Don’t let the Republicans get away with this one
After President Obama’s first midterm, Republicans decided to use their newly found power in the House to investigate anything and everything related to the administration. They didn’t actually uncover anything of significance – it didn’t diminish Obama’s popularity enough to cost him re-election to a second term, but it worked as a fundraising opportunity and led to Republicans rallying around Benghazi, which did considerable damage to Hillary Clinton when she ran for president in 2016. The media was largely complicit in the non-story about her emails, and the damage was done, allowing Donald Trump to take the White House. Obviously, Republicans with their ridiculous calls to investigate Hunter Biden and the classified docs story, were hoping they could get the same luck twice – and that maybe it’d pay off for them to win full control again in 2024.
The problem is, the House GOP has already hit a snag in their efforts to investigate President Biden’s classified docs. Both the House Judiciary Chair and House Intelligence Committee are running their own investigative efforts into the matter but the problem – aside from the fact that people like Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan have never run an investigation before, is that Merrick Garland’s appointment of a special counsel means that the House Republicans investigating are likely to be shut out of information requests while the special counsel completes their investigation.
Congressional investigations don’t have much significance when it comes to prosecutions – they’re largely there for the court of public opinion. The problem with this is rather than making the Biden administration look guilty, the poorly organized investigations are just making Republicans look hopelessly incompetent.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making