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Lawyer up, Issa warns CIA staff By Jordy Yager - 04/17/13 08:39 PM ET House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is pushing ahead with his investigation of last year’s fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, by preparing federal agencies to allow employees to lawyer up. In separate letters to the legal offices of the CIA, State Department and Defense Department, Issa said some witnesses on the issue might need lawyers, if their agencies decide to retaliate against them for their testimony. “During the course of the investigation, numerous individuals have approached the committee with information related...

The House approved a bill to rescind the executive order President Obama signed last week that ended the pay freeze on federal employees, which meant that some federal workers would be getting a raise—including members of Congress. A number of lawmakers spoke out about the absurdity of the pay increase and timing of the move. Rep. Michele Bachmann said in a statement, “This executive order was not requested by Congress and we should reject it. We have a spending problem in our country and we should be looking for areas to cut spending. At a time when families across the...

Republicans are 'not giving up' on BenghaziBy Julian Pecquet - 12/15/12 03:24 PM ET Republican lawmakers are vowing to keep pressing the administration on Benghazi despite Susan Rice’s decision to drop her bid to become secretary of State. “We'll continue to seek answers,” a Republican Senate aide told The Hill. “We're not giving up on it.” Rice’s decision to step aside averted a contentious confirmation fight with Republican senators that might have pointed to an end to the political battle over the U.S. consulate attack. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations had become the flash-point for criticism since describing...

Fox Business Network reported on Thursday that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) plans to hold hearings on the September jobs numbers, which showed the unemployment rate had fallen to 7.8 percent from 8.1 percent.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are among the 15 wealthiest members of Congress, according to a new survey. The annual rankings by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, showed the two San Francisco Democrats have a combined worth of at least $68 million, and potentially much more. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, tops the list with a minimum net worth of $306 million, roughly 4,000 times greater than the average American household. His wife, Linda, is the daughter of Lowry Mays, founder and CEO of Clear Channel Communications. No. 3 on the list, Rep. Darrell Issa,...

On December 15, 2010, ATF Special Agent John Dodson’s life changed forever when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in the Arizona desert. At least two of the guns left at the scene were linked to Operation Fast and Furious. Before Terry was killed, hundreds had been killed in Mexico as a result of the program, leaving only blood stained concrete and horror behind. For a year prior to Terry’s murder, Dodson worked as part of ATF Phoenix Gunrunning Group VII, the group assigned to carry out the bulk of Fast and Furious. He was told for months to...

DARRELL ISSA SAYS REQUESTS FOR BETTER PROTECTION WERE DENIED By Posted :27 PM CDT 1 image Touch for photo gallery (NEWSER) – The White House response to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi keeps generating headlines. Today, Republicans Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz laid out about a dozen incidents they say occurred prior to the Sept. 11 attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens. In their letter to Hillary Clinton, they assert "the US mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi," but all were denied by officials in Washington. Asked about it today, White House...

It’s an odd feeling to see your name on the list of individuals targeted by the Justice Department. Especially when you used to work there. The DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs appears to have enlisted Media Matters to serve as its unofficial PR wing — the one responsible for running smear campaigns too dirty for the department to risk leaving fingerprints. Media Matters is, of course, a far-left advocacy group that masquerades as a nonpartisan truth-teller and media watchdog. I am not sure whether to feel honored that my critical reporting on the Justice Department’s misdeeds and rank politicalization attracted...

Capitol Hill-The Department of Justice [DOJ] Inspector General [IG] Michael Horowitz testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee Thursday and answered questions about his recently released report [OIG] from his office about Operation Fast and Furious. The internal investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has been going on for 18 months. Horowitz and his staff reviewed over 100,000 pages and conducted interviews with 140 people. In his opening remarks, Chairman Darrell Issa said the IG report and its findings are huge steps toward restoring the faith of the American people in the DOJ, but that the Committee’s work...

Yesterday Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Charles Grassley issued a 211-page report and more than 2,000 documents, pinning much of the blame for Operation Fast and Furious on five ATF supervisors. This is the first in a series of three reports expected to be released. An initial look at the report and the documents reminds us of a few things and also brings us new information. First, it was just over a month ago when Attorney General Eric Holder became the first sitting cabinet member in history to be...

