Darrell Issa

Issa's Suggestion Of Folding ATF's Duties Into FBI Probably Isn't Going Anywhere

Ryan J. Reilly | December 5, 2011, 12:03PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) suggested Friday that the role of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could be folded into the FBI in the wake of ATF's botched Fast and Furious operation.

Issa's House Oversight Committee has been investigating Fast and Furious, the operation which let guns flow across the border into Mexico in the course of an investigation aimed at stopping gun trafficking.

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Darrell Issa

How Darrell Issa's Investigation Into Financial Crisis Commission Backfired On GOP

Ryan J. Reilly | July 14, 2011, 2:08PM

The House Oversight Committee's investigation into the government commission that was supposed to figure out the cause of the the financial crisis appears to have backfired on the Republicans who lead the committee.

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Barack Obama

Issa Probes 'Potentially Illegal' White House Donor Meetings

Ryan J. Reilly | July 12, 2011, 11:00AM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and President Obama

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa is asking President Barack Obama's top lawyer for documents related to White House fundraising activities which the California Republican thinks may be against the law.

Specifically, Issa is highlighting meetings held at the White House back in March that were organized by the Democratic National Committee. One of the former Bush administration officials who testified at a hearing last month on the Hatch Act -- the law restricting the political activities of federal employees -- said that those meetings appeared to be in violation of the law.

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Ken Melson

ATF Director 'Sick To His Stomach' When He Learned Details Of Fast And Furious

Susan Crabtree | July 6, 2011, 12:17PM

Acting ATF Head, Ken Melson

Ken Melson, the embattled acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), told Congressional investigators that he became "sick to his stomach" after learning details of the troubled anti-gun-trafficking program called Fast and Furious.

Melson on Tuesday testified for the first time before investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform and Senate Judiciary Committees, which have been pummeling the administration with questions about controversial tactics to stop the flow of weapons from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels. Melson, who appeared in a private meeting before the panel with his own personal counsel rather than Justice Department attorneys, said DOJ officials had prevented him from cooperating with Congress' investigations thus far.

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Commission On Wartime Contracting

Highway Robbery! U.S. Losing Hundreds of Millions To Rampant Afghan Fuel Theft

Susan Crabtree | March 3, 2011, 11:55AM

After nearly a decade of mismanagement, theft and fraud, the U.S. military still hasn't found a way to staunch the flow of what is likely hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- of dollars in lost fuel in Afghanistan, some of which is sold on the black market and winds up in Taliban hands, a TPM investigation has found.

With political unrest in the Middle East sending oil over $100 per barrel and Congress more intent than ever at cutting government waste, fraud and abuse in tough budgetary times, the Defense Department is under intense pressure to find a way to monitor and track the flow of fuel in and out of its bases in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The extensive corruption associated with disappearing fuel in Afghanistan provides another illustration of the problems associated with the heavy use of private contractors on the battlefield. Earlier this week, the non-partisan Commission for Wartime Contracting reported that the U.S. government has spent $117 billion on private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, and tens of billions of those dollars have been wasted.

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FEC

Watchdogs: Campaign Finance Agency Is AWOL

Susan Crabtree | February 17, 2011, 8:28AM

FEC Commissioner Donald McGahn

A coalition of watchdog groups are calling for congressional hearings into what they regard as systematic failings of the Federal Election Commission, the agency charged with enforcing campaign finance law.

In a letter to the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate oversight committees, the coalition urges the panels to hold hearings on the FEC's "frequent refusal to enforce the campaign finance laws passed by Congress."

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Countrywide

Issa Issues Broad Countrywide VIP Loan Subpoena

Susan Crabtree | February 16, 2011, 7:04PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, expanded a prior investigation into the Countrywide Financial Corporation's infamous VIP loan program by issuing a wide-ranging subpoena aimed at exposing more information about the mortgage giant's efforts to win friends and influence people at the highest levels of government.

Issa's subpoena, announced Wednesday night, was sent to Bank of America, which purchased Countrywide just before the height of the economic crisis. The subpoena asks for all documents and requests related to Countrywide's VIP program, which implicated Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the then-chairman of the Banking Committee.

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FOIA

Issa Expands Probe Of Alleged Politicization Of FOIA Requests At DHS

Susan Crabtree | February 1, 2011, 8:56PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is stepping up his investigation of the Homeland Security Department's alleged selective handling of Freedom of Information Act requests from citizens, journalists and others.

In a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Issa said he plans to interview one of her senior political advisers and other political appointees as part of a expanded investigation into department's alleged practice of stalling hundreds of requests for federal records while political advisers looked into the backgrounds of people requesting the documents.

