House conservatives are upping their demands on Kevin McCarthy as he tries to lock down the speaker’s gavel.

Their new price: a select committee with a huge scope of targets.

While the Republican leader and soon-to-be committee chairs have already lined up a laundry list of investigations that will largely command the House GOP’s agenda next year, it’s not enough for some McCarthy critics. Some of those opposing and on the fence about the Californian’s speakership bid want him to start a new panel, one that could direct probes against the entities they’ve castigated for years, including the FBI, the Justice Department, the IRS and Anthony Fauci.

Further complicating McCarthy’s position is that other Republicans aren’t on board. Some of his allies are skeptical that such a select committee wouldn't severely overlap with the investigative plans that incoming chairs such as Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and James Comer (R-Ky.) have already worked on for months.

But after largely percolating on the edges of the conference and conservative media, the calls are getting harder for the speaker hopeful to ignore. Several members who McCarthy needs to win over if he’s going to secure the gavel are openly using the creation of such a panel — to investigate what they call a “weaponized government” — as a bargaining chip as the California Republican tries to lock down their votes.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said that the group has had “good conversations” with incoming chairs but that he and other conservatives are pitching the select committee as a way to coordinate the conference’s investigative plans under one roof. They aren’t naming names on who they believe should lead the panel, though at least one skeptical McCarthy ally has argued that, if it has to happen, it should be Jordan.

“It needs to be targeted the right way,” Roy said about the party's investigations. “You don’t get many bites at the apple. You’ve got to get it done right.”

Conservatives say they want to model the panel off the 1970s Church Committee, which conducted a landmark investigation that uncovered significant surveillance abuses among the intelligence community and the IRS, leading to the formation of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But it’s a high bar that’s almost certain to fall short. While the Church Committee was a bipartisan operation, Democrats have frequently criticized the GOP’s targeting of the FBI, and their party is highly unlikely to help fuel probes they’ve already derided as political sideshows.

And Democrats are already gearing up to rebut GOP investigations next year. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who will be on the frontlines as the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, summed up how he views his party’s responsibilities as it deals with Republican probes: “a truth squad in the sense that we will have to debunk conspiracy theories.”

And a former senior aide to the Democratic senator who chaired the Church Committee has also criticized Republicans for trying to make the Church comparison specifically, accusing them of wanting to invoke “Church’s legacy not to push for real solutions … but to obtain impunity for themselves and punish their enemies.”

But underscoring how much the “Church” rhetoric has injected itself into the party’s thinking, McCarthy, during a recent Fox News appearance, tipped his hand toward the idea, saying that “you’re almost going to have to have a Church-style investigation to reform the FBI.”

McCarthy, notably, didn’t specifically mention setting up a new committee, and those comments would also align with previously planned investigations. The ambiguous comments come as the Californian tries to lock down the votes to claim the speaker’s gavel in a thin majority and wants to avoid alienating any more members. A spokesperson for the GOP leader didn’t respond to multiple questions about whether McCarthy was endorsing starting a new panel, or just an investigation into the Justice Department and FBI, which is already in the works.

It’s hardly the first time he’s faced pressure from his right flank to acquiesce to going further on investigations.

House Republicans say they now expect to probe the treatment of individuals who were jailed for participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, where a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters breached the building as Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s win. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) previously pressed McCarthy on an investigation last month during a closed-door conference meeting.

Comer noted that there was an ongoing discussion about which panel “needs to take the lead on that,” adding that the Oversight Committee will have “a lot on the platter but we’ll do whatever we’re asked to do from leadership.”

McCarthy has also threatened to subpoena intelligence officials who signed a letter in 2020 warning that a New York Post story about Biden’s son Hunter might have its origins in a Russian disinformation operation. And conservatives also think they’ve moved McCarthy on impeaching Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. He hasn’t officially backed the step, but opened the door initially in April and then signaled an impeachment could be on the table, depending on the results of investigations, during a trip to the southern border in November.

