The Sen­ate yes­ter­day adopt­ed a spe­cial re­port rec­om­mend­ing the re­moval of Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates from the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, deep­en­ing the fall­out from the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing ed­its to a par­lia­men­tary wit­ness state­ment sub­mit­ted to the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC).

The mo­tion passed with 16 sen­a­tors vot­ing in favour, in­clud­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Court­ney Mc­Nish. Thir­teen sen­a­tors vot­ed against the mea­sure, while In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Sophia Chote ab­stained.

The re­port stems from con­cerns raised dur­ing an April 29 JSC meet­ing on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty af­ter de­tails emerged that John-Bates, while serv­ing as a mem­ber of the PAAC, edit­ed a wit­ness state­ment sub­mit­ted by for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh. The doc­u­ment was filed with track changes still vis­i­ble, re­veal­ing amend­ments made by both John-Bates and Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi.