GOP House Investigations

Halifax2TheMax

About sums it up.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cof6WVfjKVr/?igshid=NTdlMDg3MTY=

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/science-us-republican-party-brad-wenstrup-james-comer-anthony-fauci-5fdee072d1d60ae097e7044c73a5d3ca

 

U.S. Republican Party Anthony Fauci COVID-19 Brad Wenstrup James Comer

GOP launches probe into COVID origins with letter to Fauci

By FARNOUSH AMIRI and NOMAAN MERCHANT

Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans kicked off an investigation Monday into the origins of COVID-19 by issuing a series of letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony.

The Republican chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic requested information from several people, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, surrounding the hypothesis that the coronavirus leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab.

“This investigation must begin with where and how this virus came about so that we can attempt to predict, prepare or prevent it from happening again,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chair of the virus subcommittee, said in a statement.

Rep. James Comer, R-Tenn., chairman of the oversight committee, added that Republicans will “follow the facts” and "hold U.S. government officials that took part in any sort of cover-up accountable.”

The letters to Fauci, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others are the latest effort by the new Republican majority to make good on promises made during the 2022 midterms campaign.

Wenstrup, who is also a longtime member of the House Intelligence Committee, has accused U.S. intelligence of withholding key facts about its investigation into the coronavirus. Republicans on the committee last year issued a staff report arguing that there are “indications” that the virus may have been developed as a bioweapon inside the China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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SCIENCE

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That would contradict a U.S. intelligence community assessment released in unclassified form in August 2021 that said analysts do not believe the virus was a bioweapon, though it may have leaked in a lab accident.

The letters sent Monday do not require the cooperation of recipients. But in announcing the Republican staff report in December, Wenstrup said that lawmakers would issue subpoenas if potential witnesses didn't cooperate.

It is extremely difficult for scientists to establish definitively how diseases emerge, but studies by experts around the world have determined that COVID-19 most likely emerged from a live animal market in Wuhan, China.

Initially dismissed by most public health experts and government officials, the hypothesis that COVID-19 originated from an accidental lab leak began to receive scrutiny after President Joe Biden ordered an investigation into the matter in May 2021.

The 90-day review was meant to push American intelligence agencies to collect more information and review what they already had. Former State Department officials under President Donald Trump had publicly pushed for further investigation into virus origins, as had scientists and the World Health Organization. But the review proved to be inconclusive, with intelligence agencies saying that barring an unforeseen breakthrough, they wouldn't be able to conclude the origin either way.

Many scientists, including Fauci, who until December served as Biden’s chief medical adviser, say they still believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to humans, a well-documented phenomenon known as a spillover event. Virus researchers have not publicly identified any key new scientific evidence that might make the lab-leak hypothesis more likely.

But Republicans have accused Fauci of lying to Congress when he denied in May that the National Institutes of Health funded “gain of function” research — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world — at a virology lab in Wuhan. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, even urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci’s statements.

Fauci, who served as the country’s top infectious disease expert under both Republican and Democratic presidents, has called the GOP criticism nonsense.

Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., have previously said that an October 2021 letter from NIH to Congress contradicts Fauci. But no clear evidence or scientific consensus exists that “gain of function” research was funded by NIH, and there is no link between U.S.-funded research to the emergence of COVID-19. NIH has repeatedly maintained that its funding did not go to such research involving boosting the infectivity and lethality of a pathogen.

Nonetheless, Fauci indicated in November that he would “cooperate fully and testify” if Republicans followed through with their plans to investigate COVID's origin.

“I have no trouble testifying — we can defend and explain everything that we’ve said," he told reporters during a White House briefing last year.

Gern Blansten

I have a feeling this will blow up in their faces worse than the other hearings.

Halifax2TheMax

I wouldn’t appear before any congressional committee Gym Jordan is heading up. Fuck him.

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/technology-us-republican-party-tim-cook-business-sundar-pichai-ce0e00d7ddeff8c08a95a7fbf01080f8

  

U.S. Republican Party Sundar Pichai Subpoenas Satya Nadella Jim Jordan Mark Zuckerberg Tim Cook

GOP subpoenas tech CEOs as part of probe into censorship

By FARNOUSH AMIRI

Yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Subpoenas were sent to the chief executives of the five largest tech companies on Wednesday as congressional Republicans moved to investigate what they assert is widespread corporate censorship of conservative voices.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued the subpoenas as the latest in a series of escalations by a party that has long promised to investigate Big Tech's content moderation, especially when it came to COVID-19.

The letters were sent to Mark Zuckerberg of Meta; Sundar Pichai of Alphabet; Satya Nadella of Microsoft; Tim Cook of Apple; and Andy Jassy of Amazon.com.

And in them, Jordan outlined the committee's objective to "understand how and to what extent the Executive Branch coerced and colluded with companies and their intermediaries to censor speech.”

