Power Grab - Jason Chaffetz Page 0,60

look at the areas in which the House Oversight Committee has primary jurisdiction to make law, it’s easy to understand why Democrats beholden to the civil service would prefer to gravitate to private sector work. Consider how difficult it will be to legislate only in the areas of the committee’s primary jurisdiction and still hold harmless the federal employees and federal unions that fund the Democrat Party. The House Oversight and Reform Committee is responsible to vet laws that apply to:

Federal civil service, including intergovernmental personnel; and the status of officers and employees of the United States, including their compensation, classification, and retirement;

Municipal affairs of the District of Columbia in general (other than appropriations);

Federal paperwork reduction;

Government management and accounting measures generally;

Holidays and celebrations;

Overall economy, efficiency, and management of government operations and activities, including federal procurement;

National archives;

Population and demography generally, including the census;

Postal service generally, including transportation of the mails;

Public information and records;

Relationship of the federal government to the states and municipalities generally; and

Reorganizations in the executive branch of the government.

How hard is it to make laws in these areas that do not require anything inconvenient of federal employee benefactors?

No doubt there will be some lawmaking in these areas—but only to the benefit of the Democratic Party and its political donors at public employee unions. Instead of civil service reforms that promote accountability or empower managers to root out bad actors, expect to see Democrats tighten restrictions on disciplining or terminating federal employees.

One area where we may see some legislation movement is the census. This is one area that impacts elections and campaigns. Oversight Committee member Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, introduced legislation restricting the census from collecting relevant information about citizenship. After all, the census can ask you how many toilets you have in your home, but Democrats consider it an invasion of privacy to ask if someone is here legally. Maloney says, “Every person must be counted.” But no one is suggesting illegal immigrants not be counted. In fact, I believe Republicans are even more interested than Democrats in learning just how many people live in this country illegally. Accurate information about immigration could even hurt Democrats’ 2020 election narratives. What Maloney wants, and what her party wants, is to count them for purposes of representation, thus ensuring that sanctuary states and cities are overrepresented in Congress.

In attempting to repurpose the tools of oversight for investigations of political targets and private entities, Democrats lose opportunities to legislate solutions and address the waste, fraud, and abuse that are inevitable in any large bureaucracy.

What’s the Solution?

The answer to the problems plaguing congressional oversight is not less oversight. There is a right way and a wrong way to react to an oversight investigation.

For Republicans, we must resist the temptation to assume every investigation is politically motivated. Instead, we must demand evidence and act on principle. If legitimate wrongdoing is found, we ought to quickly acknowledge it and demand accountability.

The correct response to oversight from an administration is to be open and transparent, to signal to the federal workforce that inappropriate conduct will not be tolerated, and to work with Congress on legislative remedies to any wrongdoing uncovered. By handling the legitimate investigations in such a way, the administration retains greater credibility to fight any illegitimate or politically motivated investigations.

Not every investigation is legitimate. When the outcome of an investigation is predetermined, when the facts amplified are driven by personal agenda and political narratives, and when the target of the investigation is conveniently a political opponent, congressional oversight is undermined.

Does that happen? Unfortunately, it does—as we’re about to see.

Chapter 8

Outcome-Driven Investigations

Unbeknownst to incoming House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler of New York, the woman sitting near him on the Amtrak Acela train just days after the 2018 midterm elections knew exactly who he was. She knew the responsibilities that would soon be his. With Democrats having flipped the House two days earlier, Nadler would take the gavel of the committee with jurisdiction over the Justice Department, putting him in prime position to investigate President Donald Trump.

As Nadler rattled off plans in phone call after phone call during that November 7, 2018, train ride from New York to Washington, D.C., Federalist reporter Mollie Hemingway was taking notes.

In a phone call with a friend whom Hemingway did not name, Nadler discussed two strategies for investigating Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination to the Court had been confirmed the previous month. There was no new information at the time, but this wasn’t good enough