House Republicans voted Tuesday to set up a special panel to scrutinize investigations by the Justice Department and other Biden administration agencies, which could allow them to slow current probes involving former President Donald Trump.
(Bloomberg) — House Republicans voted Tuesday to set up a special panel to scrutinize investigations by the Justice Department and other Biden administration agencies, which could allow them to slow current probes involving former President Donald Trump.
Proponents of the committee say they intend to expose civil rights abuses against conservatives through criminal investigations and the collection of citizens’ information. The vote to establish the panel was 221-211.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, a Trump supporter who will lead the panel, argued on the House floor “that if you are a pro-life activist, you’re going to get your door kicked in. You’re going to get arrested and handcuffed in front of your seven kids, and your spouse, for simply praying before the abortion clinic, and telling the guy who was harassing your son to knock it off, you’re going to have the FBI to raid your home.”
Democratic critics say the panel risks exposing details about investigations and intelligence and would promote conspiracy theories about the Justice Department, the FBI and US spy agencies.
Democratic Representative Jim McGovern called the committee “dangerous partisan garbage” that will be used to incite and advance internet conspiracy theories and undermine criminal investigations into the failed effort by Trump and his supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“This new committee is about attacking law enforcement,” McGovern said on the House floor. “This has nothing to do with the law, nothing to do with oversight.”
The select subcommittee on “the Weaponization of the Federal Government” is one of the multiple investigations Republicans have vowed to conduct into President Joe Biden, his family and his administration.
“It’s pretty basic,” Jordan said Tuesday. “The political nature of the Justice Department — that has been pretty far-reaching.”
Jordan said the panel also will tackle whether government officials pressured social media companies to censor or limit conservative viewpoints. He cited disclosures made since Elon Musk bought Twitter.
“I think we’ve learned a lot of valuable information,” he said. “Like a crime scene.”
Multiple Investigations
Establishing the panel under the Judiciary Committee was one of the demands from conservatives for their votes to elect Kevin McCarthy as House speaker. In his first speech as speaker, McCarthy promised to use “the power of the purse and the power of subpoena” to hold government agencies accountable.
Along with subpoena power, the panel’s tools will include sharing access to potentially sensitive information typically reserved for the House Intelligence Committee on US intelligence-gathering activities. That and demands for information about Justice Department investigations are sure to set up likely showdowns with the Biden administration, which criticized the move as a partisan maneuver.
“House Republicans continue to focus on launching partisan political stunts driven by the most extreme MAGA members of their caucus instead of joining the President to tackle the issues the American people care about most like inflation,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said in an email.
There’s been a longstanding Justice Department policy to decline congressional committees access to open law enforcement files.
Republicans likened the investigation to the probe led by then-Senator Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, in 1975 that led to revelations of surveillance against US citizens, overseas propaganda campaigns by the CIA, and other abuses, and ushered in reforms.
But Democrats rejected that comparison.
“House Republicans claim to be investigating the weaponization of the federal government when, in fact, this new select subcommittee appears to be the weapon itself,” New York Representative Jerrold Nadler, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “Democrats will fight tooth and nail to prevent Republicans from using taxpayer resources to protect Donald Trump and extremist allies from legal scrutiny.”
The 13-member subcommittee will have five Democrats.
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