House Democrats expressed opposition during the first hearing of the Special Subcommittee on Armaments of the Federal Government. The probe was a Republican promise made before the 2022 midterm elections, when Justice Department political bias emanating from the J. Edgar Hoover Building culminated last August in the federal ransacking of Mar-a-Lago on trumped-up charges of mishandling secrets materials . Trump’s raid could have been the death knell for the widespread trust and credibility this institution enjoyed around the world. To half the country, it looked like a politically motivated Gestapo raid by the left to warn the former president not to run again in 2024.
This investigation may never have happened; The GOP narrowly won the House in 2022 after a dismal midterm election cycle. But even for the smallest majority, these investigations will soon begin, starting with subpoenas for Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona also received the call. The Democrats’ first step was predictable: to undermine the credibility of this body. The second part is to show the hearings as a powerful microphone through which the far right can spread conspiracy theories (through Fox News):
The top Democrat on the House Arms Subcommittee said there is a “difference” between “legitimate oversight and arming Congress,” sharply criticizing the GOP-created committee as one that will be used to “present conspiracy theories and advance an extreme agenda.”
The subcommittee’s first hearing featured two panels of witnesses who testified and illustrated the Justice Department’s alleged violations of American civil liberties.
The subcommittee’s ranking member, Rep. Stacey Plaskett, D-V.I., opened the panel’s first hearing with a warning to Republicans on the committee.
“No one questioned the important role of congressional oversight. I know firsthand how important it is to ask questions and demand answers from the federal government,” Plaskett said. “Congressional oversight can serve to protect the integrity of our Republic.”
“But there is a difference, my colleagues, between legitimate oversight and weaponization of Congress and our processes, especially the work of our committee, as a political tool,” she said.
Plaskett, who served as impeachment manager during former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment, expressed “deep concern” that the Arms Subcommittee would be used “as a place to settle scores, advance conspiracy theories and advance an extreme agenda that threatens to undermine faith.” Americans in our democracy.”
Tulsi Gabbard condemns Mitt Romney for accusing her of high treason. pic.twitter.com/IKHelwm0ki
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 9, 2023
The first panel included Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mr. Raskin, and former Republican Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). The second group consisted of former FBI agent Nicole Parker, who left when she felt her former employer was becoming too political, Elliot Williams of the Raben Group, Thomas Baker, another former FBI agent, and law professor Jonathan Turley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=live
It’s incredibly prosperous that Trump’s impeachment manager is pissed that Congress is investigating him for abuse of power. She should be familiar with this concept since she was neck deep in it a few years ago. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who testified on the first panel of the hearing, he said it wasn’t a matter of oversight, but of “spreading a scandal and blaming it on others.”
Raskin: “Can you imagine a more egregious example of weaponizing the Justice Department for purely political purposes than imprisonment and solitary confinement?” [political opponents]?” pic.twitter.com/PEn2Kkxsr1
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 9, 2023
Representative Colin Allred asks whether J6 was an act of domestic terrorism
You. FBI Agent Thomas Baker: “This was an act of lawlessness, a lot of property was destroyed and crimes were committed by trespassing. I don’t know if this qualifies as terrorism.” pic.twitter.com/ASQ5APNbLw
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) February 9, 2023
Well, yes, this is politics, Jamie. It’s war by other means (via Roll call):
Republicans defended their use of subpoenas Thursday during the subcommittee’s first hearing on “weaponizing” the federal government, as Democrats accused them of trying to use the congressional tool to score political points.
Republican Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio argued that the panel’s first three subpoenas issued Friday came after months of opposition from the Biden administration over conservative concerns that the Justice Department was targeting parent protests at school board meetings.
Congressional subpoenas for executive branch documents rarely go down well in courts, but Jordan argued Thursday that “we tried last Congress.”
“We sent over 100 letters. We tried,” Jordan said.
The fact is elementary: no one cares. We don’t care what the left thinks and vice versa. At its core, it is a political game, accumulating power to pursue enemies. The GOP remains painfully tardy in pursuing the Democratic Party’s true goals on this issue. To this end, they strengthened their control over institutions and cultural centers. It is only thanks to Trump that they have activated their Gestapo – the FBI – to target anyone who dares to question their version of an America that is woke, broke and disempowered because that is Marxism, which needs to be stripped of its layers of Trotskyist nonsense. Maybe they see that we are learning that making allegations is not the goal. No one thinks Wray and Garland will be charged or indicted. It’s about the probe and its effect like a radioactive isotope against the target, i.e. the tardy decline of reputation. There is no better way to put a damper on the knee of an adversary than to draw him into the federal labyrinth of investigation against an enemy, the Department of Justice, which has unlimited legal resources to destroy lives. The GOP says it is ready to wage war on the enemy from within. Do they have the impudence to continue and end what could be a very long, tiring conflict with the executive of the political class?
Judging by Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) long statement, she at least appears to be ready for a fight:
“The FBI’s biased censorship infringing on First Amendment civil rights and liberties and its full-scale weaponization against the American people will be exposed when the Federal Government’s Special Subcommittee on Armaments takes action this week. This first hearing will be critical in laying the groundwork to root out long-standing political weapons against the American people rooted in the federal government. Just as I presented the facts in the mock impeachments of President Donald Trump, successfully defeated the Democrats’ partisan trial, and exposed the Justice Department’s attacks on parents through my hearing, I will lead the charge to root out corruption in our government agencies. “Accountability is coming, and we will get to the bottom of this issue and provide truth and accountability on behalf of patriotic Americans who have been unjustly targeted by corrupt government agencies.”
For now, we can enjoy the left’s irony about its dismay at the GOP supposedly arming the government to hunt down its enemies… just as they did.
