GOP needs new ‘Church Committee’ to hold FBI, Justice Department accountable for their many abuses

GOP needs new ‘Church Committee’ to hold FBI, Justice Department accountable for abusing counterintelligence efforts, attacking Democrats’ political enemies.

Kash Patel was lead investigator on the Russia-gate investigation for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. During the Trump administration he served as chief of staff at the Department of Defense and as deputy assistant to the president, among other senior national security posts. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America. 

If that weren’t enough, the FBI brazenly rigged the 2020 election and withheld from Congress damning information about Hunter Biden’s corrupt foreign business dealings by directing Facebook to censor any reporting about Hunter’s laptop, falsely calling it "Russian disinformation," a damned lie propagated in a letter signed by more than 50 former senior intelligence community officials. These officials included former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden, who more recently breezily suggested that Trump deserves the death penalty, and he was glad to knowingly participate in a fraud to keep Trump out of office.   Amazingly, the FBI’s abuses of Americans’ civil liberties extend beyond the Russia collusion hoax and counterintelligence matters to domestic "counterterrorism" investigations. Among other outrages, the FBI has targeted parents who spoke out against woke education policies at local school board meetings, smeared Trump supporters as "domestic extremists," and arrested numerous pro-life activists (including a father of seven) on trumped-up federal charges.  

The politicization of the FBI into a partisan tool to punish the Democrats’ enemies and protect their friends is a threat that imperils our republic and demands Congress’ immediate attention. They have created a two-tiered system of justice; we must undo it. Therefore, the next Speaker of the House must establish a new Church Committee – the legendary Senate select committee established in 1975 to exclusively probe gross abuses committed by the Intelligence Community.  While some may prefer to have standing committees conduct robust investigations, a standing committee is, for three key reasons, not the proper vehicle for this generational effort to rein in the FBI and reclaim our constitutional civil liberties.