Several members who Kevin McCarthy needs to win over if he’s going to secure the gavel are openly using the creation of a panel to investigate what they call a “weaponized government” as a bargaining chip as the California Republican tries to lock down their votes.
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Conservative insist they don’t want to step on the toes of Comer and Jordan — they just want a central, coordinated hub for investigations next year. McCarthy has been meeting with incoming chairs, including Jordan and Comer, as they plan out their series of probes next year. But supporters of creating a new panel argue that it could help free up Oversight and Judiciary Committee members, in particular, who are going to be busy juggling multiple investigations.

But Comer himself, and others in the conference, aren’t fans of the attempt to wade into the committees’ turf.

“I feel like we’ve got enough committees already to do all of that. I’m pretty passionate about that. I feel like you’ve got a Judiciary and Intelligence Committee that are very capable of doing that,” Comer said. “I’m not a big select committee or special counsel kind of guy.”

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), who is close to both Jordan and Comer, said he believes the two GOP chairs “have the bandwidth” already to run the investigations. And if there’s going to be a select committee, he said, they should both sign off.

“If you’re going to form that kind of committee, I want Jim Jordan to be the chair. Turns out, he’s already the chair of the committee who can go after the weaponization of government,” Armstrong said.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a Freedom Caucus member who is backing the push for a new panel and hasn’t yet signaled whether he’ll vote for McCarthy, said thatthe committee would “definitely have to be in coordination with Judiciary and Oversight” but that it would send a “strong signal” about GOP priorities.

“We only have so much time,” Clyde said. “It’s the one thing we can’t make more of.”