Spokespeople for Microsoft and Meta said Wednesday that they have already begun producing documents. Requests for comment from Apple, Alphabet and Amazon was not immediately returned.

The committee asked the companies to produce documents and communications by March 23 that show any communication between them and the executive branch of the U.S. government relating to moderation, deletion, suppression or reduced circulation of content.

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Notably missing from the list of companies subpoenaed is Twitter. The new owner, Tesla founder Elon Musk, has proven to be more sympathetic to conservatives than Twitter's previous administration.

Just last week, three former Twitter executives appeared before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee to testify about the company’s decision to initially block a New York Post article in October 2020 about the contents of a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden.

The former employees conceded in that hearing that they made a mistake by blocking a story about the president’s son, from the social media platform in the run-up to the 2020 election, but adamantly denied GOP assertions they were pressured by Democrats and law enforcement to suppress the story.

In Wednesday's letter, Jordan outlined how Musk’s decision last year to release a slew of company information to independent journalists “have exposed how Big Tech and the federal government have worked hand ways that undermine First Amendment principles.”

The documents and data, titled “the Twitter Files,” largely show internal debates among employees over the decision to temporarily censor links to the Hunter Biden story. The tweet threads lacked substantial evidence of a targeted influence campaign from Democrats or the FBI, which has denied any involvement in Twitter’s decision-making.

The hearing and subsequent subpoenas this month continue a yearslong trend of GOP leaders calling tech company leaders to testify about alleged political bias. Democrats, meanwhile, have pressed the companies on the spread of hate speech and misinformation on their platforms.

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-biden-politics-united-states-government-james-comer-d75cb39e91b833bc1a2a0fb8bc305e3c

 

Afghanistan Joe Biden United States government Afghanistan government James Comer

GOP opens another investigation of Afghanistan withdrawal

By FARNOUSH AMIRI

Yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Several Biden Cabinet members, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, received a letter Friday from House Republicans as they launched the second investigation into the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sent a series of letters to senior leadership at the White House, Department of Defense, State Department and others requesting a tranche of documents related to the end of America's longest war.

“The Biden Administration was tragically unprepared for the Afghanistan withdrawal and their decisions in the region directly resulted in a national security and humanitarian catastrophe,” Comer said in a statement. “Every relevant department and agency should be prepared to cooperate and provide all requested information.”

Republicans have been vowing to press President Joe Biden’s administration on what went wrong as the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 and the U.S. left scores of Americans and thousands of Afghans who helped them over the years in grave danger. Now with the power of the gavel, GOP lawmakers are elevating that criticism into aggressive congressional oversight, and on a topic that has been met with bipartisan support in the past.

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AFGHANISTAN

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In a statement, the State Department said that while it does not comment on congressional correspondence, the agency is committed to working with congressional committees.

“As of November 2022, the Department has provided more than 150 briefings to bipartisan Members and staff on Afghanistan policy since the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan,” the statement continued. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The letters Friday come nearly one month after Rep. Mike McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, opened his own investigation into the deadly withdrawal, requesting documents from Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

McCaul’s letter outlined a request for all communications around the lead-up to pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. He also made it clear that his committee, which has jurisdiction over the matter, also plans to investigate the after-effects of the withdrawal, including on the hundreds of thousands of Afghan allies left behind.

The Trump administration agreed late in its term to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan in May 2021, with the former president saying in 2020, “Now it’s time for somebody else to do that work.” But Republicans are intent on reminding Americans that it was Biden who was in charge when the Taliban took over.

And the criticism over the issue began in a bipartisan manner, with several Democrat-led committees pledging to investigate what went wrong in the days and weeks after the withdrawal.

U.S. officials have said they were surprised by the quick collapse of the military and the government, prompting sharp congressional criticism of the intelligence community for failing to foresee it.

In a congressional hearing last spring, senators questioned whether there is a need to reform how intelligence agencies assess a foreign military’s will to fight. Lawmakers pointed to two key examples: U.S. intelligence believed that the Kabul government would hold on for months against the Taliban, and more recently believed that Ukraine’s forces would quickly fall to Russia’s invasion. Both were wrong.

Military and defense leaders have said the Afghanistan collapse was built on years of missteps, as the U.S. struggled to find a successful way to train and equip Afghan forces.

Last year, a watchdog group concluded it was decisions by Trump and Biden to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan that were key factors in the collapse of that nation’s military.

The report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, mirrors assertions made by senior Pentagon and military leaders in the aftermath of the withdrawal. Military leaders have made it clear that their recommendation was to leave about 2,500 U.S. troops in the country, but that plan was not approved.

In February 2020, the Trump administration signed an agreement with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, in which the U.S. promised to fully withdraw its troops by May 2021. The Taliban committed to several conditions, including stopping attacks on American and coalition forces. The stated objective was to promote a peace negotiation between the Taliban and the Afghan government, but that diplomatic effort never gained traction before Biden took office in January 2022.

