Free Republic

We would be failing in our due diligence if we did not point out a history of UniParty affiliations and the subsequent willful blindness.  First, today’s UniParty useful headline: WASHINGTON DC – House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said he has not witnessed any signs of the national voting fraud that President Trump has claimed. “On the voter fraud issue, that really happens at the county level,” he told reporters Wednesday, according to CNN. “I don’t see any evidence.” “But the president has 100,000 people at the Department of Justice, and if he wants to have an investigation, have...

During her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch at one point declined to say whether it was legal or illegal to lie under oath. Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz quizzed Lynch on the legality of a series of acts that former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been accused of doing. But each time, Lynch stonewalled and refused to weigh in on whether the given act was legal or illegal. “Is it legal or illegal to store, house or retain classified information in a non-secure location?” asked Chaffetz. “I would refer you...

Whatever else is going on at the Secret Service, they've got the Obama Administration scandal playbook down pat, which is really depressing. 1. Lie about what happened - They not only misled the public about how far Omar Gonzalez penetrated the White House, they apparently were less than forthcoming with Congress. According to CBS News, "a congressional official told the Associated Press that Senate Judiciary Committee staffers who were briefed a week after the incident by the Administration were never told how far Gonzalez made it into the building." At today's hearings, House Oversight chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) referred to...

The Secret Service leaked sensitive personal information to the press about Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz as the Utah Republican was investigating the beleaguered agency, an inspector general's report said Wednesday. The Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General issued a report on Wednesday that accused Secret Service Assistant Director Edward Lowery and other agency officials of plotting to leak information about Chaffetz, including his unsuccessful attempt to join the organization. The leaks were a highly unusual breach of decorum. Lawmakers often battle with agencies, but the fights mostly stay above board and focus on...

A Secret Service official’s allegedly deliberate decision to embarrass Rep. Jason Chaffetz could “give pause” to other lawmakers who have applied for federal jobs, cautioned former House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigation into the U.S. Secret Service’s disclosure of the personnel files of Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has resulted in discipline for 41 agents. The leaker has also resigned, according to a statement by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. The conduct of 57 Secret Service personnel was reviewed, including 11 in the Senior Executive Service level, the highest levels of government. Of those, 41 are receiving some level of discipline....

Leading members of Congress are calling on President Barack Obama to fire one of his top advisers amid a deepening scandal over accusations the White House intentionally misled lawmakers and the American public about the contents of last summer’s comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran, according to a letter sent Monday to Obama and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The lawmakers are pressing Obama to fire deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes following revelations he and other officials “spearheaded the charge to mislead elected lawmakers and the American people about the Iran nuclear deal and the negotiations that led to...

The White House told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Monday that Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes won't be testifying on Tuesday about his controversial comments on the Iran deal. In a letter to Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, Neil Eggleston, counsel to President Obama, said it would raise "constitutional concerns" if Rhodes were to testify. He also said Congress has been consulted enough. "While the administration will continue to consult closely with Congress on this important matter, testimony by one of the most senior advisers to the president raises significant constitutional concerns rooted in the separation of...

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Thursday that “recalcitrant countries” that refuse to take criminal aliens that are being deported should not get federal aid from the U.S. and the U.S. should not give those countries more visas. “They should not be getting federal aid, and we shouldn’t be giving them visas so that more people from those countries can come to the United States,” said Chaffetz during a hearing on illegal immigration crime.

During a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) said that he believed that Jonathan E. Meyer, the deputy general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, had overseen the intimidation of a witness who had talked to the committee. “When the committee attorneys asked the witness whether they had been discouraged from speaking with the committee, both the agency and the department attorney repeatedly refused to allow the witness to answer the question, even going so far as to interrupt when the witness appeared willing to answer. How does the...

SALT LAKE CITY — Law enforcement agents with the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service are too "Rambo" to Rep. Jason Chaffetz's liking, so he wants to take away their guns and authority. "These agents are more Rambo and less Andy Griffith than I would like," he told the Deseret News Tuesday. Chafftez, R-Utah, said he plans to introduce a bill next week to strip those two agencies of their law enforcement authority and instead set up a system of block grants to states with a lot of federal lands within their borders to augment local law...

