The new House subcommittee focused on the “weaponization” of the federal government is filling out its roster which, as reporters unearthed Tuesday, now includes Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
Gaetz was quietly appointed to the panel by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), whose speakership he very publicly attempted to block mere weeks ago. The Republican hardliner will replace Rep. Chip Roy, who also held his vote for McCarthy hostage in early January.
Roy has been reassigned to the House Budget Committee, alongside serving on the House Rules Committee and House Judiciary Committee, and he reportedly asked for the change because his portfolio is demanding and he has a young family at home.
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government was established on Jan. 10 with a 221-211 party line vote. The panel, set to hold the first of what will likely be many sham hearings on Thursday, will “investigate how the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security” and other federal agencies exchange information with different sectors to “facilitate action against American citizens.” At least, that is how House GOP leadership describes it.
Modeled after the Church Committee of 1975, the new committee says that its aim is to root out governmental abuses the way its predecessor exposed MKUltra. What it’ll actually do is spin panic-inducing headlines from Fox News into frivolous investigations that go nowhere. The subcommittee is the brainchild of the Freedom Caucus, with whom McCarthy struggled to curry favor during his prolonged run for the speakership, and it’s been granted wide-ranging powers to investigate basically anything and anyone they want.
In a floor speech when the panel was created, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) tried to get ahead of impending criticism by arguing that the goal of the committee wasn’t to pursue vendettas against officials who’d been investigating the January 6th insurrection or Trump’s various schemes. It’s a rich line from the Ohio Republican, who is himself conflicted by his role in various election subversion efforts, including having repeated communications with Trump on the day of the Jan. 6 attack.
Gaetz has plenty of reason to want to investigate the investigators: The Florida Republican is one of several members of Congress who requested a “preemptive pardon” from President Trump in December 2020 tied to his defense of the then-president’s efforts to overturn the election.
The Jan. 6 committee later revealed that Gaetz’s pardon requests also included an ask for a pardon as “broad as you can describe,” former White House attorney Eric Herschmann told the committee. Gaetz was under FBI investigation for underage sex trafficking, but ultimately didn’t face charges.
