The Center for Renewing America, a think tank closely aligned with former President Donald Trump, has outlined a series of proposals that could inhibit Department of Justice and FBI investigations into far-right extremism and unleash the Bureau against the right’s political enemies. This effort aligns closely with editorial decisions at Fox News, which has manufactured a false narrative that the FBI has secretly been “rigging elections” against Republicans, including in the 2022 midterms. The network’s top star, Tucker Carlson, recently falsely accused the FBI of working “to subvert the outcome of what the rest of us assumed were free and fair elections.”
CRA is led by Christian nationalist Russ Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought appears frequently on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, and has been on Fox News at least 11 times since founding CRA following his stint in the White House. Trump administration alumni Ken Cuccinelli, Jeff Clark, and Kash Patel are also affiliated with CRA.
CRA is one of the many organizations on the right pushing for the new House Republican majority to investigate the DOJ and FBI for a supposed anti-conservative bias, following the GOP’s takeover of the House. House Republicans won’t have any direct control over how the DOJ and FBI operate, but the lower chamber can exert pressure on executive branch agencies through budgeting, hearings, and investigations. The GOP’s approach in the House could also foreshadow how a future Republican president may seek to restructure the DOJ and other federal law enforcement agencies.
In early December, CRA released its budget proposal to act as a roadmap of sorts for conservative lawmakers. The document is called "A Commitment to End Woke and Weaponized Government," and includes a long list of right-wing grievances aimed at federal agencies that Vought claims are pursuing social and racial justice policies to the detriment of conservatives. Central to this push is Vought’s effort to create a narrative that the Department of Justice and the FBI are organs of the left bent on suppressing the right – a claim that is wrong both in the current moment and historically.
Given the chaotic start to the House Republicans’ new majority, the public doesn’t know exactly what these investigations might look like, but a new report from conservative columnist Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal offers some clues. On December 29, 2021, Strassel wrote, “House Republicans plan to set up a panel under the House Judiciary Committee, tentatively called the ‘Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.'” Separately, Politico reported that some on the furthest-right flank of the House Republican caucus demanded that GOP leader Kevin McCarthy investigate a “weaponized government” in exchange for their support for his bid for Speaker of the House.
It isn’t clear whether these Republicans deliberately adopted language almost identical to that used by CRA, but Vought’s status as a high-profile conservative activist suggests that his budget is as good a place as any to look for a preview of what investigative angles and recommendations this potential subcommittee might pursue.