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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsLocal newsPlaskett Skeptical of Government “Weaponization” Subcommittee Witnesses

Plaskett Skeptical of Government “Weaponization” Subcommittee Witnesses

A 315-page report from the U.S. Virgin Islands Congressional Delegate Stacey Plaskett and New York Representative Jerrold Nadler finds witnesses of politically-motivated actions within the FBI lack credibility, firsthand experience, and evidence. (Photo: Screenshot of Democratic Staff Report “GOP Witnesses: What Their Disclosures Indicate About The State Of The Republican Investigations”)

If lawmakers have evidence of illegal or unethical politicization of the federal government, Stacey Plaskett wants to hear it. So far, however, witnesses before the controversial Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government have been unreliable, highly partisan, and neither whistleblowers nor actual witnesses to any wrongdoing, the Virgin Islands congressional delegate said in a recently-released report.

The report, co-authored with Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), asks that Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) produce the “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers” he claimed had contacted him away from the Committee.

“We urge Chairman Jordan to schedule the public testimony of these individuals without delay. The American public should be able to judge for themselves whether these witnesses or their allegations are remotely credible,” they wrote in the Democratic Staff Report issued Thursday.

The 315-page report, titled “GOP Witnesses: What Their Disclosures Indicate About The State Of The Republican Investigations,” said only three witnesses alleging misconduct had been interviewed, all privately with transcriptions later given to Committee members. Plaskett and Nadler said the testimony was highly suspect, and possibly paid for by President Donald Trump loyalists.

“… [T]hese interviews also reveal the active engagement and orchestration of disturbing outside influence on the witnesses and, potentially, the Republican members of the Select Subcommittee. A network of organizations, led by former Trump administration officials like Kash Patel and Russell Vought, appears to have identified these witnesses, provided them with financial compensation, and found them employment after they left the FBI. These same individuals lobbied for the creation of the Select Subcommittee in the first place. They have a story to tell, and they appear to be using House Republicans to tell it,” the report reads.

Two of the witnesses were former Federal Bureau of Investigations employees — an analyst from Boston and a special agent from Daytona Beach, Florida — and one was a suspended FBI agent from Wichita, Kansas.

Plaskett and Nadler said the witnesses were conspiracy theorists who have likened COVID-19 vaccines to Nazi war criminals, called for the abolition of the FBI, backed the lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump, and spread misinformation about the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while publicly defending the insurrectionists.

Although they had “a wide range of personal opinions,” the report said, the witnesses had no firsthand knowledge of any wrongdoing with the FBI.

“… [N]early all of the Republicans involved in this investigation — the witnesses, some of the Members, and certainly their outside operators — are tied together by the attacks,” the Democrats wrote. “The witnesses whom we have met objected to the arrest of individuals suspected to have laid siege to the United States Capitol. Others of the ‘dozens and dozens,’ we suspect, participated directly in the riot. If this investigation is an attempt to whitewash the insurrection or hedge against pending indictments, it has been spectacularly ineffective — but these extremists share a view antithetical to the safety of our republic, and the American public has a right to be concerned.”

The Committee was formed in January — after Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives — likely in response to a November 2022 Republican Judiciary Committee staff report alleging politically-motivated misconduct at the FBI, Plaskett and Nadler’s report said.

Republicans had initially framed the committee as styled after the mid-1970s Church committee — an overtly bipartisan, non-political investigation into unethical or illegal government overreach from the Nixon Administration back to the end of World War II.

Plaskett and Nadler concluded the Weaponization Committee was set up to reach a preordained conclusion rather than uncover evidence.

“In an attempt to prove their weaponization allegations, Republicans have turned to three individuals who have not only failed to provide any evidence of wrongdoing but are also entirely lacking in credibility. In contrast, the Committee heard from one supremely credible former FBI official who directly refuted the narratives. Republicans are working to advance. Committee Democrats thus conclude that Republicans are not running good-faith investigations. Instead, they are using this committee as a political messaging campaign designed to ‘make sure’ that Donald Trump wins in 2024,” the Democrats wrote.

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