One of the biggest concessions that House Republicans ripped out of Kevin McCarthy is Jim Jordan's "special" committee to "investigate" ongoing Justice Department investigations into Trump and his inner circle, something the GOP hopes will lead to leaks and sabotage of any federal case against Trump and a pretense for impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland.
House Republicans are gearing up to investigate the Department of Justice and the FBI, including their “ongoing criminal investigations,” setting up a showdown with the Biden administration and law enforcement agencies over their criminal probes, particularly those into former President Donald Trump.
The new House GOP majority has proposed that a new select subcommittee be formed – a result of one of the key concessions House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to his opposition to secure the gavel.
In addition to having the power to investigate all ongoing criminal probes of the executive branch, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government would also “be authorized to receive information available to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,” giving it access to the most highly classified information in Congress, according to the proposal.
An earlier draft of the select subcommittee proposal gave it less power and was much narrower in scope: It would have only been able to focus on the FBI, DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security, and made no mention of getting access to ongoing criminal investigations.
Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, an early holdout against McCarthy who became a key negotiator for the hard-liners, said on Fox News that changes made to the select subcommittee proposal, particularly seeking a budget as big as the January 6 select committee, was key to getting those initially opposed to McCarthy on board.
“So we got more resources, more specificity, more power to go after this recalcitrant Biden administration,” Roy said Friday. “That’s really important.”
The select subcommittee would be under the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee, which is partly why Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee’s incoming chairman, was crucial to the negotiations last week that led to the proposal. As Judiciary chair, Jordan would oversee the subpoenas of the select panel. By contrast, the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol made subpoena decisions unilaterally. Jordan has foreshadowed that he will make investigating assertions that the FBI and DOJ have been politicized a key focus of the House Judiciary Committee as chairman.
“We’re going to get into what’s going on at the FBI,” Jordan said Sunday on Fox.
If the proposal passes, McCarthy would be able to select 13 lawmakers to serve on the subcommittee, five of whom would be chosen in consultation with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. McCarthy would also pick the subcommittee chair. This was similar to the setup of the January 6 select committee, for which then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave then-Minority Leader McCarthy five spots to fill. But when Pelosi rejected two of McCarthy’s picks, the California Republican pulled all his members from serving on the panel.
So yes, this is going to be the Evil Mirror Universe version of the January 6th Committee, complete with farcical accusations and damaging leaks in an effort to capsize investigations into Trump and his flunkies.
I'm not sure if Democrats participating in this bad faith effort will help or hurt them. I see the need to at least try to mitigate the stupidity, but they'll just be used as political props for the next two years.
We'll see what Hakeem Jeffries decides to do.
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