THREAD on Darrell Issa’s retirement, based on my experiences with him as a committee staffer in Congress & an Obama White House lawyer.
There will be grave dancing. 1/
There will be grave dancing. 1/
I served on the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform (HOGR) from 2007-2011, where Rep. Issa (R-CA) served 2/
On HOGR, I worked for Rep. John Tierney (D-MA)’s national security subcommittee staff, our full committee Chairs were Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) & then Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY) 3/
Our Ranking Members on the subcommittee were Rep. Chis Shays (R-CT) & then Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ); full committee RM were Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) & then Rep. Issa 4/
We had constructive relationships w/ Shays, Flake & Davis—There were partisan dust-ups & divergences, but we could do business. Everything worsened with Issa 5/
Rep. Issa regularly chose rabid partisanship over constructive congressional oversight 6/
Tierney could always take Flake’s word to the bank, but Flake often had to deal with Issa undermining him 7/
Unlike the Davis/Shays arrangement, Issa would not let Flake choose his own subcommittee staff (although there were some good people on Issa’s GOP staff, some not all) 8/
Therefore, we would often have to resolve Issa’s shenanigans at the member-level because the staff was taking direction from Issa’s leadership 9/
Issa directed his staff not to cooperate with us even at the expense of taxpayer resources, here’s an example: 10/
On an investigation of fuel suppliers for U.S. operations in Afghanistan, I led 5 congressional investigators (3D2R) in London to conduct critical witness interviews 11/
We had been tussling over documents w/ counsel (Bill Burck) for the companies involved for months 12/
The night before our interviews with these foreign company principals at U.S. Embassy London, some 12 boxes of the disputed docs arrived at our hotel room 13/
We were irritated w/ the notorious document dump but thought we better review them all before our witness interviews b/c it would be our only bite of the apple 14/
Contrary to HOGR committee instructions, there was only one set of documents addressed to the Ds & no separate set for the Rs 15/
Acutely aware of the considerable taxpayer interests in efficiency, I proposed to share the documents & all 5 of us review together 16/
Issa’s staff on the trip agreed but felt it necessary to seek permission from committee leadership. They were then directed not to cooperate with Democrats. 17/
BTW, here’s our report that came out of that investigation—again, Issa did not permit the R staff to sign on: psm.du.edu/media/document… 18/
It is only one anecdote of many. The week the Rs won control of the House in 2010, Issa personally came into my office to—I kid you not—measure the drapes 19/
At my former Clinton-Gore era colleague Kathy Ruemmler’s recommendation, Obama White House Counsel Bob Bauer then hired me as Associate Counsel to the President 20/
As the House gavels passed to the Rs, my main expertise & value added was as a congressional oversight (& Issa) specialist 21/
My colleagues & I helped the Obama administration prepare for the highly partisan oversight to come 22/
Looking back, it is easy to say no one in the House GOP really landed an investigative glove on Barack Obama 23/
Obama deserves the lion’s share of that credit—for being a good person, for believing in his role as a steward of the office, for being a good institutional client who listened to lawyers 24/
But as Obama acknowledged, there was plenty of work for us lawyers because Issa threw every nasty narrative at the Obama administration he could 25/
One of the worst was Issa’s attempts to portray President Obama as a corrupt “Chicago-style” politician, example: thehill.com/homenews/admin… 26/
Example: theguardian.com/world/2010/jun… 27/
Example (as to Rahm Emanual, Obama WH Chief of Staff): digitaljournal.com/article/276969 28/
I was disgusted by the racialized undertones of Issa’s effort to associate Obama with urban political corruption 29/
I am so glad for the people of that San Diego area 49th District for the opportunity for new leadership & happy for the rest of us that one of Congress’s scoundrels will be gone 30/
So, Issa, thank you for unintentionally getting me a job with President Obama. Later today, I’ll be one at Pinkie Masters, celebrating w/ a whiskey, humming “Ding Dong the…” 31/
So, Issa, thank you for unintentionally getting me a job w/ President Obama. Later today, I’ll be one at Pinkie Masters, celebrating w/ a whiskey, humming “Ding Dong the…” 31/
