Current Events > House Republicans move to defang ethics office from investigating its members

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/09/house-republicans-defang-ethics-office-investigating-members

House Republicans moved to pre-emptively kill any investigations against its members as it curtailed the power of an independent ethics office just as it was weighing whether to open inquiries into lawmakers who defied subpoenas issued by the House January 6 select committee last year. The incoming Republican majority also paved the way for a new special subcommittee with a wide mandate to investigate the US justice department and intelligence agencies, which could include reviewing the criminal investigations into Donald Trump and a Republican congressman caught up in the Capitol attack inquiry. The measures took effect as House Republicans narrowly passed the new rules package that included the changes for the next Congress, 220-213, setting the stage for politically charged fights with the Biden administration over access to classified materials and details of criminal investigations. Seeking to protect itself, the rules package first undercut the ability of the office of congressional ethics (OCE) to function, with changes that struck at its principal vulnerabilities to defang its investigative powers for at least the next two years, according to sources familiar with its operation. The changes to the OCE are twofold: reintroducing term limits for members of the bipartisan board, which would force out three of four Democratic-appointed members, and restricting its ability to hire professional staff to the first 30 days of the new congressional session. In essence, the changes mean that by the time the OCE has a board, it may have run out of time to hire staff, leaving it with one counsel to do possible investigations into the new House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and other Republican lawmakers who defied January 6 select committee subpoenas.

There would also only be that one counsel to investigate the Republican congressman George Santos, who lied about his past during his election campaign; the OCE has the power to retrospectively examine violations of federal election law that arise during congressional election campaigns. Meanwhile, as House Republicans moved to shield themselves from potential ethics investigations, they expanded their own investigative ability through the adoption of the rules package that allows for the creation of the special subcommittee to investigate the justice department and intelligence agencies. The text of the resolution creating the subcommittee scheduled for a vote on Tuesday on the weaponization of the federal government authorizes it to investigate any part of the federal government, including ongoing criminal investigations, which Republicans have indicated could extend to investigations into Trump.

Thus the government gets ever so slightly smaller. And unregulated.