Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced Thursday that she has authorized the creation of a special House panel designed to “oversee” the Trump administration’s handling of the coroanvirus pandemic and to “monitor” how the $2 trillion in third coronavirus relief package is spent.
The panel is not specifically tasked with investigating the Trump administration — at least not yet — but Pelosi implied, in a phone call with reporters Thursday morning, that the panel’s job is just beginning.
“We face a deadly virus and a battered economy with millions of Americans suddenly out of work,” Pelosi told the press, according to CNBC. “Congress has taken an important step in leading this crisis by passing three bills with over $2 trillion in emergency relief. We need to ensure those dollars are spent carefully and effectively.”
“We have to make sure there are not exploiters out there,” she added. “Where there is money there is frequently mischief.”
She likened the panel to one given charge of assessing defense department spending during World War II: What made sense then makes even more sense now.
The committee, Pelosi added, will be charged with rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” and will “protect against price-gouging, profiteering and political favoritism” — an apparent reference to what Democrats insisted was a “slush fund” for corporations, hidden within the $2 trillion emergency spending bill, but what turned out to be a fund of money set aside to provide no- and low-cost loans to companies suffering six months on from the end of coronavirus-related lockdowns.
The fund already has two oversight panels — an initial, financial oversight board, and a second oversight committee, demanded by Democrats to ensure Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who has no connection to the fund, could not disperse the money to favored corporations.
This third oversight panel, Pelosi says, will fall under the control of House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) and will be “bipartisan.” Pelosi did not name any Republican legislators slated for the panel.
Although Pelosi’s focus was on the immediate need for “oversight,” she did, of course, mention that the committee could eventually morph into an investigative body. Pelosi called the possible investigation an “after action review.”
Democrats have made no secret of their desire to investigate President Donald Trump and the Trump administration over coronavirus. On Sunday, Pelosi herself suggested, in an appearance on CNN, that she would pursue such an investigation. On Wednesday, NBC News reported that Democrats were quietly considering how to proceed with an independent probe into the coronavirus response.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who spearheaded the first effort to impeach the president, noted Wednesday, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, that a “9/11-style commission” could be needed to fully assess what went wrong, and why the Federal government was unprepared to handle the impact of a global pandemic.
For now, the Trump administration remains preoccupied with coronavirus response. On Thursday, the number of coronavirus cases across the nation jumped up by thousands. The United States Department of Labor also announced that a record 6.6 million people have now applied for unemployment insurance, having lost their jobs because of the coronavirus lockdown.