Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said Friday at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that multiple government agencies should be defunded or abolished if they won’t “come to heel.”
“Perhaps the most important concession that we received during that fight was the establishment of a special group of legislators to analyze the weaponization of this government against our people,” Gaetz said during a speech at the event in National Harbor, Maryland. “Seems like every time I turn around, they’re engaged in surveillance or list building or monitoring.” (RELATED: ‘It’s Hilarious That You Won’t Say No’: GOP Rep Grills Witness Who Can’t Condemn Lying On FISA Application)
“I don’t care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy, we either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of, abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them if they do not come to heel,” Gaetz added.
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held a hearing Feb. 9, during which former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who claimed that censorship by Google derailed her campaign, while Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin testified before the subcommittee about FBI surveillance of Donald Trump’s successful 2016 campaign and about information from whistleblowers in the agency.
WATCH:
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to establish the subcommittee chaired by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio in order to secure the 218 votes necessary to become speaker. The House of Representatives established the select subcommittee in January, shortly after McCarthy won the speakership.
Gaetz also mocked many media outlets over criticism of the holdouts during the 15-ballot marathon to elect a speaker of the House of Representatives.
“If you believed the mainstream media, we wanted crazy things. We were this wild group of radicals who actually thought we should have a few days to read legislation before we vote on it. We had extreme ideas, like the bills before our consideration should comport to a single subject, so that I wouldn’t have to vote on the farm bill the same time I’m voting on war powers in Yemen,” Gaetz said.
“We — we thought we really could send a shock through the system with a requirement that the amendments to bills actually be germane to the subject area of the bill,” Gaetz continued. “We thought that bureaucrats who turned against the American people should have their salaries singled out so we could vote against them.”
Gaetz listed other reforms, including passing the regular appropriations bills rather than using omnibus spending measures during his speech.
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