House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called on President Biden to visit Columbia University as students there and at colleges across the country hold demonstrations in protest of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Johnson led House GOP leaders and the chairs of six top committees in a press conference announcing a wide-ranging congressional probe into instances of antisemitism at those demonstrations.
The committees involved are Education & the Workforce, Energy & Commerce, Oversight, the Judiciary, Ways & Means and the committee on Science, Space & Technology.
The investigation is an expansion of the probe being led by Education & Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C.
Foxx announced a new hearing on the matter on May 23 in her own remarks during the press conference. She invited officials from Yale University, University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Michigan to testify, she said.
House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who is on the same committee, said during the press conference, “Enough is enough. It is time to restore, restore law and order, academic integrity and moral decency to America’s higher education institutions. Joe Biden has been deafeningly silent.”
A spokesperson for the Energy & Commerce Committee, for example, told Fox News Digital that Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., would look into taxpayer-funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants that go to colleges and universities.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., indicated his panel would look into where the nationwide protests’ funding was coming from – suggesting he suspected a coordinated effort.
“It appears global elites are funding these hateful protests and pop up tent cities. These are the same groups that fund other radical agendas, including diminishing America’s energy production and pushing soft on crime policies that harm the American people,” Comer said.
“The House Oversight Committee will follow the money trail, expose it to the American people, and seek to hold bad actors funding hate accountable.”
