If Republicans take the House in November, which is likely, and if Republicans live up to their rhetoric, which is questionable, the FBI and the Department of Justice may find themselves under the proverbial bare bulb.
The Washington Times reports that House Republicans have had it up to their eyebrows with misconduct by federal law enforcement and, armed with the information that has been provided to them by whistleblowers, are vowing a crackdown. GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee plan to create new laws and launch investigations into the FBI and DOJ. One of the moves that members have been spitballing includes, but is not limited to, requiring federal law enforcement officials to wear cameras when they stage a raid.
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) has suggested moving the DOJ supervision of the FBI out of D.C. and giving it to U.S. Attorneys’ offices around the country. Other ideas include creating special committees to probe the FBI and DOJ and strengthening congressional referrals to the Department of Justice for criminal investigations. That last idea is backed by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who told the Washington Times that he is drafting the necessary legislation. He recalled how Congress referred Lois Lerner and Eric Holder criminally during the Obama administration, but the moves were unsuccessful. Issa believes the new legislation will prevent this problem in the future.
Not that these ideas aren’t good. They are. They are good for a start, but they should only serve as the opening act. These, after all, are the agencies that classified parents as terrorists for speaking their minds at school district meetings. These are the agencies that have kept people in prison for J6 offenses who should have been out on bail by now or at least have served their time. These are the people who raid the homes of pro-lifers for minor offenses while ignoring attacks on pro-life clinics.
These are the people who may label you as a threat for having a Betsy Ross or Gadsden flag. These are the people who ignored the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and Joe Biden’s potential shady business dealings and tried to make sure you didn’t know about them. And, according to the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, these are the people who have been accused of purging whistleblowers from their ranks, moving agents from child sex abuse cases to pursue political investigations, and designating a veteran-led emergency prevention group as a terrorist organization — to name just a few issues.
There may be some DOJ and FBI employees who are true believers in the progressive agenda. But the rank-and-file didn’t come up with these things on its own. The fact that there are whistleblowers at all would indicate that. No, the problem is deeper and higher than that. To address the problem effectively, the source of the infection itself needs to be removed, along with treating the symptoms.
House GOP members need to get to the root of the problem instead of just trimming the branches. They need to find out who set these policies, what they are hiding, and what they gain from doing so. “Drain the Swamp” has been a conservative mantra since 2016. If the GOP takes the House this year, it needs to get serious about doing that.
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