House Republicans believe Democrats are plotting to use a new coronavirus investigative committee to damage President Trump in the critical months ahead of the 2020 election.

The House will vote in an emergency session Thursday to pass a resolution creating a special House panel to oversee the distribution of billions of federal dollars dedicated to the response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Pelosi, a California Democrat, said the panel would “prevent waste, fraud, and abuse” and would be bipartisan. She appointed the House majority whip, South Carolina Democrat James Clyburn, to oversee the panel.

But Republicans say there’s another, more political purpose for the panel that follows in the path of the Democrats’ Russian collusion investigation and their impeachment of Trump over his efforts to get Ukraine government officials to investigate Joe Biden.

Democrats, they believe, will use the coronavirus committee as a platform to publicly excoriate Trump over his response to the coronavirus, which many Democrats have been harshly criticizing as negligent.

“This is just one more attempt by the Democrats to go after the president,” Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Oversight panel, said.

House Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday met in person for the first time in weeks to discuss the creation of the committee, which Pelosi first proposed about two weeks ago.

Democrats, who control the majority, are poised Thursday to pass a resolution creating the panel over the objections of Republicans, who are expected to oppose it.

Democrats say the panel will help ensure the $2.8 trillion in federal spending passed since last month will be distributed properly to businesses, individuals, and healthcare facilities, among other intended recipients.

But Republicans point out there are already eight oversight entities that can ensure the money is not misspent, including a special inspector general and congressionally-appointed panel backed with $25 million in federal funding.

“The first eight are going to look out for the taxpayers,” Jordan said. “The ninth is going to look out for the Democrats’ candidate for president, Joe Biden.”

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, in a call with Pelosi Wednesday, told the speaker he believed the creation of the panel would be redundant and would serve a political purpose.

Republicans point out Pelosi’s choice to chair the committee: Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, who many credit with rescuing Biden’s presidential bid by endorsing him ahead of the state’s key primary.

Republicans now envision coronavirus hearings that will replicate the Russia and Ukraine probes targeting Trump, but with much higher stakes — taking place right before the 2020 election.

“Here we go in an election year, and we know what these hearings will look like this fall,” Jordan said, testifying before the House Rules Committee Wednesday in an expansive hearing room. “They’ll probably take place in this room, like all the big hearings seem to do, and they'll be calling all kinds of people to go after the president.”

Democratic leaders describe the committee as one that will oversee money, not delve into Trump.

Pelosi told reporters earlier this month the committee will assure “that the taxpayers' dollars are being wisely and efficiently spent to save lives, deliver relief, and benefit our economy,”

But the legislation authorizes the panel to do much more, authorizing panel members to examine “executive branch policies, deliberations, decisions, activities, and internal and external communications related to the coronavirus crisis.”

The language authorizing the committee also calls for “the protection of whistleblowers who provide information about waste, fraud, abuse, or other improper activities related to the coronavirus crisis,” and oversight of “cooperation by the Executive Branch and others with Congress, the Inspectors General, the Government Accountability Office, and others in connection with oversight of the preparedness for and response to the coronavirus crisis.”

Republicans and Democrats engaged in a heated exchange about the new panel during the Wednesday hearing, which took place with lawmakers wearing protective masks and sitting far apart.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, attacked Jordan’s criticism, pointing out House Republicans conducted 10 investigations into the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi during the Obama administration and created a select committee specifically to examine the incident, which left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.

Raskin, in an impassioned speech accusing Trump of negligence in the face of the coronavirus, provided a preview of the oversight Democrats will provide on the new select panel.

“I cannot accept the counterfeit outrage of people upset about the fact that we’re creating a committee to conduct oversight over the trillions of dollars of taxpayer’s money that is going out the door to try to clean up after the mess created by the government,” Raskin said.

Raskin said Trump “has no plan at all” to respond to the coronavirus, calling the president’s actions to reopen America, “a bunch of flabby, advisory recommendations to the states,” without a unified federal response to manufacture ventilators and personal protective equipment.

Republicans told Raskin he’s confirming their fears about the panel.

“All of this rhetoric, and complaining and criticizing the president is exactly what we believe the whole purpose of the subcommittee is,” Rep. Debbie Lesko, an Arizona Republican, said to Raskin. “And you’ve just proven the point.”