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House Republicans will be entering a target-rich environment on Jan. 3. After two years of complete Democratic control over the White House and both chambers of Congress, there are many issues in desperate need of congressional oversight. That there are so many options, however, means Republicans should be selective in choosing which issues to target.
They need to prove to voters that they can govern responsibly. Investigations that shed light on broad public policy problems should be pursued diligently. Investigations designed to score cheap partisan political points should not. The line between the two should be clear.
Nothing has been done to fix the first, most visible, and perhaps most consequential failure of the Biden administration. And it is about to get worse. It is the collapse of the southern border. President Joe Biden created the border crisis, as everyone knows, by ending the successful “Remain in Mexico” program, enforcing the Title 42 migrant ban only patchily, and ending interior immigration enforcement almost entirely.
But even though this much is known, there is still a lot that needs to be discovered. What was Biden told and by whom about the chaos that would be caused by his catch-and-release policies? How many immigrants arrested after illegally crossing the border has Biden released into the United States? How many of those who have lost their asylum claims have been deported? Voters deserve to know the answers before 2024 candidates debate border security.
As bad as the border debacle has been since Biden took office, voters’ confidence in him only fell after his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. What was Biden told about the likely consequences of his actions? Were there other options he rejected and why? How can Congress and the administration ensure those left behind are protected?
On COVID-19, there is much to learn about its origin and about how the trillions of dollars in relief authorized by Congress were spent. There is also work to be done at the Department of Justice, where the Biden administration appears to have targeted peaceful people for their pro-life views and used domestic surveillance programs to spy on political opponents.
These are all issues that affect, or could affect, the everyday lives of millions in America. Republicans have a responsibility to uncover as much as they can about all of them.
Unfortunately, House Republicans also plan to pursue other issues for which congressional oversight is not needed. The DOJ is already investigating Hunter Biden for tax and firearm crimes. Republicans should let those investigations play out, intervening later and only if there is evidence that the DOJ showed favoritism toward the president’s son. Even then, appointing a special prosecutor would be the best course of action, not a congressional investigation that would be easy to depict as a partisan witch hunt.
House Republicans should also avoid interfering with the DOJ investigation into former President Donald Trump’s handling of documents. Trump is a wealthy man who can defend himself in court.
Finally, and most importantly, House Republicans should not revisit the 2020 presidential election. There is no plausible evidence that the election was stolen, and if the 2022 midterm results told us nothing else, it is that voters don’t buy the whining of Trump and his acolytes about it.
A sizable minority of Republican voters will call on House Republicans to do all in their power to protect Trump and attack Biden. But that is not the job they were elected to do. They should focus on Biden’s policies and how those policies are failing the nation.
Reporting from The Washington Examiner.