___

Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

mickeyrat

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1631469540373659648?t=OimnkueAplejsVToLR-1Vg&s=19

Halifax2TheMax

mickeyrat said:

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1631469540373659648?t=OimnkueAplejsVToLR-1Vg&s=19

And known to be armed with an AR15 and admitted that such knowledge with any suspect would require per FBI protocol a SWAT response.

Gym Jordan is really exposing the corruption. 

Halifax2TheMax

This is the outfit behind Gym Jordan's "committee" to investigate the weaponization of the government. Perused their report hoping to find where their donations come from but no, just more propaganda. Gonna have to do a little more digging but who is funding this?

The Center for Renewing America | To renew an American consensus of a nation under God with unique interests worthy of defending that flow from its people, institutions, and history, where individuals’ enjoyment of freedom is predicated on just laws and healthy communities. (americarenewing.com)

mickeyrat

Halifax2TheMax said:

This is the outfit behind Gym Jordan's "committee" to investigate the weaponization of the government. Perused their report hoping to find where their donations come from but no, just more propaganda. Gonna have to do a little more digging but who is funding this?

The Center for Renewing America | To renew an American consensus of a nation under God with unique interests worthy of defending that flow from its people, institutions, and history, where individuals’ enjoyment of freedom is predicated on just laws and healthy communities. (americarenewing.com)

staff.....

https://americarenewing.com/about/

mickeyrat

gift article...

House Committee Budgets Swell as G.O.P. Plans Road Shows Across U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/05/us/politics/house-republicans-budget-travel-campaign.html?unlocked_article_code=rQHlPE8TtGJ1mBodxOtHK2wTpNLKEIufpyr3f7sMrueAWwTnQIWEDEKjEOfTboHeEhwNHYniMHMc_-EWeZgFSm262sB-2WUoS2A16Y7FWwjBT-41vU4Sofx0uP53eQw0v7sTV24l-7wUlQ8Dh9agnZ6hI7q-fzZf5fHnxpzWPy9LnDhQAeQ0GMu87X70y8ONLDZU_hmVqfYxr_ihalLSC6DQIjjXtKQggON0OiM9-MZjHGBdLfBbtgrZXWlEGASTMj_D1NU-ApmqfHnM2nfygYQHK4yGzV8EY_cXuxH-Rz-frzQ1sjKE8JTMAwTPsd-dGSR6Bh-pL3TKRabJM3UT_5oavPLiCOICd8Pld_xcUvRrWN4BEQI

 

House Committee Budgets Swell as G.O.P. Plans Road Shows Across U.S. 

Republican leaders have told their colleagues to get out of Washington for field hearings that allow the party to take their message straight to voters, a costly pursuit that can be a boon to big donors.

Image

House Republicans are determined to take their message directly to voters at a time when they are hard-pressed to get anything concrete done on Capitol Hill.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

By Annie Karni and Catie Edmondson

March 5, 2023, 5:12 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — When the House Ways and Means Committee traveled to Petersburg, W.Va., last month for its inaugural field hearing on “the state of the economy in Appalachia,” it met at the headquarters of a hardwood lumber manufacturer whose chief executive has donated the maximum campaign contribution allowed to a Republican member of the panel.

The logo of his company was on prominent display during the event.

When the committee descends on Yukon, Okla., this week for its second field hearing, this one on “the state of the economy in the heartland,” it will convene at Express Clydesdales, a restored barn and event space owned by a major donor to the super PAC aligned with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Republican National Committee, Senate Republicans’ campaign committee and former President Donald J. Trump.

continues.....

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/jim-jordan-parents-rights-disinformation-school-board-5280de301156d47b72ff03abfb511974

 

U.S. Republican Party United States Jim Jordan Ohio Education Subpoenas

Republicans issue subpoenas to former school board officials

By FARNOUSH AMIRI

32 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans issued another series of subpoenas Monday as part of an ongoing investigation into what they contend is the mistreatment of parents who protested “woke” school board policies.

Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, demanded documents and testimony from three individuals, including the former heads of the National School Boards Association, for “requesting federal law enforcement assistance to target parents voicing concerns at local school board meetings.”

The Ohio Republican is flexing his newly appointed subpoena power to probe a September 2021 letter that the nonprofit representing U.S. school boards sent to the Biden administration. The letter warned of rising threats against school board members over coronavirus restrictions and teaching around race.

The letter to the Justice Department, signed by Chip Slaven, then the interim executive director of the NSBA, and Viola Garcia, then the president of the NSBA, outlined more than 20 instances of threats, harassment, disruption and acts of intimidation in California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio and other states.

