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A top House Republican, in emotional and heated remarks at the start of a high-profile Hill hearing Tuesday, excoriated Planned Parenthood for its "insatiable" desire for taxpayer dollars -- while also brushing off claims a series of disturbing videos showing the group's employees discussing fetal tissue harvesting were doctored. Ahead of the hearing, a forensic analysis said the videos "are authentic and show no evidence of manipulation or editing." Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also brushed off claims of doctoring but focused squarely on the issue of taxpayer funding. "Their desire for more of...

“I didn’t feel good about it”. Washington loves waving away questions after a scandal with a commission or a review board. The so-called Accountability Review Board on Benghazi whose results the media trumpeted as answering all the questions about what happened was rigged from the start. Thomas Pickering is a highly partisan figure who, among other things, is a key Iran Lobby figure. A few scapegoats were served up without actually firing them. But the process was apparently even more tainted by the Clintons as the latest Gowdy hearings have shown. ... They were never independent, but this completes the...

Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz had some harsh words for EPA Chief Administrator Gina McCarthy during a hearing Wednesday regarding the agency’s handling of an employee who repeatedly sexually harassed interns. For the past couple of years, Republican lawmakers have been investigating reports of misconduct at the EPA from employees watching porn everyday while on the job to an agency employee who sexually harassed interns and was not reported to the authorities and continued to work at the agency for years. “This is a predator who was fed a steady diet of interns,” Chaffetz told McCarthy during the hearing. “The...

To keep conservative rebels in check, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his allies have been doling out punishments at an aggressive clip in the 114th Congress. From kicking unruly members off the Rules Committee and GOP whip team to stripping a lawmaker of his subcommittee gavel, leadership has been growing more comfortable with taking retaliatory measures to try to enforce party discipline. But several Tea Party targets haven’t gone quietly. They’ve been fighting back with help from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s conservative House Freedom Caucus, which successfully pressured leaders this week to return a subcommittee gavel to one of their...

WASHINGTON—House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) jointly issued the following statements regarding the chairmanship of the Government Operations Subcommittee.“Last week I announced a change in the Government Operations sub-committee chairmanship. A number of people have asked me to reconsider that decision. Having spoken with Mark Meadows several times during the past week, I think we both better understand each other. I respect Mark and his approach. The discussions and candor have been healthy and productive. Ultimately, I believe we both want to do what is best for the country. Obviously I...

House Republicans look like they are about to cave. Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is on the brink of restoring North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows’ subcommittee chairmanship just days after it was taken away as punishment for crossing party leaders, according to multiple sources familiar with the decision. It would be a stunning reversal for Chaffetz — and, by extension, the GOP leadership — and could embolden the several dozen conservative Republicans who defy Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). Those close to — and part of — House Republican leadership say...

Cavuto took the opportunity to confront Jason Chaffetz over ousting Mark Meadows for his TPA vote. Chaffetz admitted that the TPA vote was part of it, but claimed there were a ‘variety of factors’ and also said Boehner had nothing to do with it.

Facing enormous blowback, Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Thursday reversed course and said he was reinstating Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) as a subcommittee chairman. Chaffetz stripped Meadows of his subcommittee gavel last week after the congressman joined nearly three dozen other conservatives in voting against leadership on a procedural motion that nearly scuttled a major trade package.

The ObamaCare consultant who once mocked the “stupidity of the American voter” had a bigger impact on the healthcare law than previously known, The Wall Street Journal is reporting. Jonathan Gruber frequently contacted Obama administration officials via email while crafting ObamaCare, according to the newspaper. The Journal said that previously unreleased messages show that Gruber repeatedly messaged the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) between January, 2009 and March, 2010. He offered advice on healthcare policy and informed officials about media and lawmaker interviews concerning ObamaCare, it added. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told the newspaper...

Two prominent House committee chairs are “deeply disappointed” in Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler for refusing to testify before Congress as “the future of the Internet is at stake.” Wheeler’s refusal to go before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday comes on the eve of the FCC’s vote on new Internet regulations pertaining to net neutrality. The committee’s chairman, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), and Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R., Mich.) criticized Wheeler and the administration for lacking transparency on the issue.

