House Republicans are forming two committees to investigate two of their big priorities – government overreach and China.
First – the select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. This panel will investigate how executive branch agencies, like the FBI, collect information about American citizens, and how they take action against them. The committee is charged with determining whether anything the agencies do is illegal, unconstitutional or unethical.
Part of the investigation will focus on how the federal government works with private sector companies like Twitter. The Twitter files revealed the company censored information at the behest of the FBI and other federal agencies.
The committee will also have the power to look into ongoing criminal investigations, which could lead to an impasse with the Justice Department that ultimately ends up in court. The Justice Department does not discuss nor share information about ongoing matters.
The panel will be able to issue subpoenas through the Judiciary Committee.
Next is the select committee on the strategic competition between the United States and the Chinese communist party. This group has one job – to investigate and submit policy recommendations on China’s economic, technological and security advancements, and how that will impact competition with the United States.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy: “to bring back hundreds of thousands of jobs that went to China and win the economic competition,”
The group has to submit policy proposals by the end of the year.
Neither of these committees will last forever, they will automatically shut down with the end of this congress in two years. To keep tabs on both sides of the divided government in Washington, stick with Straight Arrow News.com.