{"id":1382697,"date":"2022-03-15T19:21:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T23:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1382697"},"modified":"2022-03-15T19:21:28","modified_gmt":"2022-03-15T23:21:28","slug":"exclusive-darrell-issa-we-are-preparing-legion-of-gop-watchdogs-to-hold-this-president-accountable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-darrell-issa-we-are-preparing-legion-of-gop-watchdogs-to-hold-this-president-accountable\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive \u2014 Darrell Issa: \u2018We Are Preparing\u2019 Legion of GOP \u2018Watchdogs\u2019 to \u2018Hold this President Accountable\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-darrell-issa-we-are-preparing-legion-of-gop-watchdogs-to-hold-this-president-accountable%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1382697&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">ORLANDO, Florida \u2014 Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who was chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during former President Barack Obama\u2019s scandal-ridden administration, told Breitbart News exclusively that Republicans are \u201cpreparing\u201d for an oversight onslaught after the midterm elections in which they will hold President Joe Biden accountable.<\/p>\n<p>Issa, whose high-profile battles with Obama included the IRS targeting scandal, the Operation Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, the Benghazi terrorist attack scandal, and more, said after the 2022 midterm elections many new faces will join the ranks of oversight veterans like himself and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in the halls of Congress. Issa memorialized his efforts in a book titled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Watchdog-Headlines-Congressman-Washingtons-Scandals-ebook\/dp\/B01DJHABFY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Watchdog<\/em><\/a>, and predicted in an interview with Breitbart News that legions of new incoming Republicans will follow his example in future such battles with Biden.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going to have 60 plus new Republicans take this majority and many of them have only watched on C-SPAN,\u201d Issa said in an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) hosted by the American Conservative Union (ACU) in central Florida late last month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201dYou\u2019ve got to believe that Congress\u2019s other duties pale in comparison to being a watchdog,\u201d Issa said when asked what\u2019s his advice to the incoming members who want a piece of Biden. \u201cYes, we make the laws, but of course laws are meaningless if agencies create rules or ignore the laws and just do what they want to do like they have with FISA warrants or the way the EPA has twisted and tormented existing laws, or the president has issued executive orders that he had no authority to do. We\u2019re the appropriators. We determine every penny that gets spent. But if we don\u2019t look at whether it got spent the way it was intended, whether there was waste, fraud, and abuse, or whether they completely ignored the law and spent it the way they wanted to, then we have nothing. So I can look at every part of our jobs and the things we know that are important to Congress and say none of them matter if you don\u2019t follow up with oversight. That\u2019s my lesson to the class I came back into Congress with and that will be my lesson to the 60 to 100 new Republicans that I believe are going to want to do just that. They\u2019re going to want to hold this president accountable and they\u2019re going to understand that he\u2019s been basically looking at laws and appropriations as a starting point, not as guidance from Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Issa noted that Republicans are currently \u201cpreparing,\u201d laying the groundwork for the coming subpoena wars that will begin in earnest early next year when the GOP\u2014assuming Republicans win the House back\u2014retakes the committee gavels in the House and possibly the U.S. Senate. The man who sits in the spot he did back then before the 2010 midterm elections, House Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. James Comer (R-KY), and others like Jordan and himself and Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN)\u2014the chairman of the Republican Study Committee\u2014have been laying the groundwork for subpoenas already.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cA lot of what you do is you send out letters. Jim Jordan, James Comer, and others\u2014you\u2019ll notice they\u2019re sending out letters,\u201d Issa said. \u201cThey\u2019re not being responded to. But they\u2019re asking the pertinent questions. That creates that list of \u2018you\u2019ve been asked, now you\u2019re going to be subpoenaed. You\u2019ve been asked. Now we\u2019re going to have you come before the Congress and have to answer.