House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has placed several Libyans lives at risk in the course of investigating the alleged security issues regarding the deaths of four Americans in Libya on September 11, 2012.
Issa uploaded scores of sensitive material and didn’t redact names of Libyan civilians or local leaders, exposing them to physical danger from the very people the Obama administration is investigating regarding the September 11, 2012 attacks.
Speaking to The Cable, an administration official said, “Much like WikiLeaks, when you dump a bunch of documents into the ether, there are a lot of unintended consequences. This does damage to the individuals because they are named, danger to security cooperation because these are militias and groups that we work with and that is now well known, and danger to the investigation, because these people could help us down the road.”
This comes after Issa already outed a CIA base in Libya during the course of this (one of many) partisan witch hunt, allegedly based on concerns over security. AsRichard Clarke explained, however, anyone who thinks that initial information is correct knows nothing about terrorism or combat.
Issa is doing the exact same thing his party did when we first discussed going into Libya and they were warned by their own party policy makers to stop giving aid to our enemies just because they wanted to cause problems for President Obama.
So, Darrell Issa has leaked important information while investigating alleged leaks of security — again. He is doing more damage in this investigation than our enemies could have hoped for. This is hardly Issa’s first go at hacking up a partisan witch hunt of this administration.
This isn’t just your typical Republican incompetence. The Republicans don’t care that they’ve endangered our work and civilians in Libya over their alleged concern over Americans killed in Libya.
They’re politicizing Libya and hoping that by leaking info that even Wikileaks wouldn’t have leaked (Wikileaks offered the State Department the chance to redact sensitive material unlike the Republican Party), they can stir up more chaos and violence in order to blame it on Obama before the election.
Let’s see. Wikileaks has been named an enemy of the state for their document dumping, and yet Republicans are still running wild after dumping unredacted documents that Wikileaks would not have without first running it past the State Department.
A woman who was recently excluded from a House Oversight Committee hearing on contraception says she was qualified to testify because unlike the all-male panel of witnesses, she actually uses birth control.
During a special House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) finally gave Fluke a chance to respond.
I will confirm that I was energized,” she stated as the committee erupted in laughter. “As you can see from the reaction behind me, many women in this country are energized about this issue.”
“In terms of whether or not I was an appropriate witness, I felt insulted not for myself, but for the women I wanted to represent, the women whose stories I wanted to convey to the committee, and the women whose voices were silenced that day,” Fluke explained, adding “I’m an American woman who uses contraception, so let’s start right there. That makes me qualified to talk to my elected officials about my health care needs.”
Because of its roots as a Catholic and Jesuit university, Georgetown does not provide contraception as a part of health care for students. An Obama administration mandate aims to change that.
Fluke said she would have told the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee how the lack of birth control coverage had impacted students on campus.
“My testimony would have been about women who have been affected by their policy, who have medical needs and have suffered dire consequences,” she explained to The Washington Postearlier this month.
“The committee did not get to hear real stories I had to share, about actual women who have been dramatically affected by this policy.”
Watch this video from C-SPAN, broadcast Feb. 23, 2012.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has been catching flack for holding a panel today relating to women’s access to birth control that featured zero women, but Issa won’t let the fact that few Americans agree with his position deter him. Taking to Twitter this evening, he fired back with a always-appropriate Martin Luther King Jr. comparison:
Indeed, as King knew, the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” and depriving women who work for Catholic hospitals of affordable birth control. Issa’s hearing also featured giant posters of King and other historical greats whose footsteps the panel was apparently following in, like President Kennedy, and Mohandas Gandhi.
But as Adam Serwer points out, King actually wrote that he hoped state and federal governments would appropriate “large sums of money” to educate people about birth control.
Has Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) turned the House Oversight Committee into a bank lobbying firm with the power to subpoena and pressure government regulators? ThinkProgress has found that a Goldman Sachs vice president changed his name, then later went to work for Issa to coordinate his effort to thwart regulations that affect Goldman Sachs’ bottom line.
In July, Issa sent a letter to top government regulators demanding that they back off and provide more justification for new margin requirements for financial firms dealing in derivatives. A standard practice on Capitol Hill is to end a letter to a government agency with contact information for the congressional staffer responsible for working on the issue for the committee. In most cases, the contact staffer is the one who actually writes such letters. With this in mind, it is important to note that the Issa letter ended with contact information for Peter Haller, a staffer hired this year to work for Issa on the Oversight Committee.
Issa’s demand to regulators is exactly what banks have been wishing for. Indeed, Goldman Sachs has spent millions this year trying to slow down the implementation of the new rules. In the letter, Issa explicitly mentions that the new derivative regulations might hurt brokers “such as Goldman Sachs.”
Haller, as he is now known, went by the name Peter Simonyi until three years ago. Simonyiadopted his mother’s maiden name Haller in 2008 shortly after leaving Goldman Sachs as a vice president of the bank’s commodity compliance group. In a few short years, Haller went from being in charge of dealing with regulators for Goldman Sachs to working for Congress in a position where he made official demands from regulators overseeing his old firm.
