FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are buzzing over pulling the curtain back on President Biden’s “weaponization” of the federal government, with one noting that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
The lower chamber GOP is looking to form the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government expected to be headed up by Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to probe the Biden administration’s use of the federal government against everyday Americans.
Republicans from leadership to the newest members are pumped for the subcommittee, with newly-minted House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., telling Fox News Digital “House Republicans laid out a plan of action in our ‘Commitment to America’ that we would hold the Biden Administration accountable.”
JIM JORDAN EXPECTED TO LEAD COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF BIDEN’S ‘WEAPONIZATION’ OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
“That begins today. By creating a Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, we will begin holding the Biden Administration accountable by exposing their assault on the constitutional rights of hard-working Americans,” Scalise said.
House Republican Conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York told Fox News Digital that “House Republicans are committed to ending the political weaponization of the FBI and DOJ’s abuse of power and restoring a government accountable to the people.”
“The American people have witnessed these corrupt agencies fully weaponized against the Biden Administration’s political opponents as they conducted an unprecedented raid on President Trump’s home, illegally paid Twitter to suppress stories for political benefit, and continue to cover up for Hunter Biden,” Stefanik said.
“If the government agencies can do this to a former President without accountability, imagine how these corrupt agencies can be weaponized against the American people,” she added. “House Republicans are sending a strong message that accountability is coming, and we will deliver the truth.”
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, former chairman of the House Rules Committee, told Fox News Digital that “sunlight is the best disinfectant” and that he is “confident” the subcommittee will find years-worth of federal government overreach.
“My Republican colleagues and I have made our intentions clear. The 118th Congress will provide American citizens more federal transparency than Democrats have ever cared to share,” Sessions said.
“I am confident this subcommittee will uncover years of federal agency encroachment on our constitutional freedoms,” he continued. “I believe sunlight is the best disinfectant, and this subject is no exception. I trust Chairman Jordan’s leadership of the full committee.”
Fellow Texas Republican Rep. August Pfluger told Fox News Digital that he, “like most Americans,” has “been disturbed to learn about censorship and meddling by former intelligence community ‘experts’ and federal law enforcement agencies.”
“The new Republican majority is committed to delivering transparency and accountability,” Pfluger said. “I hope that the actions taken to investigate and hold surveillance agencies responsible for their free speech violations will root out corruption and focus them on their rightful duty to keep Americans safe, not silenced.”
Freshman Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Ok., said the subcommittee is only the beginning of the GOP’s efforts for government accountability, saying that for “the past two years, the Biden Administration has weaponized the FBI and other government organizations to go after the American people.”
“Because of the hard work of the ‘Tenacious Twenty,’ which I was proud to be a part of, we were able to get Speaker McCarthy to agree to establishing a ‘Church’-style committee. This is the beginning of conservatives’ efforts to hold our government accountable and return America to our founding principles of limited government,” Brecheen added.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, said America “very much” needs a Church-style committee on his podcast Verdict, saying his latest book, Justice Corrupted: How the Left Weaponized Our Legal System, “is entirely about the abuse of power at the [Department of Justice] and the [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and the [Central Intelligence Agency].”
“I think we very much need a serious Church-style committee investigating it, and that’s part of the agreement,” Cruz said while speaking on the House rules package.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Fox News’ Mark Levin that having the “Church-style committee” is a good development and that he and GOP leadership are all in agreement on the work of the committee.
“We can have all the hearings we want,” Roy said to Levin. “But you and I both know if we don’t use the power of the purse in some way to stop the bureaucrats from doing this crap… we should stop that.”
The subcommittee would look into not just how the Executive Branch gathered information on citizens, but how they worked with other bodies including private sector companies “to facilitate action against American citizens[.]”
According to Axios, this is in part inspired by the information revealed by Elon Musk in the “Twitter Files,” which showed how the Biden administration worked with social media companies to suppress messages and take action against users. The outlet also reported that other subjects could include “the politicization of the FBI,” Dr. Anthony Fauci’s handling of COVID-19 misinformation, and the Justice Department’s decision to get involved in cases where parents threatened school board members, after the National School Boards Association sent President Biden a letter likening the actions of some parents to domestic terrorism.
The subcommittee’s work would include “a full and complete investigation and study” and a final report to be submitted by Jan. 2, 2025, the resolution states.
The body has been compared to the Church Committee of the 1970s, in which Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, investigated Executive Branch intelligence abuse. House Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., told the Times that he did not see this new subcommittee as comparable to Church’s.
Nadler said that the new subcommittee is “fueled by conspiracy theories and slated to be run by the most extreme members of the MAGA caucus,” while the Church Committee was “a serious and bipartisan attempt to reform the conduct of the intelligence community, based on hard and verifiable evidence.”
Congressional Republicans have made cracking down on the federal government’s reach and power a top priority, with the House GOP’s first bill targeting the Internal Revenue Service’s plan to hire 87,000 new agents.
Fox News Digital’s Ronn Blitzer contributed reporting.