not describe the hearing as being related to a "shadow government". That was a description given to it by critics of their efforts, as shown in a series of posts on X at the time.
The false claim that Schiff and Raskin were leading a project they themselves described or thought of as a "shadow government" was likely based on a misrepresentation of terminology.
The meeting itself was something known as a "shadow hearing" -- that is, one involving members of only one party, as distinct from a conventional House or Senate committee hearing, which requires the involvement of members from both parties.
Here's how Politico described it in their April 7 report:
A shadow hearing, as its often called, is a frequent tool for House lawmakers in the minority to hold public meetings around issues that the majority party will not. It's less often deployed in the Senate.
In his opening statement at the hearing, which took place at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. and had to do with recent firings of Justice Department officials, Schiff claimed he and his Democrat colleagues had attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade their Republican counterparts to join them:
Convening this hearing was not our first choice. We have tried to get our Republican colleagues to hold hearings, to do meaningful oversight, to assert Congress's authority as an independent branch of government. But to our great disappointment, our Republican colleagues have abdicated that important responsibility. They have stood by as the president has run roughshod over the legislative branch and turned Congress into little more than a rubber stamp. So today we'll host the first of what we hope will be more bicameral oversight hearings...
The hearing can be watched in full here.
The term "shadow hearing" is not an inherently derogatory or sinister one, and Democrats have themselves occasionally used the phrase to describe one-party meetings held in Washington in recent years, including the April 7, 2025, meeting, which Sen. Amy Klobuchar described as a "shadow hearing."
By contrast, the term "shadow government" refers to a secret, sinister parallel government formed with the intention of usurping the rule of law and democratic norms and institutions. A search of a transcript of the April 7 hearing revealed that no participant used that term.
