House Republicans are getting set to establish a new Judiciary subcommittee to look into how the Executive Branch has investigated and collected information on American citizens.
The subcommittee, if formed, will be known officially as the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. According to the House resolution that will be up for a vote, it will be composed of up to 13 members. The New York Times reported that it will be led by none other than Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who will also chair the full Judiciary Committee.
Fox News Digital reached out to Jordan’s office, but they did not immediately respond.
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 White House 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 as ‘a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.’
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.’