Asked about the California Republican’s remarks, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) — whom McCarthy opponents have used as a figurehead for the opposition — noted that McCarthy’s latest border remarks came “after he knew that he was facing somebody who was going to possibly deny him being speaker.”

But conservatives’ vision for the new select committee could stretch far beyond just the FBI and Justice Department — two long-running targets of the party’s ire — by stepping into other jurisdictional lanes.

Roy pointed to three other entities that could fall under its purview, in addition to the FBI and Justice Department: Fauci and the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the Department of Education and the IRS and money that will let the agency hire new staff. Those are all areas that other committees have indicated they plan to investigate. And while Roy acknowledged that potential overlap, he added, “You still want your best prosecutors prosecuting the case.”

Conservative insist they don’t want to step on the toes of Comer and Jordan — they just want a central, coordinated hub for investigations next year. McCarthy has been meeting with incoming chairs, including Jordan and Comer, as they plan out their series of probes next year. But supporters of creating a new panel argue that it could help free up Oversight and Judiciary Committee members, in particular, who are going to be busy juggling multiple investigations.

But Comer himself, and others in the conference, aren’t fans of the attempt to wade into the committees’ turf.

“I feel like we’ve got enough committees already to do all of that. I’m pretty passionate about that. I feel like you’ve got a Judiciary and Intelligence Committee that are very capable of doing that,” Comer said. “I’m not a big select committee or special counsel kind of guy.”

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), who is close to both Jordan and Comer, said he believes the two GOP chairs “have the bandwidth” already to run the investigations. And if there’s going to be a select committee, he said, they should both sign off.

“If you’re going to form that kind of committee, I want Jim Jordan to be the chair. Turns out, he’s already the chair of the committee who can go after the weaponization of government,” Armstrong said.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a Freedom Caucus member who is backing the push for a new panel and hasn’t yet signaled whether he’ll vote for McCarthy, said that the committee would “definitely have to be in coordination with Judiciary and Oversight” but that it would send a “strong signal” about GOP priorities.

“We only have so much time,” Clyde said. “It’s the one thing we can’t make more of.”

House Republicans are fuming over a recent White House move that will slow roll their investigations, but leaders say it doesn’t change their game plan.

While the House GOP has spent weeks detailing its planned investigations into the Biden administration now that the party has a majority, the White House has stayed mostly silent on strategy. That changed Thursday morning, when White House Special Counsel Richard Sauber announced he plans to effectively reset the clock come Jan. 3 and ignore the long list of investigative requests already sent by Republican Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio — the incoming chairs for the Oversight and Judiciary Committees, respectively.

It's an explosive start to a chapter that won’t even officially begin until next week. The relationship between House Republicans and the Biden White House seemed doomed to go sour from the start, but it’s an unmistakable signal that Biden’s administration won’t quietly go along with investigations — some of which it has openly deemed little more than political noise.

“At every turn the Biden White House seeks to obstruct congressional oversight and hide information from the American people,” Comer said in a statement.

House Republicans were quick to clarify that their investigative plans, which have been in the works for months and have included strategy meetings with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are moving forward regardless of the White House’s position. Comer said in an interview that he had already planned to reissue all of his information requests quickly in the new Congress, including for interviews and documents related to Hunter Biden’s business deals, last year’s Afghanistan withdrawal and the administration’s handling of the pandemic. The White House’s newly articulated position would be little more than a short delay of that process, he noted.

A Jordan spokesperson similarly said Thursday that the White House’s letter wouldn’t change the lawmaker's timeline or strategy for issuing potential subpoenas next year.

And in a further twist of the knife, the Biden White House took unusual inspiration for its newly stated oversight posture: former President Donald Trump. In its letters to Comer and Jordan, the White House counsel’s office cited Trump administration legal opinions that Democrats once derided as extreme and undemocratic.

Former House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) termed the position “the latest in a series of abuses by the Trump administration to operate in a shroud of secrecy.” Even Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, at the time, criticized the Trump White House for construing congressional oversight so narrowly.

