Rep. Adam Schiff taunted President Trump on Sunday, suggesting he would approve of Russian leader Vladimir Putin winning another term in office in an election critics called a sham.

“It’s easy to get 73% of the vote when you bar your 'opponents' from running. After extolling life tenure for China’s Xi, will our President now congratulate Putin on his successful elimination of democratic opposition?” Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a chief Trump critic, said in a tweet.



It’s easy to get 73% of the vote when you bar your "opponents" from running. After extolling life tenure for China’s Xi, will our President now congratulate Putin on his successful elimination of democratic opposition? — Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 18, 2018

Exit polls Sunday showed Putin easily won a fourth term in office.

Critics have slammed the election as preordained, noting the Kremlin had banned opposition activist and leading Putin opponent Alexei Navalny from the ballot, and imposed restrictions on some election monitors.

Independent election observers and activists have alleged numerous incidents of ballot stuffing and other irregularities in Sunday's vote.

The non-governmental election monitoring group Golo has flagged at least 2,000 incidents, including observers being prevented from monitoring voting locations.

Putin is already Russia's longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.