- Newly empowered House Republicans are preparing to launch myriad investigations next year.
- Oversight veterans expect the GOP to take some cues from the January 6 committee hearings.
House Republicans itching to hold President Joe Biden's feet to the fire next year have some new tools at their disposal, thanks to the game-changing work done by the January 6 select committee, congressional oversight experts told Insider.
"Democrats have opened the door to a new genre of investigation," Stan Brand, a former general counsel for the House of Representatives under Democratic Speaker Tip O'Neill, said of the buzzy public hearings the panel delving into the deadly siege at the US Capitol held throughout the summer.
Unlike the wonky, partisan shouting matches that crowd the C-Span archives, Brand told Insider that the "pre-rehearsed, pre-canned testimony" from mostly cooperative witnesses and "completely orchestrated" rollout of featured phone calls, viral video clips, and collected data produced a roadmap for neatly packaging findings that GOP lawmakers could crib from once they assume majority control in the 118th Congress.
Former Republican Rep. Tom Davis, who served as chair and ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform while in Congress, said that's all ripe for the plucking now.
"I think Republicans will go to school on that," Davis told Insider.
He added that House Republicans could streamline their pre-planned probes into President Biden, his scandal-plagued youngest son Hunter Biden, outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI director Chris Wray, and other perceived political enemies, by adopting the January 6 committee's groundbreaking presentation style.
"You can put them on film and document it later and be even more effective than having a long hearing with a five-minute rule where you're going back and forth due to a he-said, she-said framework," Davis said of the age-old format most committee hearings have followed to date.
January 6 committee staff declined to comment about their work or any unintended consequences that might flow from it.
The recent development Davis said GOP leaders might soon regret is their decision to dodge the January 6 committee subpoenas.
"They laid the precedent here that, 'We don't have to testify,'" Davis said. "So you may get into that on the part of Democrats."
Aides to anticipated Oversight committee chair James Comer and Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan did not respond to requests for comment about the January 6 committee's work or their forthcoming investigations.