A GOP Oversight aide characterized the White House’s stance as an “attempt to delay” that “reveals they are acting in bad faith.” The aide added that “oversight and accountability are coming regardless.”

Meanwhile, Jordan has already sent a slew of letters to the administration outlining documents and interview requests he wants next year as Judiciary Committee chair, warning potential witnesses that while he'd prefer voluntary testimony, he’s willing to use a “compulsory process if necessary.”

The relationship between the Biden administration and a GOP-controlled House was never going to sail smoothly. A majority of Republicans backed attempts to challenge Biden’s 2020 win and have been signposting a sprawl of investigations on everything from the president's son to the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing border crisis. And the White House, meanwhile, has been staffing up for months to handle the investigative deluge over the next two years.

But the White House's latest opening salvo appears to have touched a nerve among congressional Republicans.

“The Biden White House is used to House Democrats and the media sweeping essential oversight under the rug. In 5 days, a new Republican majority will have the authority and obligation to get answers for the American people,” House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tweeted Thursday.

Jordan, and Judiciary Committee staff, also spent Thursday teeing off on social media against the White House’s strategy and amplifying criticism from other corners of the party.

“The difference in how the ‘media’ covered oversight of Trump Administration and how it will cover oversight of the Biden Administration will be staggering. But it won’t stop us from doing our constitutional duty,” Jordan added in a tweet.

The White House's move is likely to spark accusations of hypocrisy from both sides. Democrats remained mostly silent on the announcement Thursday, after expressing indignation at the Trump administration's move years ago. And despite the current GOP fury, Jordan himself refused to comply with a subpoena issued by the Jan. 6 committee this term.

Additionally, White House aides, in response to GOP criticism that officials first aired their plans with the media and not with Republicans directly, were also quick to point out that Jordan and Comer went on Fox News earlier this year to announce a letter they sent as part of their coronavirus “origins” probe.

It might be the White House's most controversial move that will delay GOP investigations, but it's hardly the first.

Comer wants the Treasury Department to turn over so-called suspicious activity reports, known as SARs, related to Hunter Biden as part of the GOP investigation into his business deals. But the administration has batted down those requests while Republicans were in the minority, noting that their policy requires that a committee chair or a majority of the members on a panel OK a request for the reports, which are filed by financial institutions.

And Sauber, in his letter to Comer and Jordan, pointed to a similar distinction in Congress’ own rules, in addition to the Trump-era rationale, to make the case that the GOP requests so far don’t have teeth.

“Congress has not delegated such [oversight] authority to individual members of Congress who are not committee chairmen, and the House has not done so under its current Rules,” Sauber wrote.

But the 2017 stance sparked outrage from House Democrats, who were then in the minority.

“We cannot do our jobs if the Trump administration adopts this unprecedented new policy of refusing to provide any information to Congress unless a request is backed by the implicit threat of a subpoena,” Cummings said at the time.

The White House’s position, in theory, would disadvantage House Democrats in the new term as they fall back into the minority, unless they could get a GOP chair to bless their investigative requests. Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary panels are expected to spearhead the party’s day-to-day defense against the GOP investigations.

“The Democrats should be offended by that [letter], but considering they haven’t requested any information pertaining to oversight over the past two years, I don’t see them asking for anything over the next two years,” Comer said.

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report. 

The Biden White House launched its first major broadside in response to incoming House Republicans likely to spearhead aggressive oversight of the administration.

A top lawyer for the president pledged in letters to those members that the administration would operate in good faith with them. But he also said that oversight demands made by congressional Republicans during the last Congress would have to be started over.

In respective letters to Reps. James Comer (R-Ky) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), White House Special Counsel Richard Sauber said that the Biden administration had no immediate plans to respond to a slew of records requests that both men made the past several weeks. In those letters, obtained exclusively by POLITICO, Sauber described such requests as constitutionally illegitimate because both Jordan, who is expected to chair the House Judiciary Committee, and Comer, who is expected to head the Oversight Committee, made them before they had any authority to do so.

