House Oversight Committee hits ground running as GOP ushers in new era of priorities
Cami Mondeaux
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Republican leaders on the House Oversight Committee have hit the ground running, announcing a slew of investigations and hearings as the GOP ushers in a new era of legislative priorities.
The House Oversight Committee is led by Chairman James Comer (R-KY), who is tasked with steering the panel of some of the party’s most hard-line members who have pledged far-reaching investigations into President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Since being selected as committee chairman in December, Comer has wasted no time setting an agenda and initiating several inquiries into the Biden administration.
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Comer has vowed to use the Oversight Committee to investigate the crisis at the southern border, the Biden administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021, among other things.
Here are some of the committee’s priorities as the GOP gets its investigations underway:
Republicans to investigate John Kerry over negotiations with CCP
Comer announced he would be opening an investigation into White House climate czar John Kerry for high-level negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party related to climate, among the first of the House Oversight investigations.
Comer informed Kerry of the investigation in a letter sent on Thursday, seeking information from the special presidential envoy for climate in the Biden administration. The letter comes after Comer previously requested access to documents related to Kerry’s negotiations with the Chinese government but did not receive any materials, according to the committee chairman.
“To date, you have failed to respond to any of our requests,” Comer wrote. “Yet, you continue to engage in activities that could undermine our economic health, skirt congressional authority, and threaten foreign policy under the guise of climate advocacy.”
The announcement comes after Kerry told the Associated Press in May 2022 that he was negotiating with the CCP to create a group dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, prompting concerns among several Republican leaders who say the relationship could undermine the country’s economic health.
Republicans repeatedly requested Kerry provide documents detailing his negotiations with Chinese leaders during the previous Congress, but those requests were denied, according to Comer.
“Your office continues to ignore requests for information,” Comer wrote. “We are left with an insufficient understanding of your office’s activities, spending, and staffing.”
Comer demands answers from DOJ on classified document searches
Comer has also pressed the Justice Department about the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s think tank office and personal residence in Delaware, accusing his administration of double standards.
The Oversight chairman first requested information from the National Archives and White House Counsel’s Office about the document discovery on Jan. 10, just one day after it was first reported that classified materials were found in Biden’s office at his Washington-based think tank. Comer raised concerns about “inconsistent application” of the Presidential Records Act toward Biden and former President Donald Trump.
“For months, NARA failed to disclose to Committee Republicans or the American public that President Biden — after serving as Vice President — stored highly classified documents in a closet at his personal office. NARA learned about these documents days before the 2022 midterm elections and did not alert the public that President Biden was potentially violating the law,” Comer wrote. “Meanwhile, NARA instigated a public and unprecedented FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago — former President Trump’s home — to retrieve presidential records. NARA’s inconsistent treatment of recovering classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raises questions about political bias at the agency.”
The House Oversight Committee requested information from the National Archives last month, but the agency said it needed DOJ approval before handing over materials. DOJ officials are “actively working” to provide a report to Congress members while not interfering with the department’s investigations.
“The National Archives gave [Democrats] every piece of information that they requested on Donald Trump, but they never gave me any information,” Comer told Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “Once again, the reasoning was that the general counsel answered all our questions, but he wasn’t allowed to turn it over to us. The only people that could prohibit him from answering our request was either the Department of Justice or the White House.”
GOP to hold first hearing on Twitter suppression of Hunter Biden stories
The Oversight Committee is set to hold one of its first hearings of the new Congress later this month focused on Twitter’s efforts to suppress news coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 election.
The committee will hold a hearing titled “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story” on Wednesday. During that hearing, three former Twitter employees are expected to testify about the company’s decision to censor reporting from the New York Post on the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Big Tech and the Swamp colluded to censor reporting about the Biden family’s shady business schemes,” Comer said. “We also know members of Twitter’s top censorship team debated how they could justify limiting the spread of the story. They landed on a policy that even some among them doubted.”
The hearing comes after it was revealed that FBI officials also warned Twitter officials of “hack-and-leak operations” associated with political campaigns, according to internal documents obtained by the New York Post. Those warnings included rumors of operations specifically targeting Hunter Biden, as his father was the Democratic presidential nominee at the time.
Shortly after the release of the Hunter Biden laptop story, Twitter officials worked to suppress the story by removing links to the article and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe,” according to the company’s internal communications that were released in December as part of the so-called “Twitter Files.”
Twitter executives cited its “hacked materials” policy in its explanation for removing the story, and the decision was made at “the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey.”
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However, Matt Taibbi, a journalist who released the Twitter Files that detailed the platform’s decision-making behind suppressing the Hunter Biden story, found there was no evidence “of any government involvement” in censoring the story.
“Americans deserve answers about this attack on the First Amendment and why Big Tech and the Swamp colluded to censor this information about the Biden family selling access for profit,” Comer said. “Accountability is coming.”