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| Home Front: Politix |
| President Obama Snubbs House Requests For Documentation |
| 2011-02-02 |
TheDC Exclusive – The Obama administration snubbed top GOP oversight official Rep. Darrell Issa on his first major document deadline as new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sending a short letter promising to comply in response to a major information request that was due Saturday at noon. But Issa is hitting back Tuesday with a demand key documents be sent in two days. The Obama snub is the first sign of how the administration will respond to demands for documents and testimony by key officials from Republicans in control of the House now that the GOP holds the power of congressional subpoena. A Jan. 28 letter from the Department of Homeland Security promised to cooperate with Issa’s document request sent Jan. 14 – but Issa’s deadline for the documents expired the next day. “I asked DHS to produce this information by Jan. 29 – two weeks from the date of my second letter,” Issa says in his Feb. 1 reply to the deadline snub, “The department gave no indication that it would not be able to comply with the deadline.” Further, Issa charges that top DHS officials actually instructed career employees not to search for the documents he is requesting. “I was disappointed to learn that on or about Jan. 20, 2011, DHS’s Office of General Counsel instructed career staff in the Privacy Office not to search for documents responsive to my request,” Issa says in the Feb. 1 letter. Issa is requesting documents from DHS about political interference with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the agency. In July, the Associated Press reported top DHS officials told career employees to steer sensitive FOIA requests to Obama’s political advisers for unusual scrutiny. |
| Posted by:Whereng Spagum8793 |