Posted on 03/20/2022 6:03:07 AM PDT by RandFan
Hunter Biden. Anthony Fauci. Afghanistan. The border.
As Senate Republicans feel increasingly bullish about November, where they are fighting to regain control of Congress, they are floating using a new majority to dig into President Biden and his administration starting in 2023.
The potential probes underscore both the headaches awaiting Democrats if the House or Senate flip heading into 2024, but also the shifting power dynamics within the Senate GOP conference where a stream of retirements of more pragmatic-minded senators is elevating newer, more combative Republicans.
“I’m sure there will be plenty of ingenious individuals thinking about what to do on those committees,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.).
Braun, while noting he didn’t have a pet investigation, pointed to GOP Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) as two examples of GOP senators who could have “some real interest in looking into stuff that has not been attended to.”
Johnson, if he wins his reelection bid in November, is poised to chair the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s permanent subcommittee on investigations. Johnson is prevented because of term limits from chairing the full committee again, but the subcommittee gavel comes with a crucial element: subpoena authority.
Asked if there were overlooked issues that he would want to probe, Johnson appeared eager to dig in.
“Like everything?” he told The Hill. “It’s like a mosquito in a nudist colony, it’s a target rich environment.”
Johnson pointed to the administration’s handling of the coronavirus as one area ripe for investigation. Johnson himself has caught flack, and fed Democratic campaign attacks, as one of the most vocal skeptics within the Senate GOP conference of public health measures amid the pandemic, which has killed more than 970,000 people according to Johns Hopkins University data.
“There’s so much more in terms of what happened with our federal health agencies that we need to explore,” Johnson said
Johnson views himself as having broad jurisdictional boundaries and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s boundary lines are more amorphous than other panels because it combines homeland security with a much broader category of government oversight.
Johnson isn’t alone in wanting to dig into the coronavirus response.
Paul, a libertarian-leaning GOP senator who at times is a gnat for Senate GOP leadership, is in line to become the chairman of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee if Republicans win the majority.
Paul atop the committee would be a significant shift. Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.), currently the top Republican on the panel, is retiring after this year and has broken with Paul on a number of key issues. Former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who preceded Burr as the top Republican on the committee but retired after 2020, was a close ally of Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and known for his ability to cut bipartisan deals.
Paul has had high-profile tangles with Fauci during committee hearings and promised to investigate and subpoena Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, if he finds himself with a gavel next year.
“If we win in November, if I'm chairman of a committee, if I have subpoena power, we'll go after every one of [Fauci's] records,” Paul said earlier this year.
Under HELP Committee rules, the committee or a subcommittee can issue subpoenas, take sworn testimony or meet with subpoenaed witnesses “only if such investigative activity has been authorized by majority vote of the committee.”
The size of a GOP majority would determine the size of the GOP majority on the panel. But depending on who Paul wants to subpoena or investigate, getting a majority could prove tricky because the HELP committee includes more moderate GOP senators such as Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah).
Romney, Murkowski, Collins, Burr and Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) joined with Democrats on the committee to oppose Paul’s attempt last week to attach his proposal eliminating Fauci’s job and dividing it into three positions into a pandemic relief bill.
It’s not just the coronavirus that Republicans want to use their majority to dig into.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who currently leads the Senate GOP campaign arm, pointed to a long-running GOP focal point: the border. Oversight of the border would likely fall under the jurisdiction of the Senate’s homeland security committee, though immigration-issues also overlap with the Judiciary Committee.
And Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)—who, like Scott, is viewed as having White House ambitions— pointed back to the administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, with the quick fall of Kabul appearing to catch the U.S. government off guard.
Hawley pointed to a report from the U.S. military obtained by The Washington Post, which underscored tension between U.S. troops and administration officials.
“We need oversight hearings on this—on what they have found and on the withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Hawley said in an interview. “I would favor a select committee that is bipartisan, but I think Congress needs to do some oversight.”
It’s not just committee investigations that could cause headaches for the administration in a GOP-controlled Congress.
Lawmakers extended the debt ceiling earlier this year with aides estimating they don’t hit an “X” date until 2023, which could mean Biden has to negotiate with a GOP-controlled House or Senate. But House Republicans fumed over a Senate-negotiated deal to allow the debt ceiling to clear by a simple majority. The rule setting up the one-time exemption to the filibuster had to overcome the 60-vote hurdle, though most Senate Republicans opposed it.
Republicans could also use their majority to revive old investigations.