“Congress has not delegated such [oversight] authority to individual members of Congress who are not committee chairmen, and the House has not done so under its current Rules,” wrote Sauber, one of the White House’s top oversight lawyers.

Sauber did not rule out satisfying the requests once the next Congress is sworn in. But his letter nevertheless represents the first volley in what is likely to be a contentious and potentially litigious two years between House Republicans and the Biden White House. More narrowly, it is an apparent effort to shield the administration from a hail of potential subpoenas in early January by describing them as an abuse of the normal process of congressional oversight.

In a Nov. 18, 2022, letter to White House chief of staff Ron Klain, Jordan had warned that if his requests for documents from the administration remained outstanding at the beginning of the 118th Congress, “the Committee may be forced to resort to compulsory process to obtain the material we require.”

On Thursday, Comer sharply criticized the administration for its letter saying it would not immediately satisfy his records request.

“President Biden promised to have the most transparent administration in history but at every turn the Biden White House seeks to obstruct congressional oversight and hide information from the American people," the congressman said in a statement. "Just before dawn at 4:33 a.m., the White House informed us they will not provide the answers we have been seeking for the American people on important issues such as the border and fentanyl crises, the energy crisis, botched Afghanistan withdrawal, COVID origins, and the Biden family’s influence peddling. Why is the Biden Administration hiding this information? Republicans are undeterred by the Biden Administration’s obstruction and will continue pressing for the answers, transparency, and accountability that the American people deserve.”

White House officials, who briefed POLITICO, point to long-standing practice, going back to President Ronald Reagan’s administration, that ranking members in the minority do not jump-start the accommodations process on formal investigative requests. Sauber’s letter tells Jordan and Comer they should not expect records requests to be satisfied before they take their committee’s respective gavels.

Congressional oversight is a normal function of Congress. Yet with the razor-thin margin in the House and little expectation of major legislative breakthroughs with Democrats in control of the Senate and White House, investigations of the Biden administration are expected to be a top priority for Republicans.

Among the issues that Jordan and Comer have pledged to investigate are the federal government’s use of criminal and counterterrorism resources with respect to school board meetings, the drawdown of troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, and the business dealings of the president’s son Hunter Biden. They have pinpointed 42 administration officials who they want to testify before Congress.

Comer, in a Dec. 6 letter questioning the administration’s troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, demanded that the White House provide responsive material “no later than December 20, 2022.” In joint Dec. 13 letters to several administration officials relating to the origins of Covid-19, Jordan and Comer demanded materials by no later than December 27, 2022.

Republicans on the House Judiciary criticized the White House on Thursday for not engaging directly with them on the matter of records requests.

"Does leaking a story and sending a letter at 4:34 a.m. sound like “good faith” to you, @JoeBiden?" the House Judiciary GOP twitter account posted. "No. It shows how scared you are of important congressional oversight, particularly one where your administration targeted parents protesting at local school board meetings."

The likely ascension of Jordan, one of the harder-lined conservatives in his party, to the chair of the Judiciary Committee could, in particular, set off major political fireworks. He’s viewed within the party as one of its most effective political bulldogs. But he has also taken stances to diminish the reach and scope of congressional oversight. Jordan has refused to comply with a congressional subpoena related to his conversations with the Trump White House around the Jan. 6 insurrection, and he spearheaded a 2019 letter to oversight Democrats lambasting “partisan” subpoenas issued as part of the first impeachment of President Donald Trump. His charge that Attorney General Merrick Garland called parents “terrorists” for attending school board meetings has been revealed as false.

The Biden White House had largely stayed quiet about House Republicans’ oversight efforts, save when pressed by them during congressional hearings. But that changed after the election. In a statement, a spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office, Ian Sams, likened the subpoena threats to “political stunts,” suggesting House Republicans “might be spending more time thinking about how to get booked on Hannity than on preparing to work together to help the American people.”

