MEDIA RESOURCE: As Hearings Start, MAGA Extremists Get Plum Committee Assignments

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Now that Speaker McCarthy and GOP House leadership have finalized House committee selections, it is clear that MAGA extremists — including the McCarthy holdouts who secured a number of concessions and backroom deals in exchange for their eventual votes — will be in positions of significant power on the committees that will determine which legislation, investigations, and other work gets advanced over the next two years.

Yesterday, Republicans on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, which include MAGA extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Jim Jordan, held sham hearings on COVID-19 and the border. Instead of focusing on lowering costs and helping the American people, they spent their time lying and spreading their extreme MAGA agenda. While Marjorie Taylor Greene admitted that she received a PPP loan that she never paid back, she also spent her time attacking critical race theory and “Drag Queen Story Hour.” The Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee also had a sheriff who has demonized immigrants and pushed falsehoods about the border appear as a witness. The Republicans on the House Oversight Committee spread false claims about Democrats refusing to conduct oversight of COVID-19 funds last session, despite there being a Select Committee focused on that issue last Congress.

Here are some of the major MAGA lead committee assignments and key players:

Andy Biggs (AZ-05) – House Committee on Oversight and Reform And House Committee on the Judiciary

Biggs voted to overturn the election results in 2020 and pressured Arizona politicians to decertify Arizona’s electors. He is even linked to the organizers of the January 6th insurrection and allegedly asked Trump for a presidential pardon for his Jan. 6 involvement.
Biggs’ two brothers publicly said Rep. Biggs was “partially to blame” for the January 6th insurrection.

Dan Bishop (NC-09) – House Committee on the Judiciary And Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government

Bishop spewed baseless claims of election fraud after the 2020 election, saying “Well, I’m echoing the President’s claims. Indications of grossly improper conduct from election officials right here in my district. And Trump’s points are persuasive: concerted use of fraudulent polls; stunning and implausible ballot dumps overnight; observers barred. Fight!”
Bishop worked closely with Brian Talbert, supporter of the Proud Boys, founder of “Deplorable Pride,” and anti-Muslim activist.

Lauren Boebert (CO-03) – House Committee on Oversight and Reform

Boebert is opposed to the separation of church and state, calling the separation “junk.”
Boebert appears to have advocated for violence against lawmakers during the January 6th attack and even tweeted out information about some lawmakers’ locations during the attack.
Boebert asked Jewish visitors at the U.S. Capitol if they were there to perform “reconnaissance.”

Paul Gosar (AZ-04) – House Committee on Oversight and Reform

In 2021, Gosar was censured and removed from his committee assignments after he posted a video that depicted him murdering a sitting congresswoman and attacking President Biden.
- After the posting, Gosar’s own sister asked: “Does he have to act on it himself before we believe that he is an absolute, he’s a sociopath?”
Gosar is an election denier who called the January 6th rioters “peaceful patriots” and suggested that the January 6th attack was the “hallmarks of Antifa provocation.”

Josh Brecheen (OK-02) – House Committee on Homeland Security

Brecheen urged states to find creative ways to defy the Supreme Court ruling that allowed same-sex marriage and advocated to transform Oklahoma into a “sanctuary” to protect marriage between heterosexuals only.
Brecheen’s campaign had the support of the House Freedom Caucus. Freedom Caucus co-founder and MAGA extremist Jim Jordan even cut a campaign ad for Brecheen.
Brecheen was endorsed by David Barton, a fervent homophobe and supporter of removing MLK Jr from history books.

Michael Cloud (TX-27) – House Committee on Appropriation

Cloud wants to ban abortion with no exceptions. He believes that life begins at conception, and his goal is to make it “illegal to destroy human life.”
- In 2021, Cloud cosponsored a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The bill would also institute criminal penalties for doctors who violate the law.
- Cloud voted for an unsuccessful discharge petition intended to force the House to vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would require doctors to provide medical treatment in the extremely rare case of a child born alive following an abortion or attempted abortion. Planned Parenthood describes bills like these as “deliberately misleading” attempts “to spread misinformation as a means… to ban safe and legal abortion.”

