Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland criticised House Republicans’ new subcommittee on the weaponisation of the government as a means to boost former president Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy.
Mr Raskin made his opening remarks as a minority witness during the new House subcommittee’s inaugural hearing. Republican Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin delivered their opening remarks accusing the government of suppressing their investigations into President Joe Biden’s family. Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party, also appeared as witness.
But Mr Raskin, who served as the lead impeachment manager of Mr Trump’s second impeachment trial, said the committee was about running interference for the former president.
“If these people break from the habit of lying, then lawlessness is defined by our culture,” he said in his opening remarks. “It's all about restoring Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president to the office he lost by 7 million votes in 2020 and tried to steal back in a political coup and violent insurrection against our constitutional order.”
Mr Raskin cited remarks from subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan at a CPAC conference in Dallas before the midterm elections where Mr Jordan said that investigations were to “frame up the 2024 race when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run and we need to make sure that he wins.”
“Now of course, a serious bipartisan committee focused on weaponisation of the government would zero in quickly on the Trump administration itself, which brought weaponisation to frightening blue new levels across the board,” Mr Raskin said.
Mr Jordan, who is also chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, leads the committee. But Representative Stacey Plaskett, the ranking Democrat, worried that this would be a means of protecting the former president.
“I suspect much of the investigation is the majority my Republican colleagues want to look into and potentially muck up involved criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump,” she said. “I want to be crystal clear, my Democratic colleagues and I will resist any attempt by this subcommittee to derail ongoing legitimate investigations into President Trump, any other President and others within his orbit.”
