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The Overseer | Susan Davis

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Susan Davis

The Overseer
October 20, 2011

Rep.
Darrell
Issa
has
mastered
the
pitch
for
the
GOPs
oversight
efforts.
Now
hes
reaching
for
a
tougher
challenge:
getting
people
to
take
him
seriously.

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The Overseer | Susan Davis

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak
Standing in the speakers lobby off the House floor during votes, Rep. Darrell Issa brushed aside
criticism that he was a publicity hound: Im a salesman, the California Republican told National
Journal with a shrug. What Im selling is the awareness of a product.

The product is the oversight of the federal government, and the pitch is that Issas
investigations will root out inefficiencies and malfeasance in every corner of the Obama
administration. The pitchman is Issa, an ambitious six-term lawmaker who took the gavel at the
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_Oversight_and_Government_Re
in January when Republicans regained control of the House.
By one yardstick, Issa has had huge successes. The media-savvy Republican has carved out one of
the highest profiles in Congress and fed a stream of stories that raised questions about how the
administration does business. Hes omnipresent on television and radio, from The Rush Limbaugh
Show to HBOs Real Time With Bill Maher. His press office is one of the largest and most aggressive
on Capitol Hill, rivaling that of Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Issa was an early and enthusiastic adopter of social media. He was rated the 12th-most influential
member of Congress on Twitter in a 2010 study by Hewlett-Packard. The Darrell Issa YouTube
channel (http://www.youtube.com/) has 353 videos, all posted since early 2009, and the
Oversight and Government Reform panels YouTube channel has 1,589 videos of committee
meetings, media appearances by GOP members, and informational pieces about the panels
jurisdiction. Issa is a one-man generator of headlines, using the leverage of his committees
subpoena power and his provocative rhetoric to annoy the Obama administration in particular
and Democrats in general.
For all the hoopla, though, Issa acknowledges that he hasnt hit many home runs. We have at any
given time an awful lot of success stories, but, as youve found out, most of them are small, Issa
told NJ. Ten months into his chairmanship, it is clear that Issa wants to be taken seriously by more
than friendly Fox News audiences.
He worships his Republican predecessor, former Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, who was less
outwardly partisan and known for his dogged attention to detail. Issa even praised Rep. Henry
Waxman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Waxman), D-Calif., the liberal but tenacious
former Oversight chairman who built a reputation as a fearsome investigator and is now ranking
member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_Energy_and_Commerce).
I idolize [Davis], Issa said when asked to reflect on his role models. He cares about policy; he
cares about systems. He understands, and took the time to understand, the technology and
efficiency. At the same time, Henry Waxman had a safe Democratic seat and was absolutely
unafraid to go after anyone at any time for any reason. The blending of those two has power.

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By that yardstick, Issa lags far behind. His biggest success so far is his investigation into Operation
Fast and Furious, a covert gunrunning operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms,
and Explosives (http://www.atf.gov) that sent illegally purchased firearms to Mexico in an effort
to build a case against the nations organized-crime gangs. ATF lost track of most of the guns once
they got to Mexico, and they were used in a number of crimes there as well as in the killing of a
U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Issas hearings revealed significant internal dissent over ATFs tactics; they also highlighted how
poorly ATF, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Agency shared information. In the midst of the
inquiry, both the ATFs acting director and the U.S. attorney in Arizona resigned. Issas staff also
uncovered a memo indicating that senior officials at the Justice Department had at least
mentioned Operation Fast and Furious to Attorney General Eric Holder much earlier than Holder
had told Congress he had learned about it.
But in his increasingly strident pursuit of Holder, Issa is wagering a fair amount of his credibility.
Earlier this month, Holder publicly refuted Issas contention that he hadnt told the truth to
Congress. My testimony was truthful and accurate, and I have been consistent on this point
throughout, Holder wrote in a letter to congressional leaders on Oct. 7. Issa responded with a
scathing letter: At best, [your letter] indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as
attorney general. At worst, it places your credibility in serious doubt, he wrote.

Days later, Issa escalated the fight by announcing that the committee would subpoena all Justice
Department communications about Operation Fast and Furious. Top Justice Department officials
(http://maps.google.com/maps?
ll=38.89325,-77.0249722222&spn=0.01,0.01&q=38.89325,-77.0249722222%20%28United%20States%20Dep
including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have
publicly acknowledged, the chairman asserted in a statement on Oct. 12.
If the pursuit of Holder turns up nothing, Issa will likely lose some credibility and make it easier
for Democrats to dismiss his many other investigations with a wave of There he goes again.