Congressman Jason Chaffetz broke this shocking news Wednesday that four known terrorists were apprehended at the US border in Texas on September 10 – the day before the 13th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. Chaffetz questioned Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on whether he is “aware of any apprehensions of suspected or known terrorists.” Johnson dodged the question.

A former State Department official has told lawmakers that Hillary Clinton allies privately removed politically damaging documents before turning over files to the supposedly independent board investigating the Benghazi terror attack. The account from Raymond Maxwell, former head of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), was first published in The Daily Signal. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, confirmed to FoxNews.com on Monday that Maxwell told him and other lawmakers the same story when they privately interviewed him last year about the attacks and their aftermath. Chaffetz said that Maxwell claimed Clinton’s chief of staff and deputy chief of staff were...

The Talk Shows May 4th, 2014 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas; Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento, California; Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Richard Williams, father of tennis players Serena and Venus Williams.THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.; former NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabber; former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) in 2014 will pursue the IRS scandal, the deadly Benghazi attack and the botched Fast and Furious operation in what will likely be his last year as the House GOP's chief investigator. Issa sounded a cautionary note that the investigations might not conclude while he has the gavel. “The administration wraps up investigations. We are done when we are done … there shouldn’t be any sort of effort to load in or unload" before his term limit of six years as the top Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee ends in December. Rep. John...

House Republicans say they’re proud of their 2013 campaign to stymie President Obama’s regulatory agenda, even as Congress comes under fire for one of its least productive years. The bitterly divided Congress will pass fewer laws in 2013 than any year in modern history. As a result of the gridlock, President Obama has turned to his administration’s regulatory authority in pursuit of key policy goals, including efforts to tackle gun violence and climate change. While House Republicans have pinned the blame for Congress’ anemic legislative output on Senate Democrats, they make no bones about their efforts to blunt Obama’s rulemaking...

When conservatives appear on MSM shows, they regularly get raked over the coals. Frustratingly, the conservative guests rarely call their interviewers out for their obvious lefty bias. So it was refreshing to see Republican Congressman Chaffetz of Utah refuse to let Luke Russert's liberal slant slide. In the guise of a question, Russert, subbing for Andrea Mitchell on her MSNBC show today, confronted Chaffetz with a contentious bit of editorializing against the "Ted Cruz, Mike Lee rabbit hole." Chaffetz called Russert on it: "That was a loaded question there, Luke." View the video here.

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett “seems to have her tentacles into every issue and every topic” at the White House, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said Friday. The Utah congressman was discussing the rocky rollout of the ObamaCare insurance exchanges with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, who suggested that the botched website might have been the result of the administration hiring contractors close to the president's reelection campaign. Ingraham then said that “all roads lead back to” Jarrett, noting her involvement in “meetings as this thing was being formulated.” “She seems to have her tentacles into every issue and every...

Jason Chaffetz clearly doesn’t believe that these new charges against Ahmed Khattala represent any priority by the Obama administration to capture the terrorists who killed four of our own. In fact, he says it’s a little offensive to suggest it is a priority at this point: I think these new charges have more to do with the fact that CNN embarrassed the administration with Khattala than any priority on capturing the terrorists. The Obama administration, obviously, couldn’t care less about the phony scandal known as Benghazi and the lives that were taken from us.

July 5, 2013 Obama Inc. Blocking Access to AFRICOM Colonel with Benghazi Info Daniel Greenfield A suspicious mind would suspect that Obama Inc. has something to hide about Benghazi and doesn’t want to risk having the same kind of testimony from the military end that we saw from top diplomatic personnel who turned whistleblowers.Fortunately I’m not the suspicious type at all. I’m sure this is all just some sort of misunderstanding involving the DOD being unable to find one of its own key people. Marine Corps Col. George Bristol was in a key position in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)...

In a move that is already angering Republican lawmakers, President Obama will name as his next national security adviser Susan Rice, the administration official who delivered (but did not draft) the talking points that downplayed the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya on Sunday television shows in September five days after the incident. Rice, who is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was informally floated to be Obama’s pick late last year to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. But she withdrew her name from the process after key Republican senators like John McCain and...