Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) speaks during a video interview near House Chambers during a series of votes at the U.S. Capitol on January 9, 2023 in Washington, DC.
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Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) speaks during a video interview near House Chambers during a series of votes at the U.S. Capitol on January 9, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
A new House panel investigating “weaponization of the federal government” will hold its first hearing on Thursday, as part of the investigation. Republican majority‘s stepped up surveillance of the Biden administration.
Republic promise to investigate the Biden’s family and the White House if they win control of Congress in last year’s midterm elections. With a Democratic president poised to veto any potential Republican bill, increased scrutiny has become a key part of the party’s platform.
The new subcommittee hearing is the latest attempt to deliver on that promise. Hardline conservatives have had promote the formation of the panel in negotiations with Current Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The weaponization subcommittee is expected to investigate claims that the Justice Department, FBI and other federal agencies are biased against conservatives. Republicans have voiced a long list of concerns, accusing the department of mishandling allegations against former President Donald Trump, abuse of custody and retaliation against parents who spoke out at schools. school board meeting.
“We have a government that I now believe is targeting the very people it is supposed to serve,” said subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan on Tuesday. “We have a plan, as a Republican majority, to hold them accountable.”
Thursday’s hearing will address “the politicization of the FBI and DOJ and attacks on American civil liberties,” the panel announced this week. The announcement didn’t have many details, but witnesses are expected to include current Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard and other members of Congress. The former FBI agent has criticized the agency.
During this session, the Republican-controlled House Judiciary and Oversight committees held hearings on the Biden case. border policyfederal and Twitter COVID relief spending handling denunciations around Hunter Biden’s laptop. GOP lawmakers, led by Jordan and the Chairman of the Oversight, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), also intend to investigate the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and whether Biden was involved in what they call “Effective peddler” when holding the position of vice president or not.
Democrats say these investigations are more about electoral politics than accountability.
Representative Jamie Raskin, who served as a senior member of the House Oversight Committee and will testify at Thursday’s hearing, tell NPR last month that “surveillance is not about creating scandals and blaming others.”
The senior Democrat on the new subcommittee, Del. Stacey Plaskett, who represents the US Virgin Islands, said the opening hearing will “set the tone” for the next two years.
But what she’s seen from the Republican convention so far, she said, “doesn’t give me a great sense of confidence in terms of humor or collectivity.”
Hours before the meeting began, Ian Sams, Special Assistant to the President, issued a memo attacking the objectives of the hearing, citing recent polls.
One of those surveys suggests a larger perception problem for the subcommittee: 56 percent of Americans said the panel was “just an attempt to score political points” in a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
