‘Let’s look at this as adults’: Republicans divided over going after the left following Kirk’s assassination

By Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump and his closest allies are considering plans to crack down on left-wing groups following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but not all Republicans are sold on going down that road of retribution.

Channeling his base’s anger in the wake of Kirk’s death, Trump has been a leading voice in placing the blame for recent political violence on liberal organizations and is crafting a plan with his advisers that uses the federal government to target them.

A group of more than 30 House Republicans are simultaneously urging Speaker Mike Johnson to form a new committee that would investigate violence perpetrated by left-wing groups. The group wants subpoena power to put muscle behind a push for financial records. But some Republicans are concerned that launching an investigation targeting left-wing groups could set a precedent of investigating political opponents that Democrats could seize on, should they reclaim the majority next year.

“Let’s look at this as adults and try to reduce the violence in every case,” GOP Rep. August Pfluger of Texas said of the prospect of an effort tailored to investigating the left.

Establishing such a committee would add serious congressional weight to a push that so far has been a nebulous effort by the president and his allies to pin the unprecedented rise in political violence narrowly on the left.

A committee probe would examine acts of violence and work to determine whether any left-wing group provided funding associated with it, according to conversations with multiple lawmakers supportive of the effort.

The work, they said, could stretch back to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and would also try to dig into the finances of billionaire George Soros, who has donated significantly to left-leaning causes, and is the frequent target for antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Trump has long claimed that violent protesters in 2020 were being funded by “some very stupid rich people” but there is no basis for the claims that Democrats, Soros or another wealthy mystery patron is funding Antifa or violent protesters in general.

The potential probe would also examine non-government organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights nonprofit with a long history of using the legal system to defend vulnerable groups.

“I’m glad that we’re interested finally and following the money,” GOP Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, one of the supporters of the effort told CNN.

But Johnson, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and House Oversight Chair James Comer have yet to respond to a letter calling on them to jumpstart the effort, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN.

Johnson, who on Tuesday declined to criticize Trump’s charged rhetoric about Democrats, said he had not had “a chance to process it yet” when asked for his thoughts on the idea of a select committee. CNN has reached out to Johnson for additional comment.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said the decision to establish a special committee to investigate left-wing groups is ultimately up to the speaker, but he emphasized that he understood where the push is coming from. “This is a left-wing problem,” he claimed.

Such a probe would elicit a level of finger-pointing that is unlikely to sit well with all in the conference, especially those who worry that pinning the blame of violent political rhetoric squarely on one side would only add fuel to the fire.

The reluctance of a number of Republicans to investigate the left-wing could pose a headache for Johnson, who is facing pressure to forcefully respond to Kirk’s assassination while also looking to turn down the rhetoric amid an increasingly divisive and dangerous political climate.

GOP Rep. Cliff Bentz of Oregon, a lawyer, encouraged his Republican colleagues to not get ahead of the facts of the case in Kirk’s assassination.

“I’m more interested in finding out what the facts were and then determining what type of investigation to do. So, until I have those facts, I’m not going to take a position one way or the other. I don’t like to jump into conclusions,” he told CNN.

And GOP Rep. Troy Nehls argued that this type of investigation could be conducted through committees that already exist, where both parties are already represented. “I mean, I think we got enough committees don’t you think? There’s a committee for this, committee for that,” he said.

The House Judiciary Committee, of which Nehls is a member, is planning a field hearing in Charlotte, North Carolina, where a Ukrainian refugee was fatally stabbed on a train. GOP Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who leads the panel’s oversight subcommittee, meanwhile, told CNN that he wants his subcommittee to independently investigate the rise in violence surrounding political rhetoric.

Instead of putting resources behind an investigation that would exclusively target the left-wing, GOP Rep. Zach Nunn of Iowa said Republicans should instead form a select committee to address violence coming out of gangs associated with central and southern America.

“Let’s start there,” Nunn said.

The quiet pushback on how to call out political violence underscores the broader divisions among Republicans over how to respond to Kirk’s assassination. Still, voices of prominence in their party have drawn national attention.

Trump said Monday he’d consider naming far-left anti-fascism group Antifa as domestic terrorists. Vice President JD Vance blamed Kirk’s death on “a growing and powerful minority on the far left,” in his concluding remarks while hosting “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Monday. And White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said the White House will be going after leftist “terror” networks who organize doxxing campaigns after the killing of Kirk.

And some in the party have demurred when asked about violent rhetoric on right-wing social media platforms and high-profile attacks on Democrats, like the killing of Minnesota state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and violent bludgeoning of Paul Pelosi, husband of the speaker emerita.

Asked about another high-profile event – the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol – GOP Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming said: “This is the Democrats, the leftists and the progressives.”

Hageman, who is serving on the new Republican-led investigation into the January 6 attack, said the violence that occurred that day cannot be compared to Kirk’s killing.

“It has nothing to do with this,” Hageman said of January 6.

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CNN’s Manu Raju and Alison Main contributed to this report.