House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said Friday he was subpoenaing a top administration official, David Simas, the director of the White House's Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, and demanding that he testify next week.Issa, who has been one of the Obama administration's fiercest critics in Congress, has pressed the White House for more information about the political office that Simas runs since it was reopened earlier this year.
In a March letter to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Issa wrote that the decision to reopen the political office "heightens concerns about the illegal use of taxpayer funds to support congressional campaigns during the 2014 midterm elections."Apparently, Issa has been unsatisfied with the Obama administration's responses to his repeated inquiries for documents and more information. In a letter to Neil Eggleston, counsel to the president, dated Friday, Issa stated he was holding a hearing next week and wrote, "I am left with no alternative but to use compulsory process to require Mr. Simas to appear." The hearing is scheduled for July 16.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the oversight panel, wrote a letter to Issa Friday urging him not to subpoena Simas, calling it "an abuse of authority" as there has been "no evidence of any wrongdoing relating to this official or the office he directs." Cummings accused Issa of going on a "subpoena binge," noting Issa has issued more subpoenas than the three previous oversight committee chairmen combined – "in less than half the time."
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Issa left some wiggle room, writing to Eggleston that if a briefing for the committee by White House officials leaves "no outstanding questions for Mr. Simas, I will reconsider whether it is necessary for him to appear."
Darrell Issa Subpoenas Top Obama Political Aide - NationalJournal.com
I liked Cummings, he seemed like a genuine person until I found out he likes to use the IRS for his political gain.
So, any oversight to you is just unwarranted eh?
Would you be so dismissive if it were a republican in the WH?
issa has been consistent
he has yet to reveal a true scandal
past is prelude; so i expect little to emerge from this upcoming effort
So, any oversight to you is just unwarranted eh?
Would you be so dismissive if it were a republican in the WH?
There is a difference in oversight and continuous investigation.
Is there anything unlawful about the President recieving, managing and fulliling campaining requests?
I liked Cummings, he seemed like a genuine person until I found out he likes to use the IRS for his political gain.
There well could be. However it would require an investigation to find out. Why is it wrong to investigate?
issa has been consistent
he has yet to reveal a true scandal
past is prelude; so i expect little to emerge from this upcoming effort
Continously on every step the President makes...yes. Maybe we should appoint a special investigator to shadow Obama 24/7 just in case.
You are ok with a member of Congress using the IRS to go after American citizens and the IRS violating the civil rights of American citizens?
For most of his career, Issa was a lackluster fundraiser. But through the first five quarters of the 2014 election cycle, his campaign committee has raised $2,573,258. This is an impressive haul, considering he has not faced significant opposition in more than a decade. The two Democrats vying to challenge him this year together have raised less than $50,000 combined. If Issa’s fundraising continues at its current pace, he will raise more this cycle than in his first four terms in Congress combined.
A key Republican on the committee, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), said that “there’s a lot more to come” on Benghazi, as well as “investigations from healthcare to the IRS to Fast and Furious.”
Ideally, Issa would like to conclude one of the first high-profile investigations launched shortly after he became chairman in 2011: the gunrunning “Fast and Furious” case.
Some Republicans privately have not been thrilled with the Benghazi probe, as legislation sponsored by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) that would set up a select committee to look into the terrorist attack has gained 179 GOP co-sponsors. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) does not support the Wolf resolution.
When Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in 2010, Representative Darrell Issa of California was supposed to become a star. Issa, who made no secret of his ambition, took over the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, vowing to use the power of his chairmanship to stage hundreds of hearings and hold the Obama administration to account. Anticipating what he promised would be “constant battle,” the White House hired extra lawyers and braced for the onslaught.
But Issa wasn’t the force people expected him to be. His biggest investigation, into the botched anti-gun smuggling operation that left a Border Patrol agent dead, incited right-wing talk radio listeners. Beyond that, though, it barely registered. After two years in power, Issa seemed more bark than bite.
Then came last month’s revelation that IRS agents had singled out Tea Party groups for special scrutiny. Here was an issue that seized public attention and posed a legitimate threat to Obama. Since then, nobody in Congress has pushed harder than Issa to pin the scandal on the White House.
But after a burst of attention, Issa’s investigation appears to have stalled. Although he turned up embarrassing material—has any government official been humiliated quite like the IRS commissioner in the dorky video dressed up as Spock?—Issa hasn’t made the all-important connection to the White House. And he may not be able to. The news this week that he won’t release the full transcripts of his interviews with IRS officials—interviews he selectively quoted from to imply White House complicity—suggests that what they contain may in fact exonerate the administration of the very charge Issa is laboring so hard to prosecute.
Conspiracy theories are good for business.
Darrell Issa's Benghazi Fundraising: How His Campaign Grew Rich | New Republic
So much, that Issa starts an investigation whenever he feels he can make money for his party:
Rep. Darrell Issa's agenda in 2014: IRS, Benghazi and Fast and Furious | TheHill
However, here are Issa's results:
Darrell Issa's IRS Investigation Is Falling Apart - Businessweek
Darrell Issa will go down in history as a cheap copy of Joseph McCarthy. At least McCarthy knew what he was looking for. Issa is just trying to keep the conspiracy theorist money flowing.
You are ok with a member of Congress using the IRS to go after American citizens and the IRS violating the civil rights of American citizens?
no one used the IRS to go after American citizens
no rights were violated
even the republican appointed IG confirmed his investigation showed there was no illegal activity by the IRS employees
I suspect as long as they promote his radical left wing agenda he is totally cool with it, probably promotes it, and thinks it should be the way to rule.
So, when the IRS itself admitted that American citizens were inded denied their right to due prcess they were lying?
show us what the irs admitted
here is the opening from your cite:
The Internal Revenue Service on Friday apologized for targeting groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, confirming long-standing accusations by some conservatives that their applications for tax-exempt status were being improperly delayed and scrutinized.
Lois G. Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, said the “absolutely inappropriate” actions by “front-line people” were not driven by partisan motives.
Rather, Lerner said, they were a misguided effort to come up with an efficient means of dealing with a flood of applications from organizations seeking *tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012.
During that period, about 75 groups were selected for extra inquiry — including burdensome questionnaires and, in some cases, improper requests for the names of their donors — simply because of the words in their names, she said in a conference call with reporters.
They constituted about one-quarter of the 300 groups who were flagged for additional analysis by employees of the IRS tax-exempt unit’s main office in Cincinnati. ...
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