Subpoenas, spending bills and strategy sessions: House GOP plots multi-pronged attack on special counsel probe of Trump

By Annie Grayer and Melanie Zanona, CNN

(CNN) — House Republicans are mounting an all-out campaign to attack the special counsel’s investigation into former President Donald Trump and looking to use every tool at their disposal to undermine its findings – from subpoenas to the power of the purse strings.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan is exploring ways to force Jack Smith to testify or provide information about the special counsel probe of Trump’s handling of classified documents, according to multiple GOP sources familiar with his thinking. Jordan has already demanded the Department of Justice turn over a slew of documents related to the scope of the probe, which Jordan said he wants first, and the execution of the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. Even before the indictment, Jordan conducted a transcribed interview with a former FBI official about the search.

“All options are on the table,” Jordan said, when asked about potential subpoenas.

On whether Smith needs to testify to Congress, Jordan said, “I think that would be good for the country to hear, but you know, we’ll see.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy echoed support for the oversight effort, saying Congress has a “responsibility” to hear from Smith and vowing “accountability” for the Department of Justice, even before seeing the scope of the charges.

“Why did he think President Trump should be treated differently than anybody else? I think the American public does need to know,” McCarthy said, drawing a false equivalency with a separate special counsel probe into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, which is still ongoing.

The 37-count federal indictment, which includes allegations that Trump obstructed justice, also reignited a push on the right to use spending bills to cut funding to federal law enforcement – a rallying cry for the far right, which has long framed the DOJ and FBI as “weaponized” against conservatives. Jordan told CNN his Judiciary Committee staff has been working with Appropriations Committee staff on key policy riders that would affect funding for DOJ among other federal agencies. GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a fierce acolyte of the former president, is proposing Congress defund the special counsel’s office, an idea she has raised with Jordan and the far-right House Freedom Caucus during a weekly meeting that turned into a strategy session of how best to defend the former president.

Greene, who spent time with Trump in Georgia over the weekend, told CNN she brought the idea up with the former president, whom she said is “very supportive.” Greene, who asked the House Freedom Caucus to take an official position on the proposal, also raised the issue during a meeting in McCarthy’s office on Tuesday afternoon about the upcoming appropriations process.

“Everybody’s open to it,” Greene said. “It’s all about appropriations. That’s the only power Republicans have is appropriations and so that’s where I think we have to work.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, another staunch Trump ally, said he is pressing GOP leadership to get on board with the idea.

“It’s something I believe in, and I hope House Republicans will rally to that legislative device,” Gaetz told CNN.

The growing movement to defund at least portions of the FBI and DOJ comes as the former president has been calling his Capitol Hill allies behind the scenes, including House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, multiple sources told CNN. Jordan told CNN he spoke with Trump over the weekend and speaks to the former president every week. His team circulated talking points attacking Smith to his Republican allies as part of the coordinated messaging effort ahead of the indictment, according to a copy obtained by CNN.

It all amounts to an extraordinary – and likely futile – effort to intervene in an ongoing criminal investigation, with legal questions surrounding the GOP’s ability to force DOJ compliance on the matter and a Democratic-controlled Senate ready to stand in the way of any efforts to defund the agency or the investigation. But it’s a familiar playbook for Republicans, particularly in the House, as they find themselves under immense pressure to use their majority to run defense for Trump, who remains the frontrunner in the GOP presidential primary.

They launched a similar offensive in the aftermath of the Manhattan district attorney’s indictment of Trump in relation to alleged hush money payments made to an adult film star. And there could be additional – and potentially even more damaging – indictments in Trump’s future, with both the special counsel and Georgia’s Fulton County still probing Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

But not everyone in the GOP is on board with the Republican efforts to meddle into Trump’s ongoing legal matters.

“I don’t think the House has a role,” House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama, told CNN.

And over in the Senate, there is even more skepticism. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued to remain silent on the indictment, while other Republicans have expressed deep concern over the serious nature of the allegations.

“We cannot take this lightly, so to kill the messenger does not account for the gravity of the indictment that is out there,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial over the insurrection at the Capitol. “I don’t care whether you’re a Trump supporter or a Trump opposer, you have to take this seriously.”

