Talk about Covid-19 vaccines, Elon Musk’s Twitter Files and Hunter Biden’s laptop dominated the first hearing of House Republicans’s first hearing on the “weaponisation” of the federal government.
Chairman Jim Jordan convened the hearing of the new committee, entitled the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Republicans created the committee early in the new Congress in response to what they thought were overly zealous probes into former president Donald Trump.
“We expect to hear from government officials and experts like we have here today,” he said in his opening remarks. “We expect to hear from Americans who've been targeted by their government. We expect to hear from people in the media. And we expect to hear from the FBI agents who have come forward as whistleblowers.”
But the hearing quickly devolved as soon as Senator Chuck Grassley gave a long-winded opening-statement.
“In the past few years, I’ve never seen so much effort from the FBI, partisan media and some of my Democratic colleagues to interfere with and undermine very legitimate congressional inquiries. It’s become a triad of disinformation and outright falsehoods,” he said.
Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin used his opening remarks to talk about Covid-19 and spread conspiracy theories.
“Federal health officials denied patients early treatment and to this day refuse toacknowledge the extent of significant injuries caused by the COVID vaccines,” he said.
Republicans also mentioned the Twitter Files, internal communications released by Mr Musk about the previous management of Twitter in which they decided briefly to block users from sharing a story from The New York Post about emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop that reportedly showed him trying to influence his father when Joe Biden served as vice president.
“This is the definition of election meddling and it’s the definition of election meddling by the FBI on behalf of Democrats, paid for by the US taxpayer,” Representative Elise Stefanik said.
Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida ranted about Robert Mueller, George Soros, Pfizer and a series of other conservative boogeymen.
The Florida congressman asked Elliot Williams, a principal at the Raben Group who worked for the Justice Department during the Obama administration, if Americans would not feel the government was against them if there wasn’t a revolving door of lobbyists and government.
“I don’t quite understand the premise of your question, sir,” Mr Williams said.
“It’s pretty easy, there’s a revolving door between senior officials at the DOJ and the lobbying profession,” Mr Gaetz responded.
“There are rules governing ... employment, and this is based on my understanding, I’ve been in government for 15 years, what post-government employment can and can’t be, what one’s actions can be once they’re employed elsewhere” Mr Williams said in response.
Mr Gaetz in turn responded by saying that lobbying is “influence peddling.” The right-wing congressman cited Mr Williams’s employment at the Raben Group, a lobbying firm, and pointed how Pfizer is a client of his organisation.
But Mr Williams said that he did not represent Pfizer.
“Does it surprise you that at the Raben Group's website, Pfizer and Google are clients,” he said.
“It does not surprise me, sir,” Mr Williams said. Mr Gaetz continued to cite the fact that the Raben Group also represented the Open Society Foundation, which financier George Soros funded. Mr Soros has become a right-wing enemy for his support of liberal causes.
“I want to assure you both we come not to trash the FBI, but to rescue the FBI from political capture. And it seems as though that political capture was really enhanced when Robert Mueller took a lot of the authority and power away from the field offices all over our country and centralized that power,” Mr Gaetz said in reference to the former FBI director who led the special counsel investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
But Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, whom Democrats called as a minority witness, said if Republicans wanted to focus on weaponisation, they should look at Mr Trump and said Republicans were simply trying to run defence for the former president.
“It's all about restoring Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president to the office he lost by 7 million votes in 2020 and tried to steal back in a political coup and violent insurrection against our constitutional order,” he said. “Now of course, a serious bipartisan committee focused on weaponisation of the government would zero in quickly on the Trump administration itself, which brought weaponisation to frightening blue new levels across the board.”
During her opening remarks, Democratic Representative Stacey Plaskett, the ranking member of the committee, echoed similar remarks.
“I'm deeply concerned about the use of this select subcommittee as a place to settle scores, showcase conspiracy theories, and advance an extreme agenda that risk undermining Americans faith in our democracy,” she said.