Republican congressional investigators have concluded that five senior ATF officials -- from the special agent-in-charge of the Phoenix field office to the top man in the bureau’s Washington headquarters -- are collectively responsible for the failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation that was “marred by missteps, poor judgments and inherently reckless strategy.” The investigators, in a final report likely to be released later this week, also unearthed new evidence that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix initially sought to hide from the Mexican government the crucial information that two Fast and Furious firearms were...

More Hope and ChangeÂ… A key congressional committee accused the Obama Department of Homeland Security of non-cooperation, witness tampering and even attempted theft of committee documents. The report claims that DHS Attorney Reid Alan Cox attempted to leave a committee hearing room with the CommitteeÂ’s exhibits in his bag. FOX News reported A key congressional committee on oversight is accusing the Department of Homeland Security of non-cooperation, witness tampering and even attempted theft of committee documents. The 152-page report comes on the eve of hearings on transparency about DHS by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The accusations were...

Late Wednesday evening, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa and Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter to Acting ATF Director Todd Jones asking him to clarify the following remarks: “… if you make poor choices, that if you don’t abide by the rules, that if you don't respect the chain of command, if you don’t find the appropriate way to raise your concerns to your leadership, there will be consequences. …” "Disciplinary process."   Worrisome Message from Acting ATF DirectorIssa and Grassley aren't impressed. From the letter they sent him: If courageous whistleblowers within the Bureau of Alcohol,...

An ethics watchdog group filed complaints against Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) with the Office of Congressional Ethics and the Justice Department on Wednesday for revealing details of federally sealed wiretap applications. In the two complaints filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the group claims that Issa “violated federal law by including material from a sealed wiretap application in the Congressional Record.” As part of Issa’s successful move to place Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for allegedly not responding to a congressional subpoena, the powerful chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. sharply criticized lawmakers Monday for voting to hold him in contempt of Congress last week, saying Republicans have made him a “proxy” to attack President Obama in an election year. In his first interview since Thursday’s vote, Holder said lawmakers have used an investigation of a botched gun-tracking operation as a way to seek retribution against the Justice Department for its policies on a host of issues, including immigration, voting rights and gay marriage. He said the chairman of the committee leading the inquiry, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), is engaging in political theater as...

In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record. The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe. The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech...

Under questioning by Senator Charles Grassley, Attorney General Eric Holder testified that a handful of emails written to Department of Justice officials by then ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson are being withheld illegally from congressional committees as a result of Barack Obama’s claim of executive privilege. Kept now under lock and key thanks to the June 20th order, the emails have been described by Melson as “smoking guns” in that–-contrary to Holder’s testimony to congress–-they “show senior DOJ officials knew about and approved the gun walking tactics in Fast and Furious.” (1) Fifteen months ago, Melson began his own investigation...

Barack Obama’s invocation of executive privilege to keep subpoenaed documents from congressional committees investigating Fast and Furious came as rather a shock to many DC observers. It wasn’t that pundits were surprised the “most transparent administration in history” had chosen to OFFICIALLY cover up the Fast and Furious affair. After all, no one actually believed Obama’s phony openness claims in the first place. What really confounded Administration friends and foes alike was the fact Obama invoked the privilege in the face of such an extensive body of disapproving legal precedent. “Where there is reason to believe…documents sought may shed light...

Few principles are more important to our constitutional scheme than the separation of powers, which is precisely why President Obama's bogus assertion of executive privilege to thwart Congress' investigation into Fast and Furious is so inexcusable. Executive privilege is an important safeguard against congressional overreach and to preserve the separation of powers. The inherent right of the executive to protect highly sensitive information has long been recognized, and the privilege was judicially established during the Watergate era. As such, Congress should not go on fishing expeditions against a president to score political points. But neither should a president assert the...

The man who assured Senator Charles Grassley that no “gunwalking” had taken place during Operation Fast and Furious has just resigned from the Department of Justice. “The allegation…that ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico—is false,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich in his now infamous February 4th, 2011 letter to congress. Nine months later the DOJ retracted that letter, advising congress it contained “inaccuracies.” It was just 48 hours after news that a Contempt of Congress charge against Attorney General Eric Holder would be put...