At least one GOP senator, however, sought to use their limited powers in the Senate to aggressively defend Trump: JD Vance of Ohio announced Tuesday he plans to block all of Biden’s nominees for the Justice Department in retaliation for how the agency is dealing with Trump, though it’s unlikely to have a substantial impact on the floor – at least for now.

“The end goal is for Merrick Garland to stop politicizing the Department of Justice,” Vance said. “Every single official that we confirm out of this body is clearly going to be used to harass Joe Biden’s political opponents instead of enforcing law, if that’s what we’re doing and we won’t be honest about it.”

‘Gonna have to assert ourselves’

House Republicans have grappled all year with the idea of defunding portions of the FBI and DOJ as certain lawmakers have made those agencies a target of their investigative efforts, but Trump’s indictment has catapulted that conversation to center stage.

McCarthy, however, has so far only signaled he is willing to block funding for the FBI’s new headquarters, an idea that is echoed by a number of rank-and-file members and could be a way to throw some red meat to the fired up base. The idea was discussed during the appropriations meeting in McCarthy’s office on Tuesday, a GOP source in the room told CNN.

But McCarthy is going to come under increasing pressure to go even further, especially as the appropriations process gets underway.

The House Judiciary Committee has been weighing at least three proposed cuts to the DOJ, including restricting funding to departments that refuse to comply with oversight requests, though ultimately it is up to appropriators to write the spending bills.

Greene’s request to defund the special counsel’s office has laid down a new marker in the debate among the conference that poses a number of hurdles. It is unclear if this idea has any momentum with members of the Appropriations Committee, or how Congress could dismantle funding for the special counsel’s office given that it is tied up in a number of statutes.

“I would do that in an instant,” Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, a fellow member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, told CNN. “To my Republican colleagues I would say: we’re gonna have to assert ourselves to prevent the wholesale destruction of neutral and independent justice. This is the most amazing misuse of prosecutorial power I’ve ever seen.”

Other proposals include firing or reducing the salary of specific federal employees through the so-called Holman rule or prohibiting funding to specific programs.

“It’s one of the tools in the toolbox, and it’s one we’ve discussed as it relates to the DOJ and FBI,” Gaetz said of the Holman rule. “But not just in the context of the special counsel.”

Added House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer: “There’s a lot of frustration in the FBI leadership. We’ve got this Holman rule, different things like that, that appropriators are looking at … to hold certain people accountable.”

But any GOP-led efforts to restrict the funding to the DOJ or FBI, especially if it’s seen as in retaliation for Trump’s indictment, would die in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

“It is wrong to impose a partisan agenda on the long-running plans to cite a new building for the FBI,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland told CNN. “They just don’t have anything to do with each other.”

Even some Republican key committees are wary of efforts to defund the DOJ, saying instead it needs to be reformed.

“I think they need to be reformed. I think that parts of the FBI still work,” GOP Rep. Tom McClintock of California, who serves on the Judiciary panel, said, while noting that he believes DOJ leadership must be held accountable for creating what he described as a two-tiered justice system.

Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, another GOP member of the Judiciary Committee, said he warned his colleagues during the Tuesday meeting in McCarthy’s office that they need to be careful when talking about blanket calls to defund the DOJ and FBI.

GOP Rep. David Joyce of Ohio, who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, told CNN that his colleagues can propose ideas on how to cut DOJ and FBI funding, “and if it comes up in a vote and it gets voted through that’s fine. I don’t foresee that happening.”

Republicans may not have any better success on the oversight side in seeking tangible results. Smith is seen as highly unlikely to fork over documents or testimony in an ongoing criminal probe, and if Republicans were to go to court to force compliance, it’s doubtful that would hold up.

Still, Republicans are undeterred. When asked if Congress should subpoena Smith, Stefanik told CNN, “We’re going to use all the tools available to us and we are going to continue asserting our constitutional responsibility for the American people when it comes to oversight.”

Republicans will, however, have the opportunity to publicly grill Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, who will appear for other future hearings.

In the meantime, Gaetz staged a forum in the Capitol featuring pro-Trump witnesses on the same day of Trump’s arraignment – a counterprogramming effort which Gaetz said was intended to serve as a “force multiplier” for the investigative and legislative work of the various committees.

“We are now moving toward the appropriations process, where we’ll have to make key decisions about authorities and capabilities within the Department of Justice and the FBI,” Gaetz said, kicking off the event.

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CNN’s Manu Raju and Haley Talbot contributed to this report.