Committee News focuses on Parliament’s small select committees, which examine Parliamentary business in detail. You can find out about the latest committee activities, read their reports and see submissions and advice they have received.
China’s aggression towards Taiwan and drive to assert control over the South China Sea have fueled lawmakers’ desire to do more to counter Beijing. On Tuesday, the 365-member House approved a new Committee on Asia to focus on that region, a rare bipartisan vote in an overwhelmingly Republican Congress. The panel’s chairman, Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher, is a fierce critic of the Chinese government and said his committee will not be distracted by other matters.
The committee’s most visible achievement is expected to be a lengthy report that combines the findings of five investigative teams into one comprehensive document. The report is likely to include an executive summary, eight chapters and a number of appendices, including some of the most intriguing aspects of the panel’s multi-year investigation.
Among the most interesting parts of the report are its volumes of legislative recommendations to prevent another attack and other subversions of democracy. Some are slated for congressional action in the final weeks of this session, but others remain uncharted waters.
Biggest Committee Button The committee has made no official decision about potential criminal referrals to the Justice Department for President Trump himself or any of his associates who aided his effort to seize a second term he didn’t win, but they are viewed as likely. The committee has already referred four top Trump allies to the DOJ for defying its subpoenas, and it is a possibility that a full slate of prosecutions will follow.
Besides the aforementioned report, the committee’s most visible achievement is expected to include a detailed breakdown of the attack on the Capitol, including a look at how a mob of well-armed extremists overcame a police cordon to breach the nation’s capital. The committee’s voluminous investigation gathered evidence from the aforementioned gizmo and its predecessors, plus interviews with more than 1,000 witnesses, extensive call records from phone companies, text messages and emails and a host of legal filings.