Borrow the opposition playbook? House GOP weighs the ultimate 'tit for tat'

Republicans are confronting a strategic dilemma as they prepare to unleash their new investigative powers on the Biden White House: Should they take a page from the Democrat-run Jan. 6 select committee?

GOP lawmakers spent the last 18 months decrying the Capitol riot panel as an illegitimate abuse of Congress investigative powers. House Republicans complaints ran the gamut, from the Jan. 6 committees wide-ranging use of subpoenas to its reliance on the Justice Department for criminal contempt charges against defiant witnesses to its demands that telecom companies turn over phone records.

Despite the GOP laments, judges repeatedly backed the committees efforts culminating in a Supreme Court victory that let Jan. 6 investigators delve into Donald Trumps most closely held West Wing secrets. And as much as they abhorred the circumstances of the select panels creation, Republicans now leading the Houses powerful investigative committees took notice of the headway it made.

Theyve almost changed the rules, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) told POLITICO. [Are] we going to continue that pattern? Look, we want to get as much information as we can get, and theyve written a new playbook, so well have to talk about it as a committee and as a conference.