Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and his allies have claimed that they want the new GOP subcommittee investigating the FBI’s probes of former President Donald Trump to take after the Church Committee, a famous bipartisan investigative task force in Congress that investigated abuses by the intelligence community.
But according to The New York Times, over two dozen staffers who worked on that committee have a stark warning for House Republicans in a new letter: do not get bogged down in partisan battles, and pursue the actual facts where they may lead.
“The Church Committee, formed in 1975 and commonly known by the name of its chairman Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho, was formally called the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities,” noted Luke Broadwater. “It investigated warrantless electronic surveillance affecting U.S. citizens; C.I.A. assassination plots against foreign leaders; C.I.A. and F.B.I. mail-opening programs; C.I.A. drug testing on unwitting governmental personnel; communications intercepts affecting Americans; and the disruption and discrediting of peaceful civil rights and antiwar activists.”
The staffers are warning Jordan that the current “Weaponization” subcommittee, which was crafted in part by the blueprint of a Christian nationalist pro-Trump think tank, runs the risk of being a partisan weapon itself.
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“If they’re sincere about emulating the Church Committee model, then we wanted the particulars to be laid out there clearly so that everyone has guideposts to measure the extent to which Jordan is succeeding or failing and living up to the legacy of the Church Committee,” said former associate deputy attorney general Frederick D. Baron, who served as a lawyer on that Committee.
Jordan, who also chairs the House Judiciary Committee, has already drawn fire for sending subpoenas to various executive branch officials without trying to get their voluntary cooperation first.