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House Oversight Committee head Darrell Issa slammed the State Department Thursday for using “slippery tactics” to weasel out of providing documents related to the 2012 Benghazi attack – and issued a new subpoena to haul Secretary of State John Kerry before the panel. The California Republican said he'd kept his part of a bargain – lifting an initial May 21 date for Kerry to go before the committee – but the State Department has "back tracked," The Hill reports. “With this State Department’s slippery tactics, it’s no wonder our friends in the world are losing faith in us and our...

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa on Thursday strongly condemned comments by GOP gubernatorial front-runner Tim Donnelly, in which the state lawmaker has tried to tie his Indian-American rival to fundamentalist Islamic law, calling his statements “hateful and ignorant garbage.” Donnelly, a state assemblyman who is popular with the tea party, has repeatedly said this week that Neel Kashkari supported Shariah banking code when he was a senior official at the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008. On Facebook, Donnelly posted a link to a banking seminar hosted by the department during which Kashkari, a Hindu, delivered opening remarks. “As far as I’m...

House Republicans have run out of patience with President Obama's administration, Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Wednesday. Issa, who has been investigating employee misconduct at the Environmental Protection Agency, demanded that deputy administrator Bob Perciasepe produce documents within one month.

Secretary of State John Kerry will be on a previously scheduled trip to Mexico on May 21, the day he’s been subpoenaed to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to testify on Benghazi, a State Department spokeswoman said Monday. Deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said Kerry, who has been overseas, is aware of the subpoena, announced Friday by Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif. “As we’ve said repeatedly, we were all surprised, quite frankly, that instead of working with us and reaching out to us and offering first an invitation to testify, that Chairman Issa jumped immediately to subpoenaing...

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is issuing a subpoena for Secretary of State John Kerry to testify before the committee May 21 about Benghazi, Issa announced Friday. The move comes in the wake of new, "smoking gun" emails that show top White House officials working to craft a narrative that the attack was the result of a YouTube video and "not a broader failure of policy." Republicans have expressed outrage that the documents were not provided earlier under subpoenas for them, but were instead revealed via a Freedom Of Information Request lawsuit by the conservative non-profit group Judicial Watch....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena for Secretary of State John Kerry to testify at a May 21 public hearing concerning the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, the committee said on Friday. Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said the panel wanted Kerry to answer questions about the State Department's response to the congressional investigation of the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012, that killed four Americans. Issa, a Republican, said the State Department has not fully complied with previous subpoenas for documents related to the attack. The Benghazi attack has become...

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) blasted the Obama administration Thursday on Benghazi. The Obama administration misled the American people on Benghazi massacre blaming the attack on a YouTube video rather than terrorism. The White House crafted talking points blaming the video despite having knowledge that this was a planned terrorist attack on the US consulate. Chairman Darrell Issa: “It is disturbing and perhaps criminal that documents like these were hidden by the Obama administration from Congress and the public alike… The Americans who lost their lives in Benghazi, those who were wounded, and the American people deserve nothing...

Back in June of 2013 Elijah Cummings declared the IRS investigation over, despite the continued stonewalling by the Obama administration: Based upon everything I’ve seen, the case is solved. If it were me, I would wrap this case up and move on, to be frank with you. The IG made some recommendations, those recommendations are being adopted by the IRS, we’ve got a new commissioner in, acting commissioner in, Danny Werfel is doing a great job, I think we’re in great shape. Last month all of the democrat members of the House Oversight Committee demanded Darryl Issa end the IRS...

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) could face up to five years in federal prison for obstructing a Congressional proceeding. On Wednesday, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and five Subcommittee Chairmen on the committee sent a letter to Ranking Member Cummings demanding an explanation for his staff’s queries from the IRS, why the Minority hid these efforts from the Majority, and why the Ranking Member denied such actions by his staff at a February Subcommittee hearing: “Although you have previously denied that your staff made inquiries to the IRS about conservative organization True the Vote that may have led to additional...

The U.S. House Oversight Committee today released emails between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Democrat Minority Leader Elijah Cummings of the same committee detailing joint attempts to collect non-public information from True the Vote. According to the release obtained by Breitbart Texas, House Oversight offered glimpses into coordinated fishing attempts for information: Five days after Cummings contacted True the Vote seeking “copies of all training materials used for volunteers, affiliates, or other entities,” the IRS sent True the Vote a letter requesting True the Vote provide “a copy of [True the Vote’s] volunteer registration form,” “…the process you use...

