A former congressman who uncovered key details about the Hillary Clinton-funded dossier and the U.S. government’s involvement in utilizing the document says the House of Representatives should form a special panel to investigate the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI.
“There’s going to have to be an investigation like none that’s ever been done before.”
The investigation should probe the 2012 Benghazi attacks, which top Obama administration officials falsely said stemmed from a protest but was actually planned beforehand; the DOJ’s involvement in President Donald Trump’s impeachment over a phone call with Ukraine’s president; the handling of prosecutions over the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol; and the FBI operation that led to the arrests of men for allegedly plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Nunes said.
The investigation would also cover how the DOJ received and utilized the anti-Trump dossier put together by former British spy Christopher Steele, an effort paid for by Trump’s 2016 presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee.
The proposed investigation would be so large that only a special committee could properly do it, such as the one put together to probe the Capitol breach, said Nunes, who is a former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and now serves as the CEO of Truth Social, Trump’s social media network.
“It’s got to be a big staff and it’s got to be people that are serious about reining in the Department of Justice,” Nunes said. “The House for sure can create a special committee of some kind, give it funding, and run this investigation.
“I don’t see how else they’re going to do it.”
The proposal is on hold until after the swearing in of the new Congress in January 2023. Republicans are optimistic about not only flipping control of the lower chamber, but gaining a substantial majority.
Ideally, the Senate would also approve the proposal, but Republicans would likely have more difficulty in the upper chamber because they aren’t predicted to gain as many Senate seats. Even if they were to have a majority in January, it would be slim.
The DOJ didn’t respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
Nunes highlighted how the FBI took control of a laptop said to belong to President Joe Biden’s son Hunter in 2019, according to documents made public, which the bureau hasn’t disputed. But the bureau has revealed little information on how the computer was handled, with Director Christopher Wray in a recent Senate hearing declining to speak on the ongoing investigations.
The actions by the DOJ and FBI have left many Americans feeling they cannot trust the agencies, Nunes said—including himself.
“That is a bad place for this country to be,” Nunes said.
While there are “great people that work in those agencies,” he said, “I don’t trust [them].”
