Republicans are planning on winning back at least the House and perhaps even the Senate during next month’s midterms, and come January when the new Congress is sworn in, they plan to hit the ground running.
Party leaders are already planning to conduct oversight investigations into five key issues and areas, according to The Hill.
In the meantime, the outlet notes that GOP lawmakers have already sent out more than 500 requests for documents and information.
Here are the five investigations, per the outlet:
— Hunter Biden and Biden family business activities
Rep. James Comer (Ky.), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee in line to be chair of the panel, has promised hearings and probes into the Biden family’s overseas business activities.
Republicans on the committee have a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive first revealed shortly before the 2020 election, but say that salacious video and photos in the files are not the focus.
“The reason we’re investigating Hunter Biden is because we believe he’s compromised Joe Biden,” Comer told reporters in September.
— Politicization in the Department of Justice
Republican trust in federal law enforcement agencies plummeted alongside the rise of former President Trump and special counsel Robert Meuller’s investigation into him, and the sense among the GOP that the DOJ and FBI are biased against conservatives has only grown since that time.
— COVID-19 origins and policies
The Democratic-controlled House created a select Oversight subcommittee on the coronavirus in 2020, and Republicans have complained that the committee did not hold hearings on the origin of the virus.
— Afghanistan withdrawal
GOP leaders have pledged to hold more hearings on the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 that led to the deaths of 13 service members in a bombing and the Taliban taking control of the country, saying that unanswered questions remain.
— Handling of U.S.-Mexico border
The surge of migrants at the southern border and the Biden administration’s policies that allow the migrants into the country are top campaign issues for Republicans in the midterms and would be a sharp focus in a GOP House.
“We will give [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas a reserved parking spot, he will be testifying so much about this,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said at the party’s “Commitment to America” rollout event in September.