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Darrell Issa

Cummings and Issa Clash At First Oversight Committee Hearing (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | January 26, 2011, 11:30AM

Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) clashed over opening statements at the first hearing of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

Both sides say Issa told Cummings 30 minutes before today's hearing that there would be no opening statements issued at the hearing, which focused on government oversight over money distributed under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).

Spokesman Kurt Bardella told TPM that Issa killed the idea of opening statements in order to skip the "political speechifying" which ate up time. "The American people wants Congress to listen more and talk less," Bardella said.

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Darrell Issa

Cummings: We'll Stop Any Issa 'Witchhunts' (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | January 5, 2011, 3:40PM

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD)

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) -- the man Democrats chose to go toe-to-toe with incoming House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) -- is making the rounds on cable news and showing off the aggressive style that helped him win the spot.

Cummings said that he expects to see the tougher version of Issa -- in other words, not the Issa who walked back his harshest statements and said he wanted to work with the administration -- and said his staff is ready for an "avalanche of subpoenas coming out and all kinds of inquires" similar to what happened during the Clinton administration.

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Darrell Issa

Issa Announces Hearings, Will Probe Fannie, Freddie, FDA, WikiLeaks

Ryan J. Reilly | January 3, 2011, 12:52PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

After making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows yesterday, incoming House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa today laid out his agenda for the next session of Congress and oversight of the Obama administration.

Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella told TPM that the hearing list so far would focus on these six topics: the impact of regulation on job creation; Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's roles in the foreclosure crisis; the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the failure to identify the origins of the financial crisis; how to combat corruption in Afghanistan; Wikileaks; and issues of food and drug safety at the FDA. Issa also announced the lineup this morning on his Twitter account. Bardella also emphasized that there was a difference between holding a hearing on a topic and launching an investigation.

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House Oversight

Kucinich, Towns Battling For Right To Square Off With Issa? (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | November 17, 2010, 8:59AM

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

Is Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) gearing up be the Democratic answer to Republican Oversight Committee Chairman-in-waiting Darrell Issa?

Kucinich wouldn't tell TPM if he planned to make a run for ranking member as he dashed out of a Democratic House caucus meeting on Tuesday. His spokesman did not return phone calls. But a senior House Democrat told Politico that Kucinich was in the running.

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Darrell Issa

Team Issa Plans Hundreds Of Oversight Hearings

Ryan J. Reilly | November 9, 2010, 2:25PM

Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Darrell Issa (R-CA)

Darrell Issa -- the chairman-in-waiting of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform -- wants each of his seven subcommittees to hold one or two hearings a week, for a total of seven hearings per week during a 40-week period, he told Politico. That would mean nearly 300 hearings.

Issa also said he is looking at members like Reps. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio to chair some of the seven subcommittees of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

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ACORN

Issa: We're Interested In ACORN, But We'll Look At Jobs First (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | November 3, 2010, 11:40AM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) -- the chairman-in-waiting of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and one of the new thorns in the Obama administration's side -- said on MSNBC this morning that he's still interested in investigating ACORN, which filed for bankruptcy yesterday.

"I think it's very important that we look at ACORN as something that occurred, it was criminal activity and it used government money and nonprofit money both to do politics. There's certainly going to be other examples on the left and on the right where we at least have to deny them nonprofit status and government money if what they're doing is being overtly political," Issa said. "I want to continue on that on the nonpartisan basis with my ranking member."

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Darrell Issa

The GOP Plan To Investigate Obama: The First Four Potential Investigations

Ryan J. Reilly and Johanna Barr | November 3, 2010, 10:37AM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)

Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Lamar Smith (R-TX) have been attacking the Obama administration since pretty much the day Barack Obama took office. Until now, as just the ranking members of two powerful House committees and members of the minority party, their criticisms of administration officials and their decisions have been mostly limited to issuing press releases.

Now -- as the expected chairmen of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the House Judiciary Committee, respectively -- they're the proud new holders of subpoena power, will have a much more robust unit of investigators and will likely be a huge thorn in the side of President Obama and his top cabinet members.

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Darrell Issa

Darrell Issa's Subpoena Gameplan For 2011: Investigate ACORN, Climate-Gate And The U.S. Postal Service

Ryan J. Reilly | September 28, 2010, 10:01AM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

After ACORN's demise, you might have thought that if if the GOP takes the House and Rep. Darrell Issa becomes the new chair of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the California Republican would have better things to worry about. You'd be wrong.

Last week, Issa issued a blueprint for his agenda titled "A Constitutional Obligation: Congressional Oversight of the Executive Branch." Among the issues he chastised the Democratic leadership for not addressing: the fraud he says was committed by the community organizing group ACORN.

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