Andrew Clyde (GA-09) – House Committee on Oversight and Reform And House Appropriations Committee

Clyde was one of just 12 House Republicans who voted against a resolution to award Congressional Gold Medals to the Capitol Police who protected the Capitol during the insurrection.
- Michael Fanone, a police officer who suffered a heart attack and traumatic brain injury after he was assaulted while protecting the Capitol, said in June 2021 that he had encountered Clyde in an elevator and Clyde refused to acknowledge him or shake his hand. Fanone said that “he turned away from me, pulled out his cellphone and started thumbing through the apps.”
Clyde was one of just 14 House Republicans who voted against legislation that would establish June 19 as Juneteenth National Independence Day, a US federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. Clyde said that he voted against the bill because he did not like its title.

Eli Crane (AZ-02) – House Committee on Homeland Security

Crane supports banning abortion, even in cases of rape or incest and allowing states to punish patients and doctors.
Crane was scheduled to speak at a rally in support of the January 6th attackers alongside white nationalists who endorse Nazi ideology.
Crane shared an article titled “the Great Reset is not a conspiracy theory” on Facebook.
Crane said he is being mentored by Freedom Caucus members and plans to work closely with them in Congress.

Byron Donalds (FL-19) – House Committee on Oversight and Reform and House Financial Services Committee

Donalds wants to ban all abortions without exceptions. Donalds says “every life is valuable, from conception to natural death, and I will fight to protect the life of every unborn child without exception.”
- Donalds cosigned an amicus brief that urged the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Matt Gaetz (FL-01) – House Committee on the Judiciary

After the January 6th insurrection, Gaetz claimed the attackers were “masquerading as Trump supporters and, in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group Antifa.” He also voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the January 6th insurrection.
Some Republican leadership feared the role Gaetz played in promoting the insurrection. Rep. McCarthy said that Gaetz was “putting people in jeopardy.” Rep. Scalise said “it’s potentially illegal what he’s doing.”

Anna Paulina Luna (FL-13) – House Committee on Oversight and Reform

Luna said of herself that she is “a pro-life extremist – and I’m not hiding that.”
Luna met with Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two people at a protest against police brutality in Kenosha, WI in 2020.
Luna campaigned with MAGA extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene, and has praised Greene, Jim Jordan, Lauren Boebert, and other Freedom Caucus members as “incredible thought leaders.”

Ralph Norman (SC-05) – House Committee on Rules And House Committee on Financial Services

Norman cosponsored a 15-week national abortion ban.
Norman voted against the right to contraception, including birth control and condoms.
Norman advocated for President Trump to invoke martial law to overturn the results of the 2020 election, texting Trump’s Chief of Staff, “we are at a point of ‘no return’ in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!”

Andy Ogles (TN-05) – House Committee on Financial Services

In June 2021, Ogles told a local radio station that “at the end of the day, we were defrauded out of a true and honest election” in 2020.
Ogles falsely claimed that abortion law exceptions for cases of rape or incest were addressing “red herrings used by the left and radicals to try and taint the conversation.” The Guttmacher Institute says thousands of women have abortions for these reasons each year.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, Ogles said that the “next thing we have to do is go after gay marriage.”

Scott Perry (PA-10) – House Committee on Oversight and Reform

Perry refused to comply with a subpoena from the January 6th committee regarding his alleged attempt to install an election denier as Attorney General in the hopes that the election results would be overturned.
Perry was one of just 6 members of the House who voted against a bill intended to collect, analyze, and preserve evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
Perry was one of just 17 members of the House who voted against a resolution to condemn QAnon after adherents of the conspiracy theory sent death threats to a sitting member of Congress.

Chip Roy (TX-21) – House Committee on the Judiciary And House Committee on Rules

Roy is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, which includes MAGA extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.
Roy co-sponsored a “fetal personhood” bill that would make abortion murder and could impact contraception access.
Roy was the ghostwriter for Rick Perry’s “Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington.” Perry and Roy’s book called Social Security “unconstitutional” and compared it to a Ponzi scheme.

Keith Self (TX-03) – House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Self was endorsed by former general Mike Flynn, a prominent QAnon conspiracist.
Self said that one of the top challenges facing his district were “drag queen shows,” despite the DFW metropolitan area facing some of the highest inflation in the entire country.
Self supports banning abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest. He even said, “the sonogram is the greatest tool in our fight against the barbarism and child sacrifice of the abortion industry”

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