Blumenthal to Serve as Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced today that he will become the Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). Blumenthal will be a new member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee and will continue serving on the Senate Judiciary; Armed Services; Veterans; and Aging Committees.

“I am excited to join a committee with such significant oversight responsibilities and investigative power, and I look forward to working with my new colleagues on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. I am honored to take the gavel of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has conducted some of the most significant inquiries in the history of Congress, going after wrongdoers – no matter how powerful – in every corner of American life. That legacy of unsparing and relentless accountability is one that I am privileged to continue,” Blumenthal said.

“While I may no longer be serving on the Commerce Committee, my priorities remain the same: protecting Americans from exploitation, fraud and abuse remains my driving passion. Consumers need vigorous voices and champions now more than ever. The relationships I have forged on the Commerce Committee – especially with my bipartisan colleagues on the Consumer Protection Subcommittee, Senators Moran and Blackburn – will continue to be some of my most valued partnerships and I look forward to pursuing legislative proposals that we have introduced and advocated in the past.”

“And to Big Tech and others in industry: you’ll be hearing from me very, very soon.”

PSI is the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s chief investigative subcommittee and is tasked with broad authority to investigate crimes, fraud and violations of consumer protections, and threats to national security. PSI has previously conducted investigations into a wide range of criminal activity, corporate malfeasance, and government waste, fraud and abuse. More information on the history of PSI is available here.

For the last several years, Blumenthal has served as the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer protection subcommittee, where he spearheaded multiple investigative efforts.

Between 2018 and 2019, Blumenthal and U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) conducted an eighteen-month investigation into systemic abuse within the U.S. Olympic movement. The joint investigation was launched the day after Larry Nassar was sentenced to prison and included four subcommittee hearings, interviews with Olympic athletes and survivors, and the retrieval of over 70,000 pages of documents. The sweeping reform legislation Blumenthal and Moran introduced in the wake of that investigation was approved unanimously by the Senate and signed into law in 2020.

Over the last two years, Blumenthal and U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have led investigative and reform efforts to hold social media companies accountable for the repeated failures by tech giants to protect kids on their platforms from the dangers kids face online. Blumenthal and Blackburn held a series of five subcommittee hearings to receive documents, evidence, and testimony from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, survivors and victims’ family members, and responses from representatives from Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. Following these hearings, Blumenthal and Blackburn introduced the Kids Online Safety Act, comprehensive bipartisan legislation to enhance children’s safety online.

Blumenthal is a former U.S. Attorney and served five terms as Connecticut’s Attorney General, where his aggressive enforcement for consumer protection, antitrust, environmental stewardship, labor rights, and personal privacy laws helped to reshape the role of state attorneys general nationwide. As Attorney General, Blumenthal led historic, nationwide investigations into Big Tobacco and Microsoft. Blumenthal also advocated successfully for whistleblower authority in the state Attorney General’s office which conducted dozens of investigations into wrongdoing in state government, including an investigation with the Child Advocate into state child protection practices and the juvenile detention facilities, leading to significant changes in policies addressing youth with mental health and other issues.

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