This story was published at 4:33 p.m. and has been updated with a response from Rep. Cummings.House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has accused the panel's top Democrat of prompting the Internal Revenue Service in 2012 to target a conservative organization applying for non-profit status. Issa said records obtained last week from the IRS show communications from the office of ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., about True the Vote, a Texas-based, non-profit conservative group that aims to prevent voter fraud.The communications at one point involved Lois Lerner, the ex-IRS official whom Issa's panel is poised...

The heat in the IRS investigation just went up. Rep. Darrell Issa, head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter today to ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings in which he accuses Cummings of working to "obstruct the investigation" into IRS misbehavior. The bulk of Rep. Issa's letter is devoted to some recently uncovered emails which demonstrate that Rep. Cummings was seeking information on True the Vote, the voter integrity group based in Texas which became the target of much unwanted government attention. Cummings' staff contacted the IRS in August 2012 to inform them that they...

A new report from the head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee tries to discredit Democratic claims that the Internal Revenue Service targeted both liberal and conservative groups for extra scrutiny during the past two election cycles. “These Democratic claims are flat-out wrong and have no basis in any thorough examination of the facts,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the panel’s chairman, said in an executive summary of the findings. Before the 2010 election, the IRS began using “be on the lookout” lists, or BOLOs, to screen for groups that might be involved in too much political activity to...

The House Oversight Committee will vote next Thursday on whether to hold former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress, sources say. A committee aide tells National Review Online the panel will “make an announcement on the contempt process for Lois Lerner sometime today,” and a GOP congressman confirms that committee chairman Darrell Issa has indicated the vote will take place “next week.” Lerner has twice declined to answer questions from lawmakers about her role in the targeting of right-leaning groups. At a June hearing, the panel determined in a party-line vote that she had waived her...

Video at link.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is pressing the White House to provide documents for his probe into potential Hatch Act violations. In a letter Tuesday to White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, Issa raised questions about whether the White House political office is improperly using taxpayer money to promote Democratic party and its candidates. Issa asked McDonough to "produce all documents and communications, including e-mails, related or referring to the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach or the reopening of the Office of Political Affairs, as soon as possible, but by no later than noon on April...

In an exclusive interview with the AFRO, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), discussed the events of a March 5 hearing held by House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, of which Cummings is the ranking member. During the hearing, former IRS employee Lois Lerner was questioned on the agency’s alleged targeting of conservative political groups. Chairman Darrell E. Issa (R-Calif.) posed questions for approximately 15 minutes, though Lerner had already invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to speak. When Cummings tried to take his turn, Issa adjourned the meeting, turned off Cummings’ microphone, and he and other Republicans filed out. AFRO:...

The Cummings/Issa feud is the showdown that keeps on giving. Democrats faced off with Republicans on the House floor, protesting GOP Rep. Darrell Issa's diss of Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings last week. Cummings' colleagues stood on the House floor on Thursday, holding up tablets, iPhones and iPads with screen showing images of Issa shutting down Cummings during a committee hearing a week ago. But the show of solidarity was closed down, with the presiding officer, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), deeming the display of electronic devices a violation of house rules.

Thursday, 13 Mar 2014 Democrats: Issa's Gaffe Will Block Lerner Contempt Charge Melissa Clyne Democrats are rushing to the aid of former IRS official Lois Lerner, saying GOP Rep. Darrell Issa fumbled the opportunity to force Lerner to answer questions about the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups, Politico reports. In a five-page memo from constitutional law expert Morton Rosenberg to Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rosenberg writes that Issa failed to provide Lerner — the former director of Exempt Organizations of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entities Division of IRS — due...

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said he is incensed about allegations the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, calling it “treason.” “I think Senator Feinstein is as outraged as anyone and I share her outrage. I think the violation of the Constitutional separation of powers should be an offense of the highest level—virtually treason,” Issa told Breitbart News on Tuesday. “Spying on the executive branch—spying on Congress or violating the separation of powers as to the Supreme Court or as to Congress is effectively treason. Treason—it’s written up in the Constitution,” Issa said of Feinstein’s revelations, adding, “I...