McCarthy has been widely criticized for abusing his legislative investigatory powers to perform quasi-executive and judicial functions. McCarthy's Committee, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) only had jurisdictional authority to investigate United States Government (USG) Departments, Agencies, or contractors doing business with the USG. From the evidence it appears the FBI under Hoover fed McCarthy primarily dead end files of persons and associates to prime suspects in espionage cases in hopes of gaining some leverage or further information to prosecute known suspects without revealing secret Venona evidence. | McCarthy has been widely criticized for abusing his legislative investigatory powers to perform quasi-executive and judicial functions. McCarthy's Committee, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) only had jurisdictional authority to investigate United States Government (USG) Departments, Agencies, or contractors doing business with the USG. From the evidence it appears the FBI under Hoover fed McCarthy primarily dead end files of persons and associates to prime suspects in espionage cases in hopes of gaining some leverage or further information to prosecute known suspects without revealing secret Venona evidence. |