MAGA EXISTS TO AMUSE NORMALS:

"Jordan is overextended and short-staffed, biting off much more than he can chew," a former Sen. Chuck Grassley staffer tweeted in late February. "This is doomed to fail." One of the quoted tweets on that came from an EpochTV host, who added, "Is it once again all talk & no action from the GOP - this time from the Weaponization Committee?" And Fox News' Jesse Watters said, "Make me feel better, guys. Tell me this is going somewhere. Can I throw someone in prison? Can someone go to jail? Can someone get fined?" [...]

And the subcommittee's first hearings are not going to have made it easier to sell potential staffers on the career-building opportunities here. Jordan is using the hearings to float one false story and conspiracy theory after another--for instance, misquoting his own witnesses, who told Twitter that a possible hack-and-leak operation law enforcement was warning social media companies about might involve Hunter Biden. Former Twitter executive Yoel Roth said under oath that as far as he remembered, the specific warning about Hunter Biden came from someone at another tech company, but Jordan claimed it came from the government. If you're a lawyer looking to make your career, you have to be pretty far off in Sidney Powell territory to think that being associated with that level of evidence-based claim is going to help.

"There is a feeling right now that this will simply be a Fox News clip generator -- this really needs to be a comprehensive, well-resourced examination of the security state," an unnamed "person familiar with the committee's operations" told the Post. "It can't be a way for members to get three- to five-minute hits on the Sean Hannity show. If they want this to be real, it has to be done right."

But right now all the Republican investigations are exactly that: Fox News clip generators. And Jordan isn't the only committee chair drawing some internal criticism. Punchbowl News reports that James Comer, chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, is drawing some gripes as he announces one investigation after another without making much of an impact. 

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