Rep. Darrell Issa is deadly serious about getting to the bottom of the corruption stinking up the Obama White House. As the incoming chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Issa will use the power of subpoena to hold "hundreds of hearings" on White House malfeasance.
Politico:
Issa sees the committee's role as not policy but to "measure failures." He likens his job to seeing "whether the fuel being consumed meets the specifications." And he isn't looking to catch witnesses off guard, saying that "oversight should be done with a balance for the American people and not as a gotcha." Issa won't have a shortage of targets. He's been hammering for better tracking of the stimulus and has a growing list of other investigative targets, including the housing meltdown and the bank bailout.
Earlier this year, Issa pressured Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) to issue a subpoena to Countrywide Financial about its VIP loan program. Other investigations during the minority included inquests into actions taken during the financial meltdown and a look at problems with Toyota automobiles.
There are already résumés piling up from people looking to join Issa's staff - mostly lawyers, a source said. Republicans have a good deal of hiring to do in the weeks ahead, although the House Republican Steering Committee will approve chairmen in December. Issa will most likely face no serious challenge.
In the coming weeks, Issa and his staff are also planning to reach out to the inspector general community and staffers at the various bureaucracies the committee will oversee.
Issa also is looking to dig into procurement and government contracting, and he seems sure to return to the Countrywide VIP program - which has subpoenaed records en route to the Capitol. He's also got inquiries into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's role in the financial collapse. And with earmarks all but gone from the Capitol, Issa will turn his fire toward the White House and the far larger sums of cash controlled by the executive branch at a time of huge deficits.
"We really want to study presidential earmarks and the grant-making process: How do we take all this discretionary money and see what is necessary," Issa said. "The debate on how to shrink the federal government is at the core of our problem of government not doing its job."
Unlike Henry Waxman's bread and circuses - holding hearings on steroids in baseball, for instance, - Issa plans to get to the meat of the cronyism, the potentially illegality of czars, the threatening of inspector generals across the board, and the cozy relationship between Democrats and labor.
A word of advice to Obama administration officials: Lawyer up.
Hat Tip: Ed Lasky
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