After a couple days of wondering, The Hill has its hands on the full list of recipients for Issa's letter to business leaders, and uncovered $80,000 in campaign donations to Issa from the groups on the list. The next step will be to carefully watch how the money, the letter, and the direction of committee hearings overlap.
Issa wants to hand the government over to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a who's who of corporate America. The new Republican Congress is their opportunity to get rid of those pesky environmental laws, consumer product safety laws, and even rules to prevent another Wall Street financial train wreck.
It's been a busy new year already for Darrell Issa as he gets set up at the Oversight Committee. He started with a tour of the Sunday talk shows, walking back some particularly incendiary comments he made to Rush Limbaugh in October. But when then didn't work out quite as effectively as he'd hoped, he went back to CNN yesterday to backpedal further and argue over the meaning of the word "corrupt."
Issa was among the first Republicans to suspend his earmark requests, and even went so far as to declare "Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order that an earmark is tantamount to a bribe." Yet that never prevented Issa from requesting earmarks before Fiscal year 2010. And not just a few here and there- hundreds of millions of dollars worth.
It didn't even take a full day before Darrell Issa declared loud and clear who he's working for -- and it isn't you or me. Instead, Issa has sent a letter to 150 corporate entities putting his investigatory responsibilities at their disposal and asking what they would like him to change. The full list isn't yet known, but those that are read like a who's who of special interests, and suggests a shocking conflict for Issa as he takes over as chair of the House Oversight Committee.
Will his involvement in one of the most corrupt scandals in recent memory at the Department of Justice peak Darrell Issa's interest? Probably not, since Issa himself has been neck-deep in shady dealings with U.S. Attorney firings himself.
Darrell Issa is off to a running start today, the first day of his Chairmanship. He began tweeting the full initial lineup of hearings mid-morning today, spread over a series of messages. Strung together, we can first expect to see (strung together by me):
And then he went out and removed any doubt as to what we can expect from him. On CNN, he was, perhaps predictably, asked about his comments to Rush Limbaugh just in October that Barack Obama "has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times. He has ignored the very laws that he said were so vital when he was a senator." It was one of the most open and honest comments he'd made about his perspective on the Obama administration and how he would approach his role as Chair of the House Oversight Committee. Well, Issa did his best to walk it back, but really couldn't bring himself to walk it too far. Turns out, all he really meant is "that this is one of the most corrupt administrations" in modern times. So on some level Obama is personally off the hook.
Issa Watch on Hiatus Indefinitely
The Appearance of Impropriety in Darrell Issa’s Office
Issa responds to ethics problems with conspiracy theories
Issa’s requested DoE loan would have benefited major GOP donor
Issa sought funds via “easy way to end up with corruption in government”
Out of excuses, Issa contradicts himself in avoiding NewsCorp
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posted by Lucas O’Connor at 3:45 pm