House Republicans are taking their fight with the FBI and the Justice Department to a new level — weighing punitive measures against the two agencies that would have been unfathomable a decade ago.
Six months into their majority and with an increasingly agitated right flank, the House GOP is poised for a showdown after a series of recent decisions it sees as anti-Trump or pro-Biden. Top of the list: Hunter Biden’s plea deal with federal investigators and Donald Trump’s indictment for his handling of classified documents.
This push against the FBI and DOJ will become a cornerstone of the Republican agenda in a chaotic second half of the year. Chairman Kevin McCarthy has previously threatened to explore the removal of Attorney General Merrick Garland. Conservatives have also taken on FBI Director Christopher Wray, weighing whether to force a vote to remove him from office.
Additionally, some conservatives who believe the agencies have targeted Republicans are eager to cut legal agency budgets. Then there’s the long-running fight in Congress over a soon-to-expire warrantless surveillance program that has sparked bipartisan accusations of FBI abuse.
Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a leadership ally, predicted that fellow conservatives on the House Judiciary Committee’s government politicization panel and their allies would take their fight against the FBI and DOJ into the chamber. These Republicans, he said, “believe the best way to send a message is to use the power of the stock market.”
Whether they will prevail in the form of budget cuts, impeachment or other measures remains to be seen. The conservatives’ efforts could backfire, instead exposing tensions with centrist and more established Republicans who embrace the party’s pro-law enforcement roots — the sentiment that prevailed in the GOP before Trump’s arrival. .
The fault lines have emerged in closed House GOP spending meetings in recent weeks, as some lawmakers have warned others to think twice about how they use spending bills to target specific agencies. . In one session, Conservative Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said he privately urged his colleagues to “be careful” about how they talk about Justice Department funding, adding, ” I am not in favor of reducing the DOJ.”
The GOP’s outward frustrations with the FBI and DOJ — and the conference’s internal angst about punishing them — will be on display ahead of a series of high-profile hearings beginning in July. Wray will appear before the Judiciary Committee days after the House returns from its July 4 recess, as POLITICO first reported, while Garland will testify in September.
Their testimony is part of routine monitoring hearings. But it coincides with the GOP chairs launching a leadership-blessed investigation into the FBI and DOJ that has sparked new talk about Garland’s impeachment. The Republican probe — which spans the Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees — centers around whistleblower allegations that the DOJ and a U.S. attorney’s office obstructed Hunter Biden’s investigation. .
The impeachment threat sparked a fierce response from the White House and congressional Democrats. They say Republicans are waging a political vendetta that will not rise to the bar of a felony or misdemeanor. White House spokesman Ian Sams argued that House Republicans are “proving they don’t have a positive agenda” and are “pushing more partisan stunts meant only to draw attention to the extreme right”.
A Cabinet official has not been impeached since 1876. Republicans would need near-unanimity to target Garland, given their five-seat majority. So for now they are focusing most of their efforts on investigations.
Representatives James Comer (R-Ky.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jason Smith (R-Mo.) — who oversee the three committees leading the investigation — requested transcribed interviews with DOJ officials, of the FBI and IRS involved in the Hunter Biden investigation. That includes trying to bring in U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who oversaw the years-long federal investigation into the president’s son. If Weiss and others don’t comply, Republicans are prepared to use subpoenas.
At the heart of the GOP effort is the question of Weiss’ power over the Hunter Biden investigation and whether any constraints were imposed on the IRS. Weiss said he had “ultimate authority” – a claim disputed by the whistleblower – and the ability to seek “special advocate” status. Garland also emphasized Weiss’s autonomy and said he supported Weiss’ testimony in the House.
“Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Department of Justice, its constituents and its employees, claiming that we do not treat cases the same way. … Nothing could be further from the truth,” Garland said at a recent press conference. conference.
Those inquiries are expected to stretch into the fall, as Republicans have not set a specific timeline for the impeachment inquiry. The House will only be in Washington for a few weeks before a break until September 12, when they will be engrossed in trying to avoid a government shutdown.
Lawmakers expect the debate to drag on over the holidays, bringing them to another year-end deadline: reauthorizing a surveillance authority known as Section 702 that is used by the FBI.
Both of these legislative pushes have significant implications for the FBI and DOJ. They are also threatening to bust the GOP.
A bipartisan group of Intelligence Committee members is preparing to make changes to Section 702 as well as the broader law that governs it, which aims to target people overseas but has been the subject of criticism. scrutiny as it also swept away communications from Americans.
The FBI and DOJ have made internal changes aimed at strengthening compliance with surveillance rules, but any new authorization from Congress should add more controls. Lawmakers are considering penalties for people who lie in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, for example, as well as mandatory transcripts for court hearings and a rule that keeps surveillance requests in the hands of the same judges who originally filed them. deposited.
These lawmakers also issued the requirement that law enforcement at least notify U.S. citizens who are the subject of searches based on data collected by the program because they are suspected of being the potential victim of a crime or a campaign of foreign influence.
The FBI’s GOP critics want to do even more. They acknowledge that Congress will not agree to remove the oversight authority entirely, but they have suggested not allowing the FBI to search data collected under the program or requiring a warrant for such a search.
Intelligence officials and their bipartisan congressional allies say such a move would effectively neutralize the entire program, with national security consequences.
Some Republicans are also considering the use of government funding bills and other laws to guard against oversight violations that stem from the years-long Trump-focused investigation into Russia’s election interference in Russia. 2016.
GOP lawmakers have already taken a punitive step in the first draft of their spending plans: withholding more funding for a new FBI headquarters. Conservatives could go further in the House trying to recoup previously approved funds for the FBI building. And Rep. Dan Bishop (RN.C.) said he was talking with colleagues about an attempt to radically restructure the FBI outside of spending.
The biggest testing ground of the Conservatives’ longstanding commitment to curbing law enforcement will be the House GOP spending bill that includes the DOJ budget and the bulk of FBI-related funding . Republicans have discussed several ideas for this bill, including pay cuts for FBI and DOJ leaders and funding for agencies tied to responses when Congress makes surveillance requests.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has also pledged to take perhaps the most eye-catching hit of all: funding special counsel Jack Smith, who indicted Trump for his handling of classified documents.