The Weaponization Subcommittee
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The Weaponization Subcommittee, formally the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, was created by the House of Representatives in January 2023 and presented by its supporters as a second Church Committee. John Kiriakou, who wrote about it in Consortium News the day of this interview, rejects the comparison while endorsing the goal.

"I am 1,000% in favor of creating a Church Committee 2. This is not a Church Committee 2."

The objection

The chair is Jim Jordan, whom Kiriakou identifies as "a far-right congressman from Ohio, the former wrestling coach at Ohio State University," and the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Its declared subject is "the FBI's targeting of conservatives", conservative parents speaking at school board meetings, the bureau's treatment of Donald Trump, "or targeting anybody deemed to be conservative."

"That's not what the Church Committee did." The original was bipartisan "with intellectual heavyweights on both sides," and it examined crimes committed by what Kiriakou means by the deep state: "the CIA, the FBI, NSA, the Department of the Army, and associated intelligence organizations."

Composition

Speaker Kevin McCarthy appointed nine Republicans and allowed for six Democrats; the Democrats said they would not participate. The subcommittee itself was created on a straight party-line vote, "221, all Republicans, to 211, all Democrats."

Against that Kiriakou sets the original's membership: Frank Church, "an intellectual giant who ran for president in 1976," and Senator Philip Hart of Michigan, for whom the Hart Senate office building is named.

Why he insists it is not partisan

Pressed by his host not to make the discussion another round of Republican-bashing, Kiriakou agreed and said the opposite risk was the real one: "my intent here is not to bash Republicans, because the Democrats are equally guilty of all of these things. This is not a partisan issue."

His evidence is the Espionage Act count he uses elsewhere, three Americans charged for speaking to the press between 1917 and 2009, eight under Barack Obama alone, and the conclusion he draws from it: "this is not a Democrats-are-good, Republicans-are-bad situation. It's that all of our elected officials are bad on this issue."

See also

- Church Committee
- Cointelpro
- MK-Ultra
- Espionage Act
