House Republicans to Launch FBI Investigation in China

WASHINGTON – House Republicans on Tuesday move to quickly conduct important investigations into their new majority, voting to create commissions focused on China and what they allege is the federal government’s rampant abuse of power.

Newly empowered GOP lawmakers are promising to hold the Biden administration accountable, promising to investigate federal law enforcement agencies, including those investigating former President Donald Trump.

The Republicans are also setting up a committee to investigate “strategic competition” between the US and China, in line with the party’s push for a tougher approach to the Asian nation.

The creation of the committees is the first of many investigative steps the Republicans plan to take as they settle for their slim majority and try to serve as a test against President Joe Biden and his agenda on Capitol Hill.

This amounts to a massive reshuffling away from the oversight priorities of the Democrats, who used their majority to form a special committee to investigate the January 6 uprising in the Capitol. This committee no longer exists, and the Republicans are not going to revive it, promising instead to take a closer look at the actions of law enforcement agencies.

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The Republicans have officially named one of the committees overseeing the “federal government guns,” suggesting from the outset that the group’s investigations may be one-sided. The investigation will be under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan, D-Ohio, a hardliner and close ally of Trump.

The committee is given a broad mandate tasked with investigating the “expansive role” of the executive branch in “gathering information or otherwise investigating citizens of the United States, including ongoing criminal investigations.” Notably, the group will have access to classified information, which is usually given to intelligence committees in the House and Senate.

First of all, it’s investigating what they call a coordinated Justice Department effort to “go after parents” and label them as domestic terrorists following an increase in threats directed at school board members, teachers, and other employees of the country’s public schools.

“The real focus has always been that 14 FBI agents came in and told the Republican forensic staff about what was going on with the FBI, and the very first one was on the school board,” Jordan told reporters on Monday. “We will start with these people and move forward as we start working with those who are on our committee.”

The GOP’s emphasis on issues such as parental rights in schools stems from the unruliness that has gripped local education meetings across the country since the start of the pandemic, when board members regularly confronted and threatened angry protesters. There is no evidence that the FBI has ever labeled protesting parents as “domestic terrorists”, despite the Republican rhetoric.

Jordan, who is expected to lead the investigation, said the committee is modeled after the bipartisan “Church Committee,” a 1970s congressional investigation that aimed to investigate allegations that the US government had been spying on its citizens for decades. This investigation led to significant reforms with the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires intelligence agencies to obtain permission from a secret court before they spy on Americans.

Democrats have opposed the creation of the committee, calling it a partisan tool for Republicans prosecuting the Justice Department as Trump is the subject of several federal criminal investigations, including for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and for his handling and possession of presidential documents. in Mar-a-Lago.

“Republicans claim they care about law enforcement. But this new committee is aimed at attacking law enforcement,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, Massachusetts, a senior member of the Rules Committee. “It’s about persecuting people. It’s about ruining people’s careers and lives. It’s about undermining the Ministry of Justice.”

The heated partisan debate about the Judiciary Committee contrasted sharply with the bipartisan support for the Chinese panel, which will be led by Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin. Members of both parties said more attention should be paid to the global implications of China’s economic competition strategy.

“You have my word and my obligation. This is not a partisan committee,” the speaker. Kevin McCarthy said. “This is my hope, my wish, my wish that we speak with one voice and focus on the problems that we have.”

He added: “The threat is too great for us to argue with ourselves.”

Who will serve on any committee other than the chairmen will be decided by the leaders of the Congress. The House of Representatives is in the process of forming various standing committees, a process expected to be contentious as McCarthy has already pledged to retaliate against Democrats for removing several far-right members from their committee positions in the last Congress.

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Some of the names proposed for the Judiciary Subcommittee include Rep. Scott Perry, Rep. from Pennsylvania, whose phone was confiscated in August as part of a Justice Department investigation into the January 6 uprising.

“Why should I be limited just because someone made an accusation?” Perry said in a Sunday interview on ABC’s This Week with host George Stephanopoulos. “Everyone in America is innocent until proven guilty.”

But Democrats argue that members like Perry and Jordan will use the committee as a way to fight back against agencies that are investigating them and their allies.

“They are actually trying to forgive themselves by creating this ad hoc committee,” McGovern said. “It’s shameless.”