Sauber’s letter tries to forge a middle path, albeit one that restarts the clock on the era of GOP oversight.

“Should the Committee issue similar or other requests in the 118th Congress,” Sauber writes, “we will review and respond to them in good faith, consistent with the needs and obligations of both branches. We expect the new Congress will undertake its oversight responsibilities in the same spirit of good faith.”

Rob Portman doesn’t want his fellow Republicans to take the wrong lesson from their lackluster showing in the midterms.

Some think “you have to be more partisan to win elections,” Portman said in an interview. “I think it’s just the opposite.”

The Ohio senator is one of six GOP negotiators known for working across the aisle who are leaving Congress. Portman himself was the lead Republican on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and others worked on the recently passed year-end government spending package, legislation to protect same-sex marriages, a long-stalled deal on gun safety and a bill to boost semiconductor manufacturing.

In addition to Portman, the retiring GOP senators include Alabama's Richard Shelby, who took government funding across the finish line; Roy Blunt of Missouri and Richard Burr of North Carolina, who both backed several of the major bipartisan bills this Congress; Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who has long supported reforming background checks and was one of the original backers of the gun safety proposal; and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who just finished negotiating his final annual defense policy bill.

Their departures are coming at an inopportune time for Congress — with party control of the House and Senate split and both majorities razor-thin, legislating is expected to come to a near halt. But lawmakers will need bipartisan deal-makers to at least keep the government lights on and address inevitable crises. And the GOP is at a crossroads following its disappointing performance in the midterms, dealing with an already scandal-plagued presidential run from former President Donald Trump and House conservatives threatening to hijack the speaker’s race.

“I think right now that the Republican Party’s got to right itself,” Shelby said in a recent interview. “I think that by ’24, we’ll do that. There’s a lot of dissent.”

Yet even in a chamber that’s known for its egos, senators don’t think their departures mean it’s time to bury bipartisanship. Portman predicted that the retirements won’t be “quite the change” some are suggesting and said he believed that “others will step up” in the GOP to work across the aisle. Of the 10 senators who negotiated the infrastructure deal, he noted, he’s the only one retiring. Blunt echoed those sentiments.

“Everybody is more easily replaced than either they think they are or people who have reported on them for a long time think they are,” the Missouri Republican said. “So I suspect the gap will not be as big as it currently seems.”

The 118th Congress won’t get any easier as Washington prepares for divided government. While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed at a recent news conference that the next two years will “be a lot more productive than people think,” a far smaller percentage of the House GOP backed the Senate’s bipartisan deals compared with the upper chamber’s Republicans. There was one notable exception in the recently cleared same-sex marriage bill, which 39 House GOP members voted to approve.

Schumer has yet to specify what bipartisan legislation he plans to pursue next term, but when asked about retiring GOP senators, he cited the latest spending package as a sign of optimism for next year. Other Democrats, however, suggested cross-aisle relationships might not be so easy to replicate.

“I worry about it,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said. “When you have a history of working across the aisle, when you lose them it’s tough.”

And it’s not just about losing a handful of Republicans who helped Democrats get to the requisite 60 votes in the Senate. Many of the bipartisan successes of this Congress, including the recently passed updates to the 1887 Electoral Count Act, were the product of “gangs” of Democratic and GOP senators, who forged deals that they then sold to their respective caucuses with the blessing of Senate leaders. While Portman, Blunt and others are leaving, most of the senators who worked in those groups will be back in the next Congress.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who led the Democratic side of talks on the infrastructure bill and was a lead negotiator for the gun safety and same-sex marriage bills, said in a December interview with POLITICO that she’s optimistic about the incoming class of senators. Sinema has already met with Sen.-elect Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who will replace Shelby, her former boss.

“Am I sad Rob Portman is retiring? Yeah, because he’s a very good friend … and I’m incredibly sad that Roy Blunt is retiring,” she said. “But I know that folks who are coming in their place are folks who are willing to work.”

