During his relatively brief tenure as Congress’ top Republican, House Speaker Mike Johnson has confronted a couple of important personnel challenges. The first came several weeks ago when the Louisiana congressman had to choose two new members of the House Intelligence Committee — and as members of both parties came to agree, Johnson did not choose wisely.
His second personnel challenge came this week, and by some measures, the House speaker’s newest failure was even more dramatic than his first. The Washington Post reported:
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) have tapped seven Republican and six Democratic lawmakers to serve on a bipartisan task force investigating the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. All 13 lawmakers have backgrounds and experience relevant to the committee’s role: seeking accountability and answers after a gunman wounded the former president, killed one person and critically injured two others during a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
To be sure, there is no controversy surrounding the existence of this new congressional task force. There’s broad support for investigating the attempt on Trump’s life, and the official inquiry will move forward with bipartisan backing.
But as the process advances, it’s worth pausing to consider who Johnson appointed to the panel. Indeed, it’s difficult to pick which of the task force’s GOP members is the most controversial.
Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas, for example, is an election denier who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential race, and who’s also faced some unfortunate ethics questions. Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee is also an election denier who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential race, and his right-wing background was so controversial in 2017 that the Senate wouldn’t confirm him when Trump nominated him to serve as secretary of the Army.
The panel will be chaired by Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, who, in addition to being an election denier who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential race, is also up to his ears in the fake elector scandal; has accused Barack Obama of running a secret “shadow government”; and initially responded to the recent assassination attempt targeting Trump by describing it without evidence as an “attack from the left.”
But perhaps most notable of all is Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana — an election denier who’s also taken a leading role in concocting deeply weird conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack, including bizarre allegations related to the FBI and “ghost buses.”
As a recent New York Times report summarized, “Even by a conspiracy theorist’s standards, the wild claims made by Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, stand out.”
Some might see this and question the relevance. Perhaps, the argument goes, these House Republicans pushed ridiculous conspiracy theories related to the 2020 elections and the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, but this investigation is about the shooting that nearly killed Trump. It is, some might argue, an entirely unrelated matter.
Perhaps, but judgment matters. The shooting in Pennsylvania was deadly serious and deserves to be scrutinized by credible and responsible members of Congress who care about evidence and reality. The goal is to produce findings that the American public will be able to believe.
For Johnson to choose fringe figures such as Higgins for this task force was an avoidable mistake.