Johnson floated Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, as one potential area for investigation. Johnson and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) previously teamed up ahead of the 2020 election to dig into Hunter Biden as part of a sweeping probe that also touched on the start of the FBI's Russia probe.
The GOP probe sparked pushback from Democrats, who warned that the GOP senators were at risk of spreading Russian misinformation, and skepticism from some of their GOP colleagues. Though Grassley and Johnson issued an interim report in 2020, Johnson indicated there was still work that remained including wanting more of Hunter Biden’s travel records and frustration with the pace of responses from federal agencies.
“I’d kind of like that to wrap that up,” Johnson said, “We’ve been trying to get his travel records for a couple of years now.”
“The lack of transparency in these agencies. The lack of their willingness to comply with legitimate congressional oversight,” he added. “I mean I think that’s an investigation right there, is why can’t Congress conduct legitimate oversight anymore”
Any attempt by Johnson to revive the investigation would make him a magnet for Democratic criticism.
David Bergstein, a spokesperson for the DSCC, warned that GOP Senate candidates would be held accountable for a “toxic agenda” heading into November.
“Republicans have let voters know exactly what they can expect from a GOP Senate majority: higher taxes on seniors and working families, ending Medicare and Social Security, and a new effort to spike health care costs and gut coverage protections for pre-existing conditions,” Bergstein said in a statement to The Hill.
Ron Johnson and Rand Paul are going to kick some a$$!
The committee Rand will likely chair has been held by RINOs for decades.
Well then, World War IV will need to come just before the midterms. /shiny side out
I’ll believe it when I see it. Though I do like Rand so I have some hope.
Would love to share your enthusiasm, but Congressional probes are where crimes go to die…
I will believe it when I see it.
Probably an alien invasion is more likely
How about GOP focus on fixing our wrecked country. You know spend time repairing things that went wrong with our own nation that was supposed to cease existing with the Great Reset. You know, restoring sovereignty to the good ol USA and constitutional freedoms bereft of all the accumulating socialist garbage we all signed up for.
Endless investigations that yields absolutely nothing. No consequences or penalties. Strongly worded letters.
Nothing will happen, just like the Durham report or Hillary’s emails
Eyes?
If the ‘pubs win, they had better roast the Biden family.
All of them. Including the pretend ‘Doctor’...in Eddikashun.
All the time.
Almost fair retribution for what they tried (and always failed) to do to Trump.
Oh, and we want REAL judges, not liberal ones.
Fauci is trying to duck out in retirement before he gets caught, we will find out later the guy was behind covid entirely
Joe Biden was a Senate buddy for 36 years. Somebody like McConnell will resist investigating one of their own (unless the subject of the investigation is a republican of course).
However, neither Ron Johnson nor Rand Paul served with Joe Biden in the Senate, so there’s potential for something real to happen.
But Senators like Lindsay Graham, John Barrasso, Roger Wicker, etc. will try to thwart any real investigation of one of their fellow oligarchs.
Romney (Trump endorsed), Murkowski, Collins (Trump endorsed), Burr and Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) (Trump endorsed) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) (Trump endorsed for 2022) joined with Democrats
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We can’t keep re-electing Assistant Democrats and expect them to not assist the Democrats.
Yeah Sure
The GOP is all full of Sturm und Drang, Fire & Thunder, Piss & Vinegar in March.
Boy Howdy, just wait until Labor Day and the real start of Election Season.
Then come November, win, lose or draw, they sound like a bunch of neutered cats.
All will be forgiven, in the name of collegiality. I am old enough to remember Trent Lott’s ‘power sharing’.
A pox on all of them!
Yeah be sure to run on that in the mid-terms. Inflation, gas prices, food costs, COVID, nobody really cares about that.
Senate GOP eyes Hunter Biden, Fauci xxxxxx coverups after midterms. There I fix it, just like the GOP will fix these abuses.
eyes, one more adjective added to the list of non activity
Why wait? Waiting gives Jo Jo and his RATs more “inspiration” to steal the midterms. Put the commie bastards on the defensive NOW! Geez. This crap isn’t rocket science.
Fauchi is a rock star to the nations’ women. Off limits. Like BJ he can hide behind their skirts. Hunter is different. I would make him an offer he can’t refuse. He moves to China and doesn’t come back. Let him feel homesick. It’s better than anal sex.
More GOP nonsense.
This is a law enforcement problem. Congress is not a law enforcement body.
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