(Ken Silva, Headline USA) On Tuesday, investigative reporter Trevor Aaronson published the first installment of a podcast series that reveals stunning information about FBI informants infiltrating Black Lives Matter protests and encouraging them to commit violence in the summer of 2020.
The events described by Aaronson are reminiscent of COINTELPRO, a 1960s-era operation where the FBI surveilled and infiltrated American anti-war and civil-rights organizations. COINTELPRO was exposed by in the 1970s by the Church Committee during its investigation into abuse by the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies.
Therefore, one might expect Democrats on the newly formed Church-like committee—the “Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government”—to take interest in the reporting from Aaronson, the author of the The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism.
But during the first meeting of the Weaponization Committee on Thursday, the Democrats did not mention the apparent weaponization of FBI informants against their constituents. Instead, they downplayed Republican concerns about bureau malfeasance.
“The Department of Justice and the FBI are doing their best to protect us from sliding into chaos,” said ranking committee member Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands.
Plasket said the Republicans should have worked to engage with federal agencies “through the accomodations process” to collect information before forming the Weaponization Committee.
Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, informed Plasket that he has, in fact, tested diplomatic channels with the FBI and DOJ—writing dozens of unanswered letters to those agencies over the last two years—Plasket remained unphased.
“You did that as the [Judiciary Committee’s] ranking member; not as the chairman,” Plasket said.
Likewise, the Democrat’s witnesses for Thursday hearing—Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and former DOJ official-turned-lobbyist Elliot Williams—also carried water for the FBI.
Raskin repeated his usual spiel about the FBI and DOJ protecting America from the horrors of “insurrectionists,” while Williams cautioned the committee from probing ongoing DOJ investigations.
“The revelation that an individual is or might be the target or subject of an open investigation—or perhaps was the subject of a now-closed investigation—could have profound and devastating impacts on that person,” said Williams. “The Justice Department’s longstanding practice has been to keep this in mind when working with Congress to respond to its oversight requests.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
