Five Revelations from the House Weaponization Committee

Despite being operational for less than a year, the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has unearthed a number of shocking revelations about the extent to which taxpayer dollars have been used to intimidate, silence, and harass the American people. Here are five things we now know thanks to the committee’s work.

Intelligence Agency Bureaucrats Colluded with Universities to Stifle Free Speech During the 2020 Election

Earlier this month, the committee released a detailed report outlining “how the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Global Engagement Center (GEC, within the State Department) coordinated with Stanford University and other entities to create the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) to censor Americans’ speech in the lead-up to the 2020 election.” According to the “official” narrative, EIP was a public service venture launched by Stanford to prevent false information about the election from spreading online. EIP monitors would identify posts and accounts that were spreading “misinformation” and then pass the flagged users on to social media companies to remove the posts and block the accounts that shared them. But as the House Weaponization Committee’s investigation revealed, EIP was actually created at the behest of DHS officials, who then worked closely with EIP to decide what accounts to block. In effect, DHS was using EIP as a censorship proxy to silence Americans’ political speech. Most of the accounts tagged by EIP belonged to conservatives, ranging from obscure anonymous users to high-profile figures like Donald Trump, Senator Thom Tillis, commentators Sean Hannity and Charlie Kirk, and even the satire website The Babylon Bee. While conservatives had long suspected that career bureaucrats in the federal government have a hand in social media companies’ censorship activities, the House Weaponization Committee’s findings have provided more irrefutable evidence to back up those arguments.

The IRS used fake names to “harass, intimidate, and target taxpayers.”

Taxpayers breathed a collective sigh of relief last month when the IRS abruptly announced that it would “roll back” unannounced visits to taxpayer homes. Americans likely have the House Weaponization Committee to thank for this development. On multiple occasions, the committee discovered that the IRS had shown up at taxpayer houses to demand immediate payments without any prior warning. Oftentimes, these visits were justified by false or inaccurate information. In one shocking case, an IRS agent appeared at an Ohio woman’s home and gave her the false name “Bill Haus.” He lied to her about the reason for his visit and demanded that she pay her “delinquent tax return filings.” When she defended herself and asked him to leave, the agent aggressively said, “I am an IRS agent; I can be at and go into anyone’s house at any time I want to.” Once the agent finally left, the Ohio woman called her lawyer and the police and confirmed that the IRS agent was wrong – she did not owe any money. The agent’s supervisor later apologized for the conduct of the IRS agent. Nevertheless, the policy remained in place until the Weaponization Committee began its investigation.

Attorney General Merrick Garland Had “No Legitimate Basis” for Targeting Parents Speaking out at School Board Meetings

In October 2021, Attorney Merrick Garland released a memo in which he directed the FBI to focus on addressing what he described as “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” But as the House Weaponization Committee revealed, Garland and the Biden Department of Justice had no legitimate basis for issuing the FBI directive. Instead, the memo was prompted by a letter from the National School Boards Association to President Biden requesting that he crack down on parents who opposed closures, vaccine mandates, and politicized curriculum like Critical Race Theory. A report from the House Weaponization Committee also provided evidence suggesting that White House officials worked with the school board association to draft the letter, that Garland performed no “due diligence” before setting the FBI on parents, and that local law enforcement officials felt the crisis was “manufactured” and opposed DOJ’s involvement in the matter.

Multiple FBI Offices Coordinated to Target and Spy on Catholics

In January, a leaked document from the FBI’s Richmond field office labeled traditional Catholics as potential “violent extremist” threats. The memo, titled “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities,” revealed how the FBI was planning to send undercover agents into churches and ask priests to identify potential “radical extremists” among their congregation. The story sparked serious backlash among conservatives, and FBI headquarters claimed that the memo was simply the work product of one rogue analyst in Richmond. But in August, House Weaponization Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), obtained an unredacted version of the memo which revealed that multiple field offices were involved in drafting the letter. FBI offices in Richmond, Portland, and Los Angeles all had a hand in outlining the strategy by which the FBI would target “traditional Catholics.” Jordan subsequently excoriated FBI director Chris Wray for his dishonesty over the memo and is now demanding to know the full extent to which Catholics and other Christians are being targeted by the FBI.

FTC Targeted Twitter After Elon Musk’s Acquisition

Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter last year, the Federal Trade Commission launched an aggressive investigation into the social media platform that besieged the company with mountains of paperwork and lawsuits. As part of the investigation, the FTC demanded access to Elon Musk’s internal communications. Musk’s commitment to free speech and restoration of the accounts of former President Donald Trump and other high-profile conservatives has notably also earned him repeated personal rebukes from Biden and other top Democrats. But as the House Weaponization Committee revealed, the impetus of the FTC investigation was a privacy issue that Twitter self-reported in 2019 – more than three years before Musk purchased the company. Committee members are now demanding answers about why the FTC waited so long to begin their investigation as well as information on what other politically motivated investigations the agency may be engaged in. From the day the weaponization committee was formed by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Democrats and the mainstream media have pilloried it as a waste of time and money. Yet the revelations speak to corruption in government and the rampant waste, fraud, and abuse of the Biden administration. While each revelation from the Committee is unique, the consistent unsettling theme is the extent to which the federal government is using taxpayer dollars to target, investigate, and harass law-abiding citizens. Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.