Republicans casting wide net in investigations
Bidens, border, start of COVID-19: Probes may paralyze House
WASHINGTON — The security at the U.S. border with Mexico. The origins of COVID-19. The treatment of parents who protest “woke” school board policies.
These are among the far-reaching and politically charged probes investigations House Republicans are launching, along with probes of President Joe Biden and his family, an ambitious oversight agenda that taps into the concerns of hard-right conservatives but risks alienating other Americans focused on different priorities.
Republicans have tasked every House committee with developing an oversight budget, and GOP leaders are educating rankand-file lawmakers — many have never had subpoena powers — with how-to courses including “Investigations 101.” They are planning to take their investigations on the road to stir public interest, including a border hearing this week in Yuma, Arizona.
“We have a constitutional duty to do oversight,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said. He is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and its new select subcommittee on what Republicans call the “weaponization” of the federal government.
The approach is part of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s effort to steer his new majority to one of the core roles of the legislative branch, oversight of the executive, as he promised voters in 2022. But powered by some of the more firebrand figures in the GOP, the investigations pose a highrisk, high-reward proposition that is quickly drowning out much of the other House business.
The first hearing of the “weaponization” of the federal government, perhaps the signature panel of the new House majority ostensibly modeled after the post-Watergate Church Commission, devolved into a litany of allegations and theories about the Bidens, the FBI and the coronavirus, among others.
Timothy Naftali, a professor at New York University and a scholar of the President Richard Nixon era, said congressional oversight is one of the functions of good governance, but he warned that “one of the possible downsides is you end up with paralysis.”
“Oversight is healthy,” Naftali said. “Then it’s a question of what the goal of oversight is.”
Naftali said that while Americans may share many of the same questions and concerns Republicans are raising, he warned against a rising “performative nature” of Congress that results in political grandstanding without concrete legislative or policy solutions.
Rather than focus on a singular mission — as happened with the impeachment probes of President Donald Trump by Democrats or the Republican investigations of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya — Republicans have cast a net both deep and wide.
McCarthy, of California, laid out a road map last year and gathered key staff for training before Republicans won the House majority in the fall election, according to a senior GOP leadership aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Some of the probes underway into the U.S. border with Mexico are focused on potentially building an impeachment case against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
A coronavirus committee will dig into the work of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former National Institutes of Health official who served both Republican and Democratic presidents but came under scrutiny during the Trump era for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The workings of the Justice Department and FBI are under deep scrutiny, particularly as federal law enforcement works to stamp out the alarming rise of domestic extremism in the U.S., which Republicans argue is a heavy-handed infringement of Americans’ First Amendment rights.
The DOJ’s prosecutions of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, trying to overturn Biden’s election victory and its investigations of parents making menacing and even threatening protests at school boards over the teaching of Black history or other policies derided as “woke” by some conservatives are part of the GOP’s probe of the FBI’s handling of extremists.
Subpoenas have already been issued by Jordan’s committee to the five largest technology companies — Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon — to appear for questioning about what the GOP asserts is corporate censorship of conservative voices.
There will be national security investigations by two committees concerning Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which ended the 20-year war, as well as the U.S. approach to China.
Since last summer, the White House has ramped up its ability to respond in real time to the House investigations, positioning personnel in various executive branch agencies to handle the onslaught of letters — and potential subpoenas — demanding information.
Inside the West Wing is a small team of lawyers and communications experts, some handpicked and appointed by Biden, positioned to defend the Democratic president.
The Biden war room streams news outlets including conservative-leaning broadcasters Newsmax and Fox News Channel as aides prepare for attacks by House Republicans targeting the president’s family, his administration and, ultimately, his legacy.
Outside the White House, various groups of Biden allies known for crisis management and battles with Congress have formed to churn out opposition research on the Republican lawmakers leading these investigations and provide real-time fact-checks of the GOP lawmakers’ claims.
The White House sees the far-reaching Republican investigations as potentially overlapping and even interfering with one another and argues that the GOP priorities are not in line with those of the American people.
“Peddling debunked conspiracy theories through stunt investigations may make good fodder for Fox News primetime, but it won’t help make a dozen of eggs or a gallon of milk cheaper for American families,” said Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations.
In many ways, the oversight agenda stands in for legislative action as McCarthy is forced to steer a slim House majority whose ranks are often divided, which makes it difficult to pass his party’s bills.
Already the panels run by Jordan have issued hundreds of letters and begun taking private transcribed interviews from people with information about the FBI that may or may not be made public.
Jordan hopes to offer legislation that would change some ways the government operates.
“My attitude is you just dig in there and talk to as many folks as you can, get as many documents as you can, and you get the facts to the American people,” he said.