The Senate Republican Calling 'Nonsense' on President Trump Standing up for Democrats, Charles Grassley is challenging the administration’s policy of ignoring most oversight demands from Congress. Jun 9, 2017 Updated Jun 9, 2017 One of the Senate’s longest-serving Republicans is calling out the Trump administration for adopting a policy [ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/trumps-solution-to-pesky-congressional-democrats-ignore-them/529050/ ] that would allow the government to ignore most congressional demands for federal records. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, on Friday sent a letter to President Trump in which he attacked as “nonsense” a formal legal finding by the Department of Justice that federal departments and agencies are only obligated to respond to congressional oversight requests that come from committee chairmen. The policy means that Democrats, who are the minority party in the House and Senate and thus have no chairmanships, would have virtually no way of compelling information from the Trump administration unless they persuaded a powerful Republican to sign on to their requests. “I know from experience that a partisan response to oversight only discourages bipartisanship, decreases transparency, and diminishes the crucial role of the American people’s elected representatives,” Grassley wrote in his letter [ https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2017-06-07%20CEG%20to%20DJT%20(oversight%20requests).pdf ] to the president. “Oversight brings transparency, and transparency brings accountability. And, the opposite is true. Shutting down oversight requests doesn’t drain the swamp, Mr. President. It floods the swamp.” Grassley’s decision to challenge the Trump administration on congressional oversight is significant not just because he is a Republican, but because as a committee chairmen he would not be affected by the restrictive policy. As he noted in his letter, limiting oversight demands to committee chairmen could shut out many Republicans, although they would have an easier time running their requests through their more senior colleagues. “It obstructs what ought to be the natural flow of information between agencies and the committees, which frustrates the Constitutional function of legislating,” Grassley wrote. The White House solicited an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which determined that only chairmen are vested with Congress’s formal power of oversight over the executive branch—a far narrower interpretation of the law than the Obama administration used. “Individual members who have not been authorized to conduct oversight are entitled to no more than ‘the voluntary cooperation of agency officials or private persons,’” the OLC opinion stated. [...] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-senate-republican-calling-nonsense-on-president-trump/529857/ [with comments]
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