Republicans Are All About Weaponizing the Government

Tucker Carlson essentially created a congressional panel, but he was nice enough to let Republican lawmakers run it. The newly formed House select subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government—which will hold its first hearing Thursday—was established, according to The Washington Post, “in response to demands by hard-line conservatives.” Yet it seems more likely the brainchild of Carlson, the real brain of the Republican Party. Last month, the Fox News host urged Kevin McCarthy, who was then trying to win over far-right members of his caucus, to create a new Church Committee to investigate what the FBI and intelligence agencies “have been doing to control domestic politics.” Carlson gave his instructions to the would-be speaker alongside the chyron, “How Badly Does Kevin McCarthy Want This Job?” 

It hasn’t been a particularly auspicious start. The same congressional Republicans who finally got their speaker elected on his 15th try accidentally gave Democrats a supermajority on their new subcommittee. Was it a comedy of errors or perhaps it was perfectly on brand for this Veep-style caucus that the first thing this group polymaths did was accidentally give away their advantage? As Politico’s Kyle Cheney noticed, “The House, in an attempt to expand the ‘weaponization’ subcommittee to 21 members, appears to have inadvertently shrunk it to 12 and given Dems a supermajority.” The mistake was fixed, but it was a fitting start for a panel seemingly crafted to Benghazi President Joe Biden for the pleasure of Fox News viewers and the benefit of the Republican Party in 2024. 

“With its ‘weaponization of government’ committee the GOP has basically hung up a shingle for ‘Insurrection LLC’—a law firm of sorts where MAGA Republicans will work overtime to expunge their own roles in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.” California representative Eric Swalwell told me, “Erasing what happened on January 6—and the role Trump and MAGA GOP played—is the best way to incite a future attack on democracy.”

Carlson didn’t get everything he wanted in this new “Church Committee,” a reference to the post-Watergate congressional panel that probed the intelligence agencies. The host called for the group to be led by Kentucky representative Thomas Massie, who, while getting a seat, was beaten out for the top spot by the only person who might be more pugnacious and than he is, the proudly jacketless Jim Jordan. In early January, the newly emboldened Jordan, who now chairs the powerful Judiciary committee, told his friends at Fox, “We have a duty to get into these agencies and look at how they have been weaponized to go against the very people they’re supposed to represent, how they have infringed on First Amendment liberties of the American people.” 

Jordan was on the original Benghazi select committee, which was so profoundly effective at damaging Hilary Clinton’s career that, in 2015, McCarthy bragged to Fox News’ Sean Hannity how the series of investigations into a terrorist attack three years earlier in Libya, while Clinton was Secretary of State, was tanking her poll numbers ahead of a presidential election. “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy said. “But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”

So if Republicans found success with the original, why not a sequel?

These days, Jordan, a figure widely despised by Democrats, seems to be on a kick to look less like a partisan fanatic, which includes seeking to “boost his credibility” by also appearing on non-Fox outlets. For instance, Jordan just made his first stop on NBC’s Meet the Press since 2019. (Of course, according to the Bulwark, Jordan’s committee leaked its subpoenas list to preferred right-wing outlets, including Breitbart and Fox News—and then promoted those articles on its own website.) “Jordan is obviously firmly anchored in that Freedom Caucus right-wing MAGA world. He’s a close Trump confidant,” one Democratic lawmaker told CNN. “His effort, if he wants to do this, will be to try to create more credibility, especially outside of Fox News.” 

But a few mainstream media hits aren’t going to undo an entire career of right-wing fuckery. “Jim Jordan’s Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is guilty of perpetuating the very problem it pretends to solve: weaponizing government against political adversaries, against President Biden and his family,” Representative Ritchie Torres told me, “Governance by conspiracy theory is the modus operandi of the new House Republican majority.”

Also on the committee is Trump superfan and former Oversight chair Darrell Issa, along with Elise Stefanik, who ranks third in the House GOP leadership—a beneficiary of the Liz Cheney purge—and who has already endorsed Donald Trump for 2024. MAGA stalwart Matt Gaetz was also “quietly appointed,” as NBC News noted Tuesday. 

Thursday’s hearing is already shaping up to be a doozy. The announced witness list includes Senator Ron Johnson (a.k.a. “RonAnon”), Senator Chuck Grassley, former Democrat turned Fox fill-in Tulsi Gabbard, and former FBI special agent Nicole Parker. You’ll be profoundly unshocked to find out Parker has written for the Fox News website and was a recent guest on Hannity. 

Democrats wisely picked members of Congress from previous Trump investigations to serve on the committee. Representative Stacey Plaskett, a breakout star of Trump’s second impeachment and a former law student of Representative Jamie Raskin, is serving as ranking member. Also on the committee is newly minted congressman Dan Goldman, who was the lead lawyer on Trump’s first impeachment. 

“The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government—or more aptly named the GOP Subcommittee to Obstruct Justice—will operate as simply another vehicle for the Republicans’ attacks on our democracy and efforts to interfere with ongoing criminal investigations,” Goldman told me in an email. “I look forward to using my experience directly relevant to the focus of the Subcommittee to serve as a bulwark against Republican overreach and politicized investigations. We Democrats will not only counter the extremism and expose the hypocrisy of the Republicans, but we will also work to restore faith in the rule of law and our democratic foundations.” 

We know what this committee is. It’s a craven propaganda ploy. The question is, like with so many things in this political landscape, will it work with voters? The midterms showed that swing state voters weren’t swayed by these kinds of MAGA theatrics. And Republicans, to win in 2024, need voters who rejected the likes of Kari Lake, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Blake Masters—and will likely shrink at the image of Marjorie Taylor Greene banging a gavel and cosplaying Nancy Pelosi. It’s too soon to know if the “weaponization” committee hurts Republicans the way the party’s overreach with Bill Clinton’s impeachment did in the late 1990s—or if it helps the GOP the way Benghazi did in tarnishing Hillary Clinton last decade. But it’s hard to imagine this group of morons aren’t going to embarrass themselves, and the country, in the process.