One of the promises that Speaker McCarthy made as the new House GOP majority was being seated this year was that there were going be investigations taking place. Lots of investigations, particularly into subjects that the Democratic majority had curiously shown little interest in. One of those areas was the political weaponization of the FBI and other elements of the Department of Justice and the intelligence community against Joe Biden’s political opponents. But before they could even begin the process, the DoJ sent a letter this week to Jim Jordan, the new head of the House Judiciary Committee that would be conducting the investigation. In the letter, Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte informed Jordan that there would be “limits” on how much cooperation the committee could expect to receive. This seems like a rather shady maneuver from a group of public servants who are supposedly not doing anything wrong. (CBS News)

The Justice Department told House Republicans there would be strict parameters limiting its ability to fully cooperate with congressional probes into the department’s work.

In a letter Friday to the new House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan, the department cited the need to safeguard ongoing investigations.

“Consistent with longstanding policy and practice, any oversight requests must be weighed against the Department’s interests in protecting the integrity of its work,” Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte wrote. “Longstanding Department policy prevents us from confirming or denying the existence of pending investigations in response to congressional requests or providing non-public information about our investigations.”

The letter may have come from Carlos Uriarte, but you know he didn’t make that decision without getting a green light from Merrick Garland and, by default, the White House. The last thing they want to see is any sort of scrutiny over how the FBI has treated people labeled by Biden as “mega MAGA” conservatives when compared to significant Democratic Party donors and supporters. When the GOP begins serious investigations into Hunter and Jim Biden’s business dealings, there will almost certainly be more talk of “limits” like this.

The claim being made by the DoJ seems as thin as tissue paper. Uriarte is saying that the DoJ can’t release information that might cause “interference in ongoing investigations.” Their policy supposedly only allows such congressional oversight in “extraordinary circumstances.” But with all of the bizarre and shady things going on in the executive branch these days, nearly everything they’re doing should qualify as an extraordinary circumstance.

It’s true that federal law enforcement typically won’t comment to reporters about ongoing investigations. (Though they break that rule also when it’s convenient to them.) And there are cases where public knowledge could cause problems during an investigation. But if Congress wants to know what they’re up to, the testimony could be moved to a closed session with no press access. And while we’re on the subject, I don’t recall the January 6 committee having any trouble getting people to come in and feed them information, do you? We didn’t hear any talk of “limits” over the past two years.

This morning, I had CNN on my television in the background while working and the usual suspects were already providing cover for Garland and company. The GOP-led investigations are “clearly political in nature” and “messaging sideshows.” (They’re directly parroting statements already put out by the White House with that last one.) McCarthy needs to push back hard on this nonsense coming from the DoJ. The voters decided to narrowly give Republicans in the House the power to move their agenda forward. Merrick Garland and Joe Biden don’t get to stand in the way of that just because they’re afraid the public will find out what they’ve really been up to.