(LifeSiteNews) — The new House Republican majority resolved on Tuesday to create an investigative committee to hold federal agencies and the executive branch accountable for their actions against conservatives. A vote on the proposal passed on Tuesday.
The “Weaponization of Government” Select Committee will have a broad mandate and wide scope and has been compared to the famous Church Committee of the 1970s.
The committee will look closely “at the influence of the FBI and the various intel agencies on domestic politics,” noted Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
“They’re not allowed to interfere in domestic politics,” he explained, but “they clearly have been.”
.@TuckerCarlson suggested forming a new “Church Committee.” @GOPLeader is making this happen in the House rules package. I’ll serve on it, and we will go wherever the evidence leads us. pic.twitter.com/86gGvlGD5V
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 7, 2023
“We have a duty to get into these agencies and look at how they have been weaponized to go against the very people they’re supposed to represent, how they have infringed on First Amendment liberties of the American people. And we’re going to do that,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is slated to chair the new committee, on Fox News Sunday. “We’re going to do it in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution. But we’re going to do it vigorously. We’re going to do it aggressively. Because that’s our job.”
The committee will:
- Target “the politicization of the FBI,” focusing on the law enforcement agency’s involvement with faux accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
- Probe “into communications between tech giants and President Biden’s aides” to “look for government pressure that could have resulted in censorship or harassment of conservatives — or squelching of debate on polarizing policies, including the CDC on COVID,” reported Axios.
- Also “look into Anthony Fauci and his approach to COVID misinformation and disinformation … the Justice Department’s interaction with local school boards on masking and other COVID policies … and the Department of Homeland Security’s failed effort to create a Disinformation Governance Board,” according to Axios.
Jordan put tech companies on notice in December, writing letters to Google, Apple, Facebook (Meta), Microsoft, and Amazon that he intends to use compulsory measures should they fail to cooperate to determine if they colluded with “the Biden administration to censor conservatives on their platforms,” according to a Fox News report last month.
Several House Republicans who are likely to be on the select committee have spoken out about what they hope the committee will accomplish.
“I’d like to see it used effectively to bring the oversight that has been missing for the past two years,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Virginia. “No administration should be exempt from accountability and transparency. And, obviously, the previous Democrat majority had no interest or willingness to do that. And so I’m thankful that we’re going to do that and the majority.”
Rep. Dan Bishop, R-North Carolina, said that he looks forward to working on “holding the Deep State accountable.”
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, promised to quickly make public anything the committee finds to be “illegal or unconstitutional.”
In November, GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee, led by Jordan, released a 1,000+ page report detailing whistleblower testimony of politicization and malpractice at the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Joseph Summers, writing for LifeSiteNews, noted at the time:
“According to the authors of the report, the FBI leadership has become ‘rotted at its core,’ alleging that the agency has a ‘systemic culture of unaccountability’ and is guilty of ‘rampant corruption, manipulation and abuse.’ The report further claims that Attorney General Merrick Garland was ‘a willing participant in the Biden Administration’s weaponization of law enforcement.'”
The report lists 11 instances of alleged politicization of the FBI and the DOJ, including the August raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the suppression on the part of FBI special agent Timothy Thibault of information on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the request that Facebook censor stories related to the laptop, the apparent “purge” of conservative agents from the FBI’s ranks, the inflation of domestic violence extremist terrorism allegations to fit the political narrative around the Capitol riots, and the use of the FACE Act to arrest pro-lifers such as Mark Houck and Paul Vaughn.
Meanwhile, the aggressive move by House Republicans to create the committee was quickly dismissed by House Democrats and liberal pundits.
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., a Judiciary Committee member, nicknamed the panel “The MAGA Grievance Subcommittee.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., told the New York Times that the new committee is “a reckless partisan enterprise fueled by conspiracy theories and slated to be run by the most extreme members of the MAGA caucus.”
Axios suggested that the new committee is nothing more than “an effort by Republicans to show unity after the speakership crackup,” a reference to the drawn out balloting process that selected Rep. Kevin McCarthy as the 118th Congress’ House Speaker last week.
Doug Mainwaring
Doug Mainwaring is a journalist for LifeSiteNews, an author, and a marriage, family and children's rights activist. He has testified before the United States Congress and state legislative bodies, originated and co-authored amicus briefs for the United States Supreme Court, and has been a guest on numerous TV and radio programs. Doug and his family live in the Washington, DC suburbs.
