Congressional Republicans: We will not form a select committee to investigate Russian interference in the election. That can be handled through existing committees, no need to create one centralized body for it.
Also congressional Republicans: Oh no, too many different committees are investigating Russian interference in the election.
“The jurisdiction’s pretty fragmented, and that’s kind of a problem,” ‘Senate Majority Whip [John] Cornyn said, “so I think there needs to be sort of a concerted effort, and I think most of that’s going to be coming through the Intelligence committee.” The Texan, who is second in Republican Senate leadership, said the other committees might not have access to the necessary classified information.
You know what would deal with fragmented jurisdiction and the need for a concerted effort? A select committee.
What apparently spurred this round of fretting is that Sens. Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse announced they’d be using the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism to investigate. Since Graham is one of the few Republicans who seems to actually want to know what happened and to be disturbed by the prospect that Russia influenced the U.S. elections to help get its preferred candidate elected, you can see why Republicans who prefer a little bit more of a sham investigation would be concerned. (Though let’s not oversell Graham’s effectiveness, here.) The Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr, can deliver that image of an investigation without too much uncomfortable reality.
But anytime a Republican suggests it’s a problem that there are too many fragmented investigations, there’s the answer: Why not a select committee?
Also, did you think there were too many Benghazi investigations? Because Russian election hacking has to pick up a few more committee investigations and a select committee before it’s at Benghazi levels.