Posted originally on July 25, 2023 | Sundance 

CTH has never pretended or played the game of pretending, but several people have discussed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee against the backdrop of the Joe and Hunter Biden investigation.  Thus, some general reminders about inside DC politics are perhaps valuable.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, hereafter called the House Oversight Committee or HOC, has a very specific function in DC that too few understand.  Once again, let us be clear while trying to explain decades of false information founded upon arcane legislative outlooks.

This article is specific only to the House Oversight Committee.

Within Washington DC, the HOC has a very specific and unique function.  What Fox News is to corporate conservative punditry, so too is the HOC to the same DC system of pretending.  The House Oversight Committee is the “Chaff and Countermeasures” committee.  The HOC operates for both parties with the same mission.

In recent years, the appearances by various DC politicians on the Sean Hannity show should serve as a key indicator for the Chaff and Countermeasures operation.   If the politician is on the Hannity ‘tick-tock’ show, you are watching countermeasures.  We are not yet at the point where this is widely understood, it will be for the next generation to look back and expose it.

♦ HOC – The House Oversight Committee was/is created by the House legislative leadership to make money for the party in control of the Chair.  When the House Speaker is notified of a DC corruption issue, inside his/her office they will often be heard saying, “give it to oversight.”  The intent of that instruction is to give the issue to the HOC, so they can hold hearings, create soundbites and fundraise from the issue.

Making money for the party in control of the Chair is the primary function of the House Oversight Committee.  The HOC does not exist to create accountability or oversight; the HOC exists to exploit the issue for fundraising and satiate the base voters of the party in control of the Chair.  The HOC presents the illusion of accountability by constructing soundbites and member performances which are then broadcast on television for appearances to the voting audience.  It is essentially theater.

The HOC is a “general oversight’ committee, not a committee of “specific jurisdiction.”  Thus, the HOC is the vehicle where Democrats and Republicans publicly display their political initiatives, frame their narratives and then broadcast them on MSNBC, CNN (Democrats) or FOX NEWS (Republicans).

Depending on the issues at hand, the HOC committee members are generally those performance actors best known to the audience of both parties.  This is not accidental; this is by design.  Again, for emphasis, I am only talking about the HOC, a “generalized oversight” committee. Only this specific committee has this specific mission.

A hot button topic enters the committee ecosphere. Specifically trained staffers and performance artists, uniquely qualified to put on theatrical productions (both parties), are then deployed to assist the representatives in creating the soundbites that hopefully will go viral and assist them with fundraising and opportunities to say, “here’s what we are doing.”   Outlining this construct is not an exhibition in cynicism; this is the reality of what the HOC is designed and created to do.

When you see the HOC performing at their best, you will see lots of soundbites created.

The Chair of the HOC is always part of the House Speaker’s close inner circle.  From that association you will discover by training, by habit and by consequence, the HOC framework is developed to sustain the process itself as an end result.

The questioning is the sum total of all accountabilities.  The performance is the interview; the conversation is the point; the smoke is the fire.

Oversight, in the HOC framework of narrative creation, has evolved into reveling in the endless process (a fundraising proposition) and, as a consequence, it completely ignores the end point, misses the bottom line, doesn’t actually SEE the subject matter, and never actually applies accountability toward what might be discovered.  This is why you end up with high blood pressure, frustrated with the questions not asked, and throwing bricks at the screen or monitors when viewing.

The point of HOC hearings is to create what are now described as “viral moments” that can be used to generate money.   The second, and lesser objective, is to give the illusion of accountability while not actually ever holding anyone or anything accountable.  See prior HOC reference points like Fast and Furious, IRS targeting, Benghazi, the Twitter Files of the most recent Hunter and Joe Biden bribery schemes.

If you watch the HOC Twitter hearing through the prism of expecting some form of accountability for the pay-to-play corruption, you will be frustrated and disappointed.  However, if you watch the HOC hearings through the prism of how well the panelists will do at raising money from their performances, then you can evaluate the effectiveness – the proverbial winning and losing.

The HOC is designed by House leadership to perform the same basic function for both Democrats and Republicans.  The HOC committee assignments are selected based on the theatrical skills of each representative.

This is not to say the motives of the members are sullied or impure, it is simply to point out the motive of the committee itself is to generate fundraising from the skillsets of the members on the committee.

Once you fully grasp what the intent of the House Oversight Committee is about, and once you drop the expectation that any accountability in oversight is the intent, then you can watch the performances through the entertainment prism of partisan politics and genuinely enjoy them.  There are, after all, some exceptional soundbites and moments created by the hearings themselves.

The HOC is called the “Chaff and Countermeasures” Committee, because that’s essentially what the committee does.  The committee gives the appearance of targeting, steers the target to a controlled destination, and then distracts the audience from the outcome of accountability.

If sunlight is achieved, meaning the Mainstream Media cannot ignore the issue as presented and questioned, and if the general public become more familiar with the controversial subject matter or topic at hand, and if the party of the Chair can fundraise from the issue, then the committee has succeeded.  However, if you are looking for something to change as an outcome of any HOC hearing, you will be disappointed.

All of the insiders in Washington DC know this to be true; but, when discussing the HOC specifically, the insiders cannot violate the DC code of omerta and make this reality a part of the public consciousness.  To make this operational mission widely understood is to diminish the financial value of it.