The Church Committee: The Good and the Bad
A new select committee in the House of Representatives, led by Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), was created for the purpose of investigating the “weaponization” of U.S. intelligence agencies for the benefit of the Democratic Party.
Not surprisingly, Democrats and their media allies quickly asserted that this new committee should be compared — unfavorably — with the 1975 United States Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the Church Committee after its chairman, Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho).
The first Church Committee is generally held today in high regard, so much so that the Republicans leading the present effort to investigate questionable activities of the U.S. intelligence community have appropriated the name for their own committee. The first Church Committee is credited with forcing reforms on intelligence agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA). Such reforms include the executive order by President Gerald Ford to ban assassinations of foreign political leaders; the creation of a permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in both the House and Senate; and requiring intelligence agencies to seek approval from a special court before surveilling American citizens.
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