House Republicans plan a new a panel of the House Judiciary Committee, tentatively called the “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.” Such a panel was among the demands of GOP holdouts to Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Republican leader has expressed his support for the subcommittee’s creation, which hinges on the rebels’ willingness to join the rest of their conference and back him in Tuesday’s speaker vote. The committee’s title is a recognition that revelations about government meddling in speech and politics go beyond the FBI. The Journal cites the Hunter Biden laptop story and a batch of Twitter files from journalist Matt Taibbi includes communications between the FBI and Twitter as they policed online speech. The subcommittee’s proposed charter is a recognition that Congress hasn’t kept pace with government’s potential to abuse new technology. The panel will look at how agencies work with each other and with the private sector to collect information on Americans. The panel’s designation as a subcommittee is designed to allow Republicans to make changes if necessary. Stand-alone select committees lack the power to legislate. The risk of the committee is that—like the 1975 Church Committee, which some in the GOP are citing as a model—it results in overreach. Republicans are increasingly debating “structural” FBI change. The Church Committee did far more harm than good, says the Journal. It exposed a few Central Intelligence Agency plots, but at the cost of allowing the left to attack and undermine the U.S. intelligence mission. The committee’s recommendations included the FISA court, which critics say serves as an FBI rubber stamp. ]
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