A heated argument erupted Thursday at a hearing on the IRS, with Democrats and Republicans trading charges about the work of the Oversight Committee. Two Democrats on the panel accused their GOP colleagues of repeatedly holding hearings on the IRS for political reasons. In his opening statement, Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) complained that the hearing was the 23rd held about the IRS in recent years. "Unfortunately, Republicans have become obsessed with investigating any and every allegation relating to the IRS, no matter how small," he said. He said Republicans are frustrated that they have never found...

Speaker Paul Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy met privately with Rep. Jason Chaffetz Wednesday evening to reiterate that he cannot proceed with any investigation that involves Hillary Clinton, according to multiple sources familiar with the meeting. The impetus for the gathering was a POLITICO story where Chaffetz, the chairman, of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was quoted as saying that a pending probe into government record keeping practices would not be "specifically trying to target the secretary, but when she creates her own private email system, she's ensnarled herself.” Presented with the quote before publication, House...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump's campaign is resonating with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). "I like a lot of what he's saying" Chaffetz told UtahPolicy.com. "There are a lot of things that he says that I really do like, that I think other people should be talking about and how he does it is his own style." Chaffetz, who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Trump's followers are "attracted to him for a variety of reasons - they want results, they want somebody who's going to blow through the red tape, who will actually get things done...

“If you flipped through the news channels Wednesday looking for a recap of the House Oversight Committee hearing on Planned Parenthood, you’d think that GOP congressmen had launched a sexist ambush on CEO Cecile Richards. At least that’s what she told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: ‘I do think some of the comments were pretty sexist,’ Cecile Richards said in an interview on MSNBC’s ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ late Tuesday. ‘But actually I think it was because they didn’t have anything else to talk about.’ Actually, Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and company had plenty to talk about. Richards’ salary was a minor...

The news alert about Kevin McCarthy’s abandonment of his pursuit to become John Boehner’s successor hit my phone just as I was about to go for a run. Rather than read the whole story, I just smiled and hit the pavement. Within the first few steps I wondered how long it would take before the hyperbole-laden garment rending would begin in the left media about conservatives being the death of the Republican Party, congressional compromise, and the frolicsome joy we so love to see in puppies and kittens. It was a short run, but they were on it by the...

Powerful Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) stood firm on Thursday in his desire not to become the next Speaker of the House. Ryan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, issued a statement after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy shocked the GOP when he abruptly ended his candidacy to replace Speaker John Boehner. "While I am grateful for the encouragement I've received, I will not be a candidate," Ryan said. "I continue to believe I can best serve the country and this (Republican) conference as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee." CNN reported McCarthy was with his wife...

A group of hard-line conservatives threatened to upend the Republican race to succeed outgoing House Speaker John A. Boehner, announcing on Wednesday it will throw its support behind a little-known Florida lawmaker to become the next speaker. The House Freedom Caucus’s backing of Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) ahead of a crucial internal party vote Thursday deeply complicates Majority Leader Kevin O. McCarthy’s bid to succeed Boehner. The group counts enough members — about 40 — to deny McCarthy the majority of the whole House he would need to claim the speaker’s chair. But in an opening for the California Republican,...

Man, this is tough stuff from an influential conservative at a moment when McCarthy’s desperately trying to convince righties in the House to give him a chance as Speaker. In an unguarded moment, House speaker-in-waiting Kevin McCarthy claimed credit for the decline in Hillary Clinton's poll numbers because House Republicans had formed a congressional committee investigating the attacks in Benghazi, making it look like a political witch hunt. “I heard from him at 6 a.m. the next morning,” Gowdy told the Post on Tuesday when asked about McCarthy. “How many times can somebody apologize? Yes, he’s apologized as many...

House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), an ally of House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in the upcoming Speakership elections, tells reporters that he thinks any GOP House member who doesn’t back McCarthy on the floor should be kicked out of the GOP to go form their own third party. “We’ve been down this road several times and at some point you have to realize how elections work, how the Congress functions and how—what’s laid out clearly in the Constitution as a Democratic Republic,” Nunes says. Several conservative House members are considering bucking McCarthy on the floor...