U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. (White House photo)
House Republicans have suggested they may fight a plan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, in concert with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., wants to assemble another investigate-and-possibly-impeach President Trump commission over the coronavirus pandemic.
With the Democrats in the majority in the body, the Republicans couldn’t halt the creation, as Pelosi and Schiff both have proposed, of a special panel to do that investigation.
But they could ignore it.
If they appoint no members of the GOP to the panel, which the Democrats already have touted as bipartisan, it likely wouldn’t be seen as anything more than another Democrat campaign against the president.
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That party already has pursued “Russia collusion” claims. FBI special counsel Robert Mueller torpedoed that. And they created impeachment articles out of the president’s telephone call with the president of Ukraine. The Senate acquitted Trump on those claims.
Now the Free Beacon documents the GOP members in the House are considering ways to “subvert” Pelosi.
Pelosi announced her plan for a committee at the beginning of April, and the Democrats would like it to be created by the House’s unanimous consent procedure, something the Republicans say never will be allowed.
GOP Deputy Whip Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said. “She can announce whatever she wants, but the House has to approve this committee.”
Which would require waiting until the House is in session, and a vote.
After that, the report said, “Staffers for Republican House leadership confirmed that they are reviewing their options on how to handle Pelosi’s proposed committee, including the possibility of withholding GOP participation.”
Cole said the committee would have “no legitimacy whatsoever” without a bipartisan presence. The Beacon said, “He said it would face ‘unanimous or near-unanimous’ GOP opposition.”
The GOP already had been concerned about the committee when Pelosi’s revealed her plan, because of the selection of House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., to lead it.
Just last month he touted the coronavirus “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said it was a concern “Clyburn is the one who thought that this crisis was an opportune time to restructure government.”
GOP members also note the committee would be redundant, since the existing oversight committee’s responsibilities.
Schiff earlier proposed with several senators a “bipartisan 9/11-style commission to ‘probe’ the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
His intent is to “examine U.S. government preparedness in advance of this pandemic, the federal government’s response to it, and provide recommendations to improve our ability to respond to and recover from future outbreaks.”
When Schiff first insisted on the investigation of the Trump administration, he said he would require that the commission have the right to “compel” cooperation from “witnesses.”
His plan was announced right after Pelosi’s plan was revealed, suggesting the Democrats have multiple plans to create continuing and ongoing investigations of the Trump administration.
Intelligence Committee ranking Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., called Schiff’s proposal “yet another dumb stunt.”
“His Russia collusion hoax failed, his Ukraine scam failed, and his efforts to cover up FISA abuse failed,” he told Fox News. “So, Schiff is launching yet another dumb stunt to justify his never-ending media-relations operation.”
The president dismissed it as “witch hunt after witch hunt after witch hunt.”