Issa could use a big score. Beyond its investigation of Fast and Furious, his committee hasnt
recorded any big hits despite firingor misfiringat almost anything that moves. Earlier this
year, Issa investigated the Homeland Security Department (http://maps.google.com/maps?
ll=38.9380555556,-77.0822222222&spn=0.01,0.01&q=38.9380555556,-77.0822222222%20%28United%20Sta
over its handling of document requests under the Freedom of Information Act. He asserted that
the departments management of FOIA requests was politicized and reeks of a Nixonian enemies
list. He also charged that the wrongdoing occurred at a high level and [was] very serious, an
insinuation that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was involved. But the
investigation never bore out those charges. Both the committees findings and an inspector
generals report found no illegalities and concluded that the Homeland Security Department had
ultimately granted all of the FOIA requests. Nevertheless, Issa defended the inquiry and said it
revealed at least bad behavior.
Issa blames the false starts in part on obstruction by committee Democrats, who have taken issue
with his agenda and paths of inquiry. But Issa accepted some of the blame for himself.
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I believe we can do better in the next six months than we did in the first six, he acknowledged at
a June 22 hearing to review the committees activities. This is our watch. Its our time, and we
have to do more. Im a brand-new chairman. This is a brand-new majority. We didnt do as well
as we could have. We want to do better.

IF
ITS
HOT,
CHASE
IT
If its true that success in Washington comes from under-promising and over-delivering, Issa has
done exactly what a politician shouldnt do.
When he became chairman at the beginning of the year, he laid out a sprawling list of top
priorities: investigating the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the mortgage crisis; digging
into the political feud between Republicans and Democrats at the Financial Crisis Inquiry
Commission (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Crisis_Inquiry_Commission); identifying
$200 billion in government waste; examining corruption in Afghanistan; investigating food and
drug safety; and probing WikiLeaks divulging of classified documents.
All that would have been a reach, especially because many of the targets had already been picked
over. But it was just the start. Issa quickly added many more targets, from the cosmic to the
obscure. Among them: government regulations that business groups say hinder job creation; the
$700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program; the Security and Exchange Commissions
incompetence at uncovering Bernie Madoffs Ponzi scheme; the National Labor Relations Boards
confrontation with Boeing; the Dodd-Frank overhaul of financial regulation; the Obama
administrations role in influencing the Federal Communications Commissions regulations on
network neutrality; the Transportation Departments new fuel-economy standards; and
Countrywide Financials VIP loan program, among others.
To call it a scattershot agenda would be an understatement. Investigations require time, focus, and
patience. Issa, however, doesnt want to exercise oversight on any one thinghe wants to
examine everything. Many of his targetssuch as TARPhad already been investigated for
years. Others, such as the political feuding at the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission,
didnt even involve a mystery: Commission members had openly described their bitter
disagreements. Still others, such as the crusade against government regulation, were hopelessly
broad.
Allies attribute the problems to normal growing pains for an ambitious chairman who had to
adjust to a majority mind-set. Detractors attribute the problems to a partisan lawmaker bent on a
single goal: sticking it to the Obama administration.
Jeffrey Solsby, an Issa spokesman, said that the scale of the committees interests was purposeful,
based on a macro theory of how to conduct oversight. If youre looking at this as a business, how
do you put processes in place to protect things or make things function better? Solsby said.
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The Overseer | Susan Davis

Thats a much more macro view, where in the past the committee tended to focus a light on
much more smaller problems that may have blown up into bigger things.
Frederick Hill, another spokesman, said that the committees accomplishments ought to be
measured by more than the number of bombshells uncovered. The panels extensive hearings on
government regulation, he argues, probably played a role in the White Houses decision to
postpone a tightening of ozone regulations.
I think it has clearly struck a chord with the problems House Republicans in particular have tried
to highlight about a misguided approach to regulations by this administration thats hurting jobcreation efforts, Hill said, in regard to the Oversight panels hearings that have examined the
Environmental Protection Agencys regulations and how they affect small businesses. Its clear
that we have affected a national narrative.
Perhaps, but thats a gauzy influence rather than a concrete result. The committee has yet to issue
any bipartisan reports, except for a mandatory semiannual clerical report in June. Republicans
have issued nine staff reports on their own, but all were produced without any cooperation from
Democrats. Thats in contrast to Issas mentor, Tom Davis, who teamed with Democrats on issues
such as steroid use in baseball. Its also in contrast to another of Issas heroes, Sen. Chuck
Grassley, R-Iowa, who is widely viewed as running one of the top investigative teams on the Hill.
Issa so far has failed to demonstrate a real Grassley-type dig-deep-and-find-the-bad-guys
approach to his investigations, said Angela Canterbury, director of public policy at the Project on
Government Oversight. Canterbury praised Issa for some of his legislative efforts, including those
to pass the Data Act, a bill aimed at creating a system to track and publish data on all federal
spending. However, she said, much of Issas focus had either been on battles with smoke but no
fire or on fights with the committees ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland.
Thats been disappointing, particularly given the size of his staff and the talk of doing real
oversight and working with whistle-blowers, Canterbury said. We havent seen real fruits from
their labor yet.