Jordan, who also chairs a new subcommittee dedicated to what Republicans assert is the “weaponization" of government, has said that as a result of the letter, the Justice Department designated “a specific threat tag” for school board-related threats and opened investigations “into parents simply for speaking out on behalf of their children.” Those allegation are outlined in a GOP report released in November.

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The NSBA has repeatedly stated that the letter's focus was on the issue of violence and threats, not protests from parents.

Last month, Jordan issued his first subpoenas as chairman to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, accusing them of withholding information about whether the government overreached in scrutinizing parents.

The Justice Department has denied targeting parents and has already begun to turn over documents to the committee. The subpoenas come days after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy helped introduce legislation that would give parents more of a say in school curriculum.

It is all part of the Republican Party's larger effort to turn the issue of ”parents’ rights” into a rallying cry, harnessing the frustration with schools that reached a boiling point during the pandemic when educators grappled with masking requirements, closures and remote learning for children.

Also subpoenaed Monday was Nina Jankowicz, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security's now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board. Jankowicz stepped down from the role in May after being caught in a political firestorm over the creation of the board, which was meant to coordinate the U.S. government’s efforts to treat disinformation as a national security threat.

But the board, which disbanded shortly after she stepped down, was hampered from the start by questions about its purpose, funding and work that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas struggled to answer even as he appeared in front of lawmakers last spring.

In the subpoena letter, Jordan said the committee is seeking testimony from Jankowicz regarding how the board planned to approach countering misinformation and “how it proposed to protect First Amendment rights.”

In response, Jankowicz said that she will “happily testify” about her time on the board but criticized the subpoena, saying Jordan's “abuse of congressional oversight powers is about to get wildly out of control.”

“His ‘weaponization’ committee is the entity that is actually weaponizing our government, and the American people deserve better,” Jankowicz said in a statement to The Associated Press. “I am ready to continue to stand up for the truth, as I have done my entire career, and I will not be cowed by conspiracy theories or intimidation.”

___ Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz contributed to this report.

mickeyrat

hilarious.....

https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1633987517459357700?t=vRX3KJJImecrUW52souGYg&s=19

josevolution

mickeyrat said:

hilarious.....

https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1633987517459357700?t=vRX3KJJImecrUW52souGYg&s=19

Damn that coward Jordan I wish the camera would of showed his face! 

Gern Blansten

The hypocrisy is just stunning.

mickeyrat

this passed to them...  gift article

House Republicans Quietly Halt Inquiry Into Trump’s Finances https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/us/politics/house-trump-finances-investigation.html?unlocked_article_code=IAH9-TBtcOE9AcApFE8xZfWWe7PG5nJ2Sk8pZvBDFKExjRDECHRymp9_IBo38U-F6m4rSxOHvhFX-9MCzaF4sc3m1byiBUDHjxN0ILPrkcJaSaBY7zGWzANBb9uoQ9fFrxl6rmrnV6TIDfgx8ICp1Pf7LIUj8y5mC_ssjTIAJKZH-qejUjhGdzWT7t5BF7-H3xka53SVR_hRWD0NmxvbwWLtFRKdt3jnhCofyCcUxyjZEFqANOu0wP1dGdizMDeb6PDEHnu9KVM8K8XeWSCgpJMtCQviGvfmEXAcTIJoNcb2cuBzitEMVFtFBPupxDPr8ilnrpAn_RY7Qq6stIoccOBDD893uErMdR1X56v7bgM

 

House Republicans Quietly Halt Inquiry Into Trump’s Finances

G.O.P. leaders are declining to enforce a court-supervised settlement for Mazars, Donald J. Trump’s former accounting firm, to turn over records in an investigation into whether he profited from the presidency.

Image

Mazars USA headquarters in Manhattan in 2021. Democrats fought in court for years to get financial documents from Mazars, and only last year began receiving the documents.Credit...Spencer Platt/Getty Images

By Luke Broadwater and Jonathan Swan

March 13, 2023

WASHINGTON — House Republicans have quietly halted a congressional investigation into whether Donald J. Trump profited improperly from the presidency, declining to enforce a court-supervised settlement agreement that demanded that Mazars USA, his former accounting firm, produce his financial records to Congress.

continues...

mickeyrat

https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1638529626191347712?t=qN2_lam3iu5_g12-bWYyVw&s=19

gimmesometruth27

mickeyrat said:

https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1638529626191347712?t=qN2_lam3iu5_g12-bWYyVw&s=19

everything backfires on them. gop is the wile e coyote to the the dems' road runner.

Gern Blansten

Amazing that the party of "law and order" is constantly attacking law and order. If the system says they won't indict tRump I doubt that any libs are going to threaten the prosecutor.

Bentleyspop

Gern Blansten said:

Amazing that the party of "law and order" is constantly attacking law and order. If the system says they won't indict tRump I doubt that any libs are going to threaten the prosecutor.

I believe the term you are searching for is....

FUCKING HYPOCRITES