The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government was launched on Tuesday, with Representative Jim Jordan, a combative ally of Donald Trump and a co-founder of the far-right Freedom Caucus, at the helm. This powerful new committee has the authority to investigate the federal government and how it has collected, analyzed, and used information about American citizens. Its mandate includes access to sensitive documents and details about covert actions, all of which fall under Congress’s typical oversight authority. But the new committee also provides a way for Republicans to advance the narrative that conservatives are systematically under attack. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekly conversation to look at historical parallels of this new committee, and how it will likely handle issues such as Hunter Biden’s laptop and the recent revelation that Joe Biden had a number of classified documents in his possession.
Related - Episodes
James Sweet, a professor of African history and the former president of the American Historical Association, wrote an essay last year that sparked a significant clash in the world of academia about the role of politics in history and vice…
“They push buttons,” says Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale. “What button of ours are they pushing here? What are they trying to get us to do?” Vladimir Putin is posturing toward a costly invasion of Ukraine, on…
Clubhouse is an audio-only social-media platform offering chat rooms on any subject, allowing thousands of people to gather and listen to each other. Jiayang Fan, who often reports on China, tells David Remnick that the chance to talk in private and…