STRAIGHT
SHOOTING
OR
SHOOTING
FROM
THE
HIP?
The Oversight and Government Reform panel employs some 80 staffers, including a dozen
investigators and a half-dozen people in the press shop. Aside from Budget Committee Chairman
Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Issa is arguably the highest-profile chairman in the House, and that has helped
make him the target of liberals, who have launched such websites as IssaWatch.org and
IssaOversight.org that breathlessly catalog his every move and misstep.

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The media-oriented nature of Issas operation has also sparked skepticism among Congresss
investigator class. Theyve got a mixed report card, said one veteran Republican aide who
works on congressional investigations and requested anonymity so as not to affect his bosss
relationship with the Oversight panel. Generally, their success has been when theyve partnered
with Grassleys office, [which] brings a seriousness and a methodology and an ethic to the
investigation thats beyond just headline-grabbing. The first thing you do when youre going to
investigate something is, you dont write a press release.
Indeed, Grassleys staff handed off the investigative lead on Operation Fast and Furious to Issa
because Republicans are in the minority in the Senate and didnt have Issas subpoena power.
But the House chairmans flamboyant tactics raised questions about his judgment. To bolster the
case against ATF, his staff released an insufficiently redacted bureau report that revealed
confidential information about a person still under investigation and about court-approved
wiretaps and surveillance efforts.
How much damage the breach did to the ongoing criminal investigation is unclear. But Justice
Department officials pounced on the goof, implying that Issas investigation was jeopardizing
their work.
The committees oversight activities in this matter have already risked undermining, albeit
unintentionally, the independence, integrity, and effectiveness of the departments criminal
investigations, Assistant Attorney Ronald Welch charged at a hearing in June.
Issa didnt back down. Some [critics], which are Democrats, are disingenuous, he asserted,
noting that only one gunrunner had been charged with a significant crime, everyone else was out
on bail, and many of them would serve no more than one year if convicted. You cant call that a
serious ongoing [criminal] investigation in that sense, and thats pretty clear, Issa told NJ.

A
SHORTAGE
OF
SMOKING
GUNS
Although the consequences of Issas investigation are still unfolding, the inquiry has highlighted
two prevailing themes of his chairmanship: He is dogged about searching when he thinks he has
spotted wrongdoing, and his aim is sometimes off. Hes a vacuum, trying to suck up every little
thing in sight to see what sticks, complained one senior administration official. There is no real
substance to it; its all about the politics. Its not about trying to affect policy. We are fighting this
fight in the press every day.
Theres no doubt that Issa is intensely partisan, but that was also true of Waxman when he
chaired the Oversight panel. A more accurate description of Issa is that he seems like a heatseeking missile that often ends up hitting campfires.

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That seemed to be the case when he announced plans to investigate the Financial Crisis Inquiry
Commission, the bipartisan panel that Congress created to produce a report on the causes of the
meltdown. The panel became deadlocked between Democrats and Republicans. The Democratic
report assigned major blame to Wall Street firms, mortgage lenders, and hapless financial
regulators. The Republicans argued that the case was more complicated and stemmed, at least in
part, from government policies.
It was a familiar partisan feud, but nobody on either side was accusing anybody of unethical or
improper behavior. They simply disagreed about the narrative and ultimately produced two
separate reports. Issa barreled ahead with plans for a high-profile hearing, then abruptly canceled
it three days before it was supposed to take place. There was nothing new, said one Republican
lawmaker on the panel. Frederick Hill, Issas top aide, insists that isnt the case. I have every
expectation its going to be rescheduled for some point, he told NJ.
The role of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is particularly partisan when a
different party holds the White House. Waxman wielded the gavel with relish when George W.
Bush was president, as did former Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., during the Clinton
administration. Davis demonstrated that his committee could examine wrongdoings in his own
party, as it did during his probe of the Bush administrations response to Hurricane Katrina.
Davis and Waxman, who alternately served as chairman and ranking member together, enjoyed a
relationship that often allowed them and their staffs to transcend partisanship on high-profile
investigations. Their joint efforts included investigations into the use of steroids in baseball; the
Bush administrations ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff; the Armys cover-up of how
friendly fire killed Pat Tillman, the U.S. Army Ranger and former NFL star; and the Valerie Plame
leak. By contrast, Issa has yet to find much common ground with the committees ranking
Democrat.
At the start of the congressional session in January, Cummings sent Issa a sharply worded sevenpage letter predicting that the chairman would use the committee for ill-advised purposes. The
Democrat voiced concerns that Issas broadsides against the Obama administration before he had
even taken the gavel risk bringing our committee into disrepute and had resulted in the
expenditure of large amounts of time and resources on little or no evidence. Cummings went on
to blast Issas media operation, which had produced Web videos with committee resources that
were one-sided and sometimes juvenile advocacy pieces. One video, Health Care Hangover,
opens with the sound of vomiting.
Some of Cummingss concerns turned out to be accurate. In the letter, he questioned the actions of
Issas spokesman at the time, Kurt Bardella, for his comments disparaging the press that covers
them and then devoting an unprecedented level of resources to your personal reputation. In
March, Bardella was fired in an inside-the-Beltway controversy over leaking an untold number of
reporters e-mails to New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich. To the consternation of committee
Democrats, Issa rehired Bardella in late summer to work for the panels general counsel as an
adviser to the chairman.