\u2019 This is something we did during that time we were in the minority. Ed Towns was my chairman. We knew what we were going to investigate because we sent out letters, even though almost never did we get a hearing or a response. The other thing is, and this is sort of paraphrasing the late Donald Rumsfeld, you don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know. So the first thing you do is you\u2019ve got to take that first step. You\u2019ve got to ask for documents that will help you understand things you can\u2019t understand. We can\u2019t understand why they\u2019ve made decisions to abandon Ukraine. We can\u2019t understand why every single person who\u2019s being thrown out of the military for not getting the COVID shots, even if they\u2019ve previously been given religious exemptions, are being denied and they\u2019re being denied it on forms that are identical in every case. What we don\u2019t understand is who coordinated that? Who made a decision to ignore religious freedom? Who made a decision to trounce the First Amendment in a way it never has been done before? We\u2019re going to have to ask that series of questions, get some answers, and then ask more questions. We\u2019ll follow where that leads us to get to the truth because the American people need to know who really made that decision to destroy what we would consider 240 years of tradition and religious freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Issa said that as the GOP prepares for these oversight fights it is important that Republicans are better than Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn some ways we will be, but I think it\u2019s important to say we can\u2019t just do to them what they\u2019ve done to us,\u201d Issa said. \u201cWe can\u2019t shred bipartisan behavior that allows the other side to be heard. We can\u2019t strip people of committees just because we can. We certainly can\u2019t form a committee and pick which Republicans we have on there and have only Republicans with whom we agree. That undermines the confidence of the American people. We\u2019ve got to play by the rules and win. Now, does that mean we\u2019re going to have committees that are equal? No, we\u2019ll be the majority and we will have more on our committee. We will be the chairmen and we will make the decisions and we will issue the subpoenas. Things will change and we are going to be aggressive. But we are also going to have some respect for the minority\u2019s ability to be heard something that for whatever reason Nancy Pelosi in her last term ever has decided not to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also said that having strong backing from the eventual Speaker of the House\u2014and the rest of the House GOP leadership\u2014will be important. Sometimes, when Issa would challenge someone like then-Attorney General Eric Holder, then-Speaker John Boehner would not have his back\u2014at least not immediately. Issa sees in House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy\u2014the likely next Speaker of the House\u2014someone who is much more unified with rank-and-file members on this matter during the Biden era than Boehner was during the Obama era, and he also praised House GOP whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have trust that Kevin McCarthy is more interested in getting to the truth perhaps than some others were, and Steve Scalise I have tremendous respect for\u2014along with the rest of the leadership team, but I\u2019ll just use those two because they were there the last time and they know what we went through and one of Kevin\u2019s best friends in Congress is Devin Nunes,\u201d Issa said. \u201cHe saw what the Democrats did when Devin tried to do legitimate oversight on highly classified stuff\u2014basically debunking the Russian collusion hoax. He\u2019s already been tested and he already stood as minority leader. He stood by people in a way I\u2019m afraid John Boehner didn\u2019t always do. John liked things\u2014he didn\u2019t like Pelosi coming in yelling at him. During Benghazi, he didn\u2019t like some of the other chairmen coming in and saying \u2018Oh geez, we don\u2019t want to make the Army look bad, we don\u2019t want to make the CIA look bad.\u2019 Bullshit. We needed to make sure we got to the truth of why the ambassador was in a facility, why there was no relief for him, why in fact they died when they shouldn\u2019t have died. Sometimes, you do have to have that kind of \u2018Excuse me, but I\u2019m not taking no for an answer and I\u2019m not going to accept anyone who does\u2019 [mentality]. That included John Boehner and it included some Republicans, but for the most part I had tremendous backing. Trey Gowdy and Jim Jordan never gave up and when the committee became a select committee they continued to push hard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oversight, Issa argues, could make the difference between which party wins the White House in 2024. He argued that the work he, now former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Jordan, and others did on the Benghazi scandal\u2014and more broadly the Hillary Clinton email scandal\u2014may have made the difference in the 2016 presidential election because the public was more informed about Clinton than people would have been otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo a great extent, I think when Hillary Clinton failed to become president, you could look at 10,000 votes in Michigan and say \u2018You know, knowing the truth about her activities and her secret server and so on probably made 10,000 votes difference.\u2019 What they did and never quit doing made a difference. We just have to have that same conviction, that you don\u2019t know how it\u2019s going to end, but you\u2019ve got to have the value set that says this is not a popularity contest; this is about getting to the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ORLANDO, Florida \u2014 Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who was chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during former President Barack Obama\u2019s scandal-ridden administration, told Breitbart News exclusively<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1382697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1382697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1382697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1382697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1382697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}