'Political theater': Critics blast MTG's hearing today as a 'sham' of 'weaponized government'
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) listen to remarks during a candlelight vigil commemorating fallen law enforcement officers, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 13, 2025.
Government watchdog Congressional Integrity Project (CIP) is slamming the new Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee under U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). The group calls the subcommittee a “rogues" gallery of extremists, conspiracy theorists and C-team political operatives” promoting President Donald Trump’s clampdown on certain non-government organizations (NGOs).
The Guardian reports far-right firebrand Greene will launch hearings this week on “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild”, purporting to expose the use of federal funds by NGOs to advance “radical” agendas such as “open borders and the Green New Deal scam.”
But a (CIP) memo condemns the hearing as “political theater” and “weaponized government oversight.” The memo also describes the hearing as extreme hypocrisy considering the substantial federal funding Republican allies and rightwing groups receive.
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“Their own networks have systematically benefited from government contracts, subsidies, and loans worth billions of dollars,” the memo states, according to the Guardian.
Personalities contributing to the committee display this week on Capitol Hill include personalities such as Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designates a hate group. Krikorian has made statements that Haiti’s problems today stem from the nation being one of the first in recent history to throw off the yoke of slavery and not be “colonized long enough.”
The memo adds that CIS received more than $700,000 in PPP loans and is now under investigation by the justice department for potentially lying to obtain at least one of them.
“That’s right, Republicans chose as their star witness on government waste someone who may have committed fraud to secure government money for his organization,” the memo claims.
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Another participant is Power the Future founder and Executive Director Daniel Turner, who the CIP describes as a career political operative who worked for the Charles Koch Institute before founding Power the Future. Power the Future is a climate-denial organization that attacks environmental groups for receiving federal grants, says CIP. It added that Turner’s former employer, billionaire Charles Koch, has received more than $750 million in government subsidies, even as Greene claims to be rooting out government waste.
“Turner … represents everything wrong with this sham hearing,” CIP told the Guardian. “He’s a junior varsity Republican operative masquerading as an objective analyst while advancing the financial interests of the fossil fuel industry – the same interests that have systematically profited from the very government largesse he now pretends to oppose.”
Read the full Guardian report at this link.