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It was the first of two controversies involving The New York Times this year. The second came in
August, when the newspaper ran a front-page story examining the links between Issas
congressional work and his myriad business ties. Issa and his staff reacted with a weeks-long
public assault against The Times and the storys reporter, Eric Lichtblau. In missives sent out on
committee letterhead, Issas people accused Lichtblau of lying, plagiarism, and negligence. The
Times ultimately ran four factual corrections, but it stood by the storys broader point.
The episode fueled Democrats suspicion about Issas style and his priorities, and it has helped
reinforce a mutual disinterest in working together. Basically, Im pushing for those issues that
are going to uplift the lives of the American people at these difficult times, Cummings said.
Theres nothing personal about it; its about the agenda items and how we are using our time.
Time is short. I think he needs to look at the things we are addressing.
At a full committee meeting on June 22, Issa conceded that the panel had not hit all of its marks. In
the first half of the session, the committee held 64 oversight hearings, a sizable number but well
short of what Issa had told Politico he wanted to accomplish: seven hearings a week, times 40
weeks.
From the vantage point of House GOP leaders, Issa is doing just fine. I think everyone was
unsure as to what to expect at the beginning of the year, one senior GOP aide said. But weve all
been pretty pleased with what hes done so far. The aide said that Issa has been good at avoiding
the problems that give party leaders the most heartburn: turf wars with other committee
chairmen; stepping off the party line; or going rogue on policy. Contrary to Issas reputation as a
media hound, he has mostly deferred to the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee on what is arguably the sexiest investigative topic of the year: Solyndra, the bankrupt
solar-panel company with close ties to supporters of President Obama that got more than $500
million in federal loan guarantees.
One Republican on the Oversight panel, who requested anonymity to speak frankly, said that Issa
is growing into his chairmanship and has the loyalty of his GOP committee members. Hes been
good. Hes getting better. And I think hell be a lot better next year, the member said.
Issa does seem to be turning slightly away from headline-grabbing scandals and toward lessglamorous but important bills under his jurisdiction: a comprehensive reform of the U.S. Postal
Service; enactment of the Data Act to increase transparency in federal spending; and marking up
of legislation to increase protections for whistle-blowers.
All three are important, and moving them across the finish line would be notable achievements
for the chairman and the oversight community. Outside watchdogs are particularly hungry for
action on the Data Act and the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, which has been
stalled for nearly a decade.
Canterbury, at the Project on Government Oversight, said that watchdog groups have been
especially pleased that Issa has pushed so hard to pass the Data Act. That bill, she said, would be
the biggest game-changer in government accountability passed by this Congress. The whistle-

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blower bill faces a tougher road. Despite Issas pledge for quick action, the committee has not
made it a priority. The nature of the beast is, you work it with everybody, you check all the
boxes, Issa said. Once we move it in committee, we expect to move it very quickly.
The chairman is mindful of time. He said he constantly reminds people that presidents stay for
only four or eight years, and Cabinet officials remain on average for two or three, but the
bureaucracy outlasts them all. Under the rules of the House Republican Conference, Issa himself
faces a six-year term limit as chairman, and he seems to be thinking hard about how to build a
legacy.
Socrates was a gadflyIm not being sarcastic, he said. Socrates was probably the first person
to be called a gadfly and embraced it and said, Youll miss me. Yes, our job is to annoy by
pointing out things such as when the emperor has no clothes and then, once revealed, we have
the responsibility to point it out and if possible shame the administration, any administration, into
real reforms.
The clock is ticking.

(This story appeared in the October 20, 2011 edition of

National Journal magazine.)
Posted by Susan Davis
Filed in Congress Stories Tags: National Journal stories
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