News/Commentary

House creates committee to investigate weaponization of federal government

January 11, 2023 | | Print Article

House Republicans formed a new Church-style committee that will investigate the “weaponization” of the federal government as well as a committee on competition with China that many, but not all, Democrats supported.

The investigative committee looking into abuses by the federal government and intelligence agencies will be given “at least as much” funding as the sham January 6 committee received, according to Business Insider. The vote in the House for the committee was 221 to 211 with all Republicans voting for it and all Democrats voting against it.

The Church-style committee is officially recognized as the “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government” and will be housed under the House Judiciary Committee. The panel will be authorized to investigate executive branch agencies, particularly intelligence agencies, that gather information on American citizens.

The idea was promoted by the Center for Renewing America which is run by several staffers who worked for former President Trump. The idea was then championed by conservatives such as Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Dan Bishop of North Carolina. It was part of the deal that Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy made to secure his position.

The committee will aggressively investigate the FBI and its alleged political bias against conservatives. It is being compared to the “Church Committee” that was officially known as the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities that Democratic Sen. Frank Church of Idaho formed in an effort to uncover a range of abuses by intelligence agencies.

Those abuses included the unlawful surveillance of civil rights activists under COINTELPRO, covert assassination plots against foreign leaders, and the “MKUltra” human experimentation program.

“As part of our agreement, we got what we call a ‘Church-style’ committee,” Roy told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview.

(Video Credit: Fox News)

The 13-member panel will reportedly be comprised of eight Republicans and five Democrats.

“We call that the tin foil hat committee,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Pete Aguilar stated at a press conference on Tuesday while adding that they will seek to join every official committee and subcommittee possible in the 118th Congress.

Aguilar said that it’s in the Democrats’ best interest to ensure that Republicans “don’t have an opportunity, behind closed doors, to shape and to add to these conspiracy theories.”

The Church-style committee is being lauded by conservatives:

House Republicans and Democrats, in a rare show of bipartisanship, also joined forces on Tuesday and voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new committee to examine US strategic competition with China, after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared on the House floor that neither Republicans nor Democrats trust China anymore.

“We spent decades passing policies that welcomed China into the global system,” McCarthy declared, according to Fox News. “In return, China has exported oppression, aggression, and anti-Americanism. Today, the power of its military and economy are growing at the expense of freedom and democracy worldwide.”

“It didn’t start under this administration, but the current administration has clearly made it worse,” he charged. “Its policies have weakened our economy and made us more vulnerable to the threat of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].”

“There is bipartisan consensus that the era of trusting communist China is over,” McCarthy proclaimed.

The House voted 365 to 65 in favor of creating the committee, which was supported by every Republican and more than two-thirds of the House Democrat caucus.

Not all Democrats were on board. Congresswoman Nikema Williams of Georgia blasted the move.

“House Republicans’ new select committee on competition with China isn’t about rational policy – it’s another platform to elevate hateful, xenophobic rhetoric. I stand against hate in all its forms, so I voted against the creation of the committee,” she tweeted.

Following that leftist communist-sounding drivel, she was thoroughly dragged on Twitter:

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