House Judiciary Committee taps /r/The_Donald subreddit for Amended Resolution

[Razer]

>
> If this sounds like the work of conspiracy theorists, that’s because
> that’s exactly what it is.
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>

LawFare:

The House Judiciary Committee has a unique role to play in times of
great national crisis in the functioning of the presidency. As the
congressional body with jurisdiction over the initial stages of the
impeachment process, it’s the committee’s responsibility to weigh
whether the president’s misconduct is sufficiently severe so as to merit
what Charles Black refers to as “this most drastic of measures.”

Fortunately, Chairman Bob Goodlatte and the Republican members of his
committee are up to the task. Last week, with Russia matters heating up
and the White House in full meltdown, they stayed focused on the real
danger at hand: Huma Abedin.

The committee voted to adopt an amended resolution introduced by
Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) calling for a special counsel
investigation into, variously, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s
instructions to former FBI Director James Comey to refer to the Clinton
email probe as a “matter” rather than an “investigation”; Comey’s leaks
to Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman; Comey’s leaks to
New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt as far back as 1993 (when
Schmidt, who graduated college in 2005, would have been around ten years
old); “collusion” between Comey and Robert Mueller; any knowledge by
Comey of the Steele dossier and of efforts by the intelligence community
to surveill Trump or unmask his associates in a quest to damage Trump’s
campaign or his presidency; immunity deals provided by the FBI to
various Clinton aides over the course of the email investigation;
whether Clinton secretly approved a deal to transfer U.S. uranium
deposits to Russian control in return for donations to the Clinton
Foundation; and yes, the specific circumstances of Huma Abedin’s
employment at the State Department.

If this sounds like the work of conspiracy theorists, that’s because
that’s exactly what it is. Wired reported on Friday that a Gaetz staffer
appears to have crowdsourced the amended resolution with the help of
r/The_Donald, a pro-Trump subreddit notorious for both its embrace of
conspiracy theories and its gleeful offensiveness. The Reddit user,
“Devinm666,” regularly posted on the forum praising Gaetz, referencing
his work in Congress, and at one point publishing a picture of his
congressional ID badge with his name and face blacked out. According to
Wired, Gaetz confirmed that “Devinm666” is Devin Murphy, a legislative
aide in his office.

“I work for Congress and have been asked to come up with a list of
Clinton/Obama/election scandals for my boss ASAP,” Murphy apparently
posted on Reddit, asking for suggestions. “This is not a shitpost. This
is real. Congressional investigation. Do it for America!”

So r/The_Donald rose to the occasion and did it for America.

The text in question is not a bill, but rather a resolution of inquiry.
If passed by the House, it wouldn’t require the Attorney General to
begin a special counsel investigation running in parallel with Robert
Mueller’s investigation (and possibly branching into it in order to
investigate Mueller himself), but would merely “express the sense of the
House of Representatives that a special counsel should be appointed.”
That may be for the best, as there is already an investigation into a
number of the issues listed in the resolution by the Department of
Justice Inspector General. Additionally, most of the offenses fail to
measure up to the standards for a special counsel appointment set out in
either the Department of Justice regulations or the now-defunct
independent counsel statute, which both anticipate possible violations
of criminal law.

This procedural note on Gaetz’s call for a special counsel—its technical
status as a resolution of inquiry, rather than a bill—is key to
understanding how it came to exist in the first place. On July 14th,
Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and David Cicilline (D-RI) of the
House Judiciary Committee introduced a resolution requesting that the
Department of Justice provide Congress with various documents relevant
to the firing of James Comey. After the committee took up the
resolution, Rep. Gaetz introduced an amendment to scoop out the content
and replace it with Gaetz’s request for a special counsel, while keeping
Jayapal and Cicilline’s names on top. Gaetz’s proposal was adopted with
the full support of the committee’s majority.

Though Gaetz’s amendment and the majority’s vote were within the letter
of House procedures, Democrats on the committee are—to put it
mildly—somewhat put out by what they view as a “hijacking” of the normal
process.

But who can blame the majority? With the Mueller investigation
continuing apace and the presidency spiraling ever further into chaos,
you wouldn’t want a responsible body of congressional oversight to get
distracted from what’s really important. Good thing the majority can
boot up Reddit.

Links to pertinent dox on page:
https://lawfareblog.com/your-house-judiciary-committee-hard-work-peoples-business