GOP Must Promise Inquisitions, Not Meaningless Task Forces

The January 6 committee has crossed a massive line in the sand with its attack on the Thomases; Republicans need to respond accordingly. Policy task forces won’t cut it.

Using the pretext of the so-called insurrection on January 6, 2021, the long knives are out for Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Post-election text exchanges between Mrs. Thomas and Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief-of-staff, recently were leaked by the January 6 select committee to none other than the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, who darkly described the communications as proof that “Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election result.”

The small cache of texts—29 total—shows Thomas expressing frustration at the election’s outcome. There is nothing sinister, and certainly nothing criminal, about the messages.

But like everything related to the events of January 6, the truth doesn’t matter. Doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election is considered a thoughtcrime and handled as such by Joe Biden’s Justice Department and Congress; CNN reported Monday afternoon that the January 6 select committee led by U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) now wants to interview Thomas. If she refuses—as she should—it’s highly likely the committee will issue a subpoena to compel her testimony, which it has done in numerous cases.

The poisonous tree of Thompson’s committee is yielding a bumper crop of political fruit for House Democrats and their useful idiots in the Republican Party such as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). With little else to run on and a White House in freefall, Democrats think they can sustain enough outrage over January 6 to stem major electoral losses in November.

Staffed with former federal prosecutors and a limitless budget, the select committee is unleashing a scorched-earth rampage against Trump and his allies; no one, including the wife of the longest-serving Supreme Court justice, is off-limits. For the first time in history, a sitting president repeatedly denied his predecessor executive privilege protections, allowing the committee to obtain an unprecedented tranche of presidential records years before what is typically allowed under the law.

Federal courts provide no oversight; to the contrary, judges sanction the illicit witch hunt with their legal imprimatur.

In an unhinged ruling handed down Monday, Judge David O. Carter demanded that John Eastman, one of Trump’s election attorneys, immediately hand over more than 100 emails to the committee.

Carter, a Clinton appointee serving on a California district court, suggested Trump may have committed a crime—obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony that the Justice Department has slapped against more than 240 January 6 defendants—in his attempts to uncover election fraud. “Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” Carter wrote. “Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower—it was a coup in search of a legal theory. The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process.” (No police officers died on January 6 or of anything related to that day.)

Given its unfettered mandate, the committee undoubtedly will accelerate its crusade in advance of the midterm elections.

So, how are Republicans planning to retaliate? Poised to take control of Congress in early 2023, GOP leaders are threatening to unload the most feared weapon on Capitol Hill, one the mere mention of which sends shivers down the spines of every credentialed congressional staffer and strikes panic in the heart of every vulnerable incumbent: the dreaded task force.

Excavating some of the party’s best talking points from the 1980s, Republicans will “rein in spending and look to improve American energy independence,” GOP Conference Chairman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) vowed last week in an equally alarming “fact sheet.” Other areas of intense task force focus will include “Big Tech censorship and data; future of American freedoms; energy, climate and conservation; American security; healthy future; and competition with China,” Roll Call reported.

Now, in a normal political climate—say any time before the year 2016—perhaps sincere promises to wield the mighty “task force” would energize the Republican base. Campaign pledges to tackle any number of real crises caused by an inept president of the...

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