How the Tables Turn: House to Probe Weaponization of Gov’t

Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes? The oft-quoted line – “Who will guard the guards themselves?” in English – was originally found in the Satires of the second-century Roman satirist, Juvenal. It is the spirit of this question that inspired the three-branch government of the United States and the various checks and balances between them, and it is the spirit in which House Republicans will now form a subcommittee to investigate the weaponization of the FBI and DOJ against former-President Trump and his supporters.

The now GOP-controlled House voted Tuesday, January 10, to create the subcommittee along party lines, 221-211, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is expected to chair it. The creation of the panel is but one of several major concessions Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made to the Freedom Caucus to buy enough votes for his position, and it seems, so far, that he’s holding up his end of the bargain.

The new committee will have broad powers, including the ability to view sensitive information from the House Intelligence Committee and to review any ongoing investigations. Democrats opposed its creation unanimously, and several have derided it after the fact, but, of course, they still intend to sit members on it. “It’s in our best interest to make sure we are representing the will of the caucus and the American public, and that Republicans don’t have an opportunity behind closed doors to shape, and to add to, these conspiracy theories,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) told reporters.

Political Weaponization – Just a Conspiracy Theory?

The political weaponization of the government against conservatives is just a conspiracy theory, Democrats are wont to say. But what happens when a theory turns out to be true? There’s plenty of evidence for plate tectonics and germ theory, neither of which are generally questioned, yet theories they remain. A conspiracy theory is nothing more than a belief that something happened. Some are zany, yes – but not all. Did the FBI act against Trump? Text messages between disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok and former Bureau lawyer Lisa Page suggest as much.

The Russian collusion hoax – which involved bad actors in the alphabet agencies as well as Congress and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign – fell completely apart. Multiple Trump impeachments failed to garner convictions, and the Jan. 6 Committee investigation revealed only what partisan actors wanted to see.

Yet none of this deterred the left from turning everything at their disposal into a weapon to be used against Trump and conservatives in general. From the IRS targeting of conservative groups in the Obama years to collusion between the White House and social media groups to censor anyone who didn’t support the mainstream COVID-19 narrative, Democrats in recent years have had no qualms about wielding the entire government against their political enemies.

Politics – Just a Fancy Word for Hypocrisy

In a speech denouncing the new subcommittee and investigation, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) averred that the “investigate the investigators committee” would “discredit law enforcement, like the FBI, who are so important in the fight against domestic violent extremism.” Forget all about the proven malfeasance – or the fact that Schiff himself was on the side of defunding the police and supported the riots of 2020, at least so long as politically expedient, in any case.

Those “peaceful protests” cost at least 25 lives and an estimated $2 billion or more in property damage. But it’s the “right-wing violent militia groups” who are America’s greatest terrorist threat at the moment? Yet still a committee exists to investigate the incident and Trump’s involvement in it, and, of course, any oversight of that investigation is political gamesmanship.

If you’ve done nothing wrong – have nothing to hide – why wouldn’t you welcome an investigation? That’s the question so often asked by those who hope to do the snooping – but how quickly they forget their own words when the spotlight is turned back upon them. Democrats wasted two years and billions of dollars digging for dirt to use against Trump, no matter how illegitimate the claim against him. Now that Republicans hold power in the House, the bill has come due. Did Democrats weaponize the government against any who dared defy them? “Who will guard the guards themselves?” Juvenal’s question rings through the centuries, demanding to be answered.