Whether the first-term senators will actually resemble their predecessors remains to be seen. For example, Sen.-elect Ted Budd of North Carolina, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who voted against certifying the 2020 election, will replace Burr, who voted to convict Trump in the second impeachment trial. During his campaign, Budd vowed to “think independently.”

On most bipartisan votes this term, more GOP senators than the necessary 10 would join all Democrats in clearing legislation. Nineteen Republicans backed the infrastructure bill, 18 supported the December spending package, 15 voted for the gun safety bill and 17 supported the semiconductor manufacturing bill. Yet a smaller group offered its support early on to legislative frameworks, a critical step to demonstrate that bipartisan proposals like the gun safety package could get the votes to pass.

And there were still some bills in which every single vote counted, particularly in the longest-running 50-50 Senate in history. Portman, Burr and Blunt were among the 12 Republicans who voted for the same-sex marriage legislation that the Ohio senator also helped sponsor, giving it just a two-vote cushion to break the legislative filibuster. And in a possible foreshadowing of next year’s fight, three of the 11 senators who backed a temporary deal to allow Democrats to raise the debt limit in October 2021 are retiring.

“The members who are leaving are among the least angry. And many, in many cases, may be the most likely to reach out and figure out how to get something done,” Blunt observed.

However, the fact that the senators were leaving might be part of the reason they could successfully negotiate and support those deals. Portman said that not running for reelection made it easier to work on the infrastructure bill in Washington, without having to worry about fundraising or traveling home to campaign. Not to mention the typical constituent and party pressures that bear down on lawmakers with upcoming elections.

The next two years will, in part, be defined by the 2024 presidential election and whether the GOP decides to truly move on from Trump. Burr, Toomey and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who will leave the Senate in January to become president of the University of Florida, all voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial. Other senators have been more willing to criticize the former president than some of their House counterparts, but few in the GOP are taking concrete steps to actively prevent him from winning the nomination. Some privately hope his nascent campaign will implode on its own.

Portman reiterated his prediction that Trump wouldn’t follow through on a 2024 run and would end up serving as more of an outside influence on the direction of the GOP. And Shelby suggested a ticket with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin “would have a strong appeal to a lot of people, independents and a lot of frustrated Republicans.”

“Many Americans who … are supportive of [Trump] from a policy point of view are ready to see someone else run for president,” Portman said, adding that polling data suggests “a lot of Republican voters are ready to move on to a new candidate, whether it’s DeSantis or someone else.”

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

Rep. Jamie Raskin announced on Wednesday that he’d been diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, “a serious but curable form of cancer.”

“With the benefit of early detection and fine doctors, the help of my extraordinary staff, the love of Sarah and our daughters and sons-in-law (actual and to-be) and family and friends, and the support of my beloved constituents and my colleagues in the House, I plan to get through this and, in the meantime, to keep making progress every day in Congress for American democracy,” the Maryland Democrat said in a statement.

The congressman said he was diagnosed after “several days of tests” and would “embark on a course of chemo-immunotherapy on an outpatient basis” at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. He added that the prognosis for most in his situation was “excellent” after four months of treatment.

“I expect to be able to work through this period but have been cautioned by my doctors to reduce unnecessary exposure to avoid COVID-19, the flu and other viruses,” Raskin said. “In addition to destroying cancer cells, chemotherapy impairs natural antibodies and undermines the body’s immune system. I am advised that it also causes hair loss and weight gain (although I am still holding out hope for the kind that causes hair gain and weight loss).”

Raskin, who was sworn in to his third term in Congress in 2021, has cemented himself as an influential House Democrat and seen his national profile rise after taking on the role of a manager in President Donald Trump’s second impeachment, and after becoming a Jan. 6 select committee member. Just last week, he landed the top Democratic job on the influential House Oversight Committee, where he’ll serve as a ranking member in the new Congress.