Washington Times Weekly: Throwing haymakers

Hi, I’m George Gerbo. Welcome to the first edition of Washington Times Weekly, where we get a chance to sit down with our reporters and dig into their latest coverage of our news and events. 

Today I have the pleasure of talking with crime reporter Matt Delaney. 

[GERBO] A whole bunch of different things going on this week that you’ve been covering will start on Capitol Hill. A contentious discussion broke out at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing this week about what Republicans claim was the weaponization of the FBI during the Biden administration. Can you fill us in on some of the details about that? 

[DELANEY] Republicans were coming out hard, talking about how the FBI was weaponized during the Biden administration with investigations, or I should say surveillance, talking about the arrest and prosecution of pro-life activists. Largely, they were outside of abortion clinics when this happened. So they’re using an act called the FACES Act or Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. I don’t want to get into the weeds for our viewers at home there. But they were arresting and prosecuting over those crimes. 

And then, there was an FBI memo, I believe, about traditional Catholics being investigated for potential links to violent extremism in some way, shape, or form. I’m not totally sure on the year that was, but I know it was within the timeframe of the Biden administration. So Republicans were really hammering those points. They were playing the hits big time, ’cause those were major events that happened during Biden’s administration. 

And in response, Democrats were kind of, I think they were kind of foreshadowing, where they were talking about, look, it’s only been 10 weeks. I think maybe a hundred or so days, right, of the Trump administration. And they’re like, “Look at how he’s already remaking the Justice Department.” You know, kind of trying to say it’s a personal protection service, he’s giving out pardons to January 6th people, he’s helped to kind of broker that deal to drop the corruption case against Eric Adams up in New York City. 

And I think one interesting tidbit, too, is that Jasmine Crockett, the representative from Texas, the Democrat, mentioned that FBI agents that were investigating child-related sex crimes were pulled off to investigate some of these attacks on Tesla dealerships going on across the country. So really, it was a food fight, you know, as we kind of expect when it comes to Congress. And I don’t want to get too much into the weeds, but everyone was coming out, throwing haymakers. 

And really, did it change the conversation much? I don’t think so. I think when you have four years to go off of on the Republican side versus a hundred or so days for the Democrats, I think the public is willing to give a longer leash right now to the Republicans and see how they go and how they manage the Justice Department. It’s a big deal hearing. It was only in the subcommittee, but even Jim Jordan, who’s was the chairman of House Judiciary and Jamie Raskin, Democrat ranking member, were weighing in big time. Jamie Raskin called it gangster state, a gangster state. So exciting stuff, you know, if you like to kind of grab your popcorn. But in terms of the state of play and whether it’ll matter and how we look at these conversations around weaponization, I don’t know, we’ll have to see. 

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