It’s not the first time Haller has worked the revolving door to help out Goldman Sachs. According to a report by the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, Haller — then known as Peter Simonyi — left the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2005 to work for Goldman Sachs, then quickly began lobbying his colleagues at the SEC on behalf of his new firm. At one point, Haller was requiring to issue a letter to the SEC stating that he did not violate ethics rules and the SEC agreed. A brief timeline of Haller’s work history underscores the ethical issues raised with Issa’s latest letter to bank regulators:
– After completing his law degree in 2000, Haller was employed by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as an economist, and later with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Office of Enforcement.
– In April of 2005, Haller resigned from the SEC to take a job with Goldman Sachs. Although he was not a registered lobbyist, he soon began lobbying the SEC on compliance issues on behalf of Goldman Sachs.
– In 2006, Haller left Goldman Sachs, according to a Goldman official who spoke to ThinkProgress.
– In 2008, he took a job with the law/lobbying firm Brickfield Burchette Ritts & Stone.
– In January of 2011, Haller was hired to work for Issa on the Oversight Committee. Under the supervision of Haller, Issa sent a letter dated July 22, 2011 to bank regulators (including the heads of the Federal Reserve, FDIC, FCA, CFTC, FHFA, and Office of Comptroller) demanding documents to justify new Dodd-Frank mandated rules on margin requirements for banks dealing in the multi-trillion dollar OTC derivatives market, like Goldman Sachs.
When he took over the chairmanship of the Oversight Committee this year, Issa dramaticallyshifted the committee’s focus away from its traditional role of investigating major corporate scandals. Instead, Issa has used the committee to merge the responsibilities of Congress with the interests of K Street and Issa’s own fortune.
In June of this year, ThinkProgress broke the story about Issa’s own complicated relationship with Goldman Sachs. We revealed that Issa purchased a large amount of Goldman Sachs high yield bonds at the same time as he used the Oversight Committee to attack an investigation into allegations that Goldman Sachs had systematically defrauded investors leading up to the financial crisis. This conflict of interest, along with our exclusive story about Issa’s earmarks benefitting his own real estate empire, received coverage in a recent piece by the New York Times.
We also broke a story last month revealing other revolving door conflicts within Issa’s staff. Peter Warren, Issa’s new policy director, maintains some type of financial contract with a student loan lobbying group he led last year, and received a bonus from the lobbying group before leaving to work for Issa. Since joining Issa’s staff, Warren and his colleagues have fought to weaken the recently created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new agency charged with overseeing student loans.
The new revelations about Peter Haller, however, raise even more significant ethical concerns than Peter Warren and other ex-lobbyists working for Issa. Why did Issa hire a high-level Goldman Sachs executive to work on stopping regulations on banks like Goldman Sachs? Haller’s direct involvement in the July letter brings Issa’s ability to lead the Oversight Committee — charged with conducting investigations on behalf of the public interest — into serious doubt.
UPDATE
We have contacted the House Oversight Committee and Mr. Peter Haller. We are waiting for their response.
UPDATE
An official with Goldman Sachs tells ThinkProgress that Peter’s “legal name” was “Peter Haller” during his time with the investment back. However, an official Goldman Sachs letter sent sent to bank regulators in 2006 shows Peter’s name as “Peter Simonyi.” Additionally, Goldman says that Peter left the bank in 2006. But Peter’s bio on his law firm website indicates that he did not change his legal nameuntil 2008.
UPDATE
Haller tells TPM that he changed his name after his employment at Goldman Sachs to honor his Translyvanian heritage. In his comment, he did not dispute that he worked on Issa’s letter to bank regulators.
UPDATE
The Project on Government Oversight has identified three more letters from Issa’s office bearing Peter Haller’s name, including one that specifically references Goldman. “If Haller’s name change had not been discovered, would anyone have been able to piece together his history?” POGO asks.
UPDATE
Despite the Issa office’s furious efforts to pushback on our story and obfuscate our key findings, the story remains factually true. See our explanation here.
As Roll Call reported earlier this month, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has a history of blending his personal business interests with his work as a member of Congress. Companies owned by the Issa family, including a firm called DEI (an acronym for Issa’s initials), set up websites to channel users to Issa’s official congressional campaign website. After Roll Call made an ethical inquiry to Issa, he changed the website.
ThinkProgress has discovered more troubling evidence that Issa may have blended his work as a lawmaker with his own business empire. After founding a successful car alarm company, Issa invested his fortune in a sprawling network of real estate companies with holdings throughout his district. One of Issa’s most valuable properties, a medical office building at 2067 West Vista Way in Vista, California, is called the Vista Medical Center, and was purchased in 2008 for $16.6 million. Described as “a long-term investment,” the property was bought by a company called Viper LLC, a business entity operated by Issa’s family that Issa has up to a $25 million dollar stake in.
Around the same time Issa made the Vista Medical Center purchase, the congressman began requesting millions of dollars worth of earmarks to widen and improve the highway adjacent to the building. In 2008, he requested $2 million to expand West Vista Way, the road in front of his “long-term investment,” but only received $245,000 from the government. The next year, Issa made another earmark request for improving the West Vista Way highway next to his building. He earmarked another$570,000, bringing his total to $815,000, to add parking lots, widen the road, add bus stops, improve the sewer system, and other utility work. A map showing the location of Issa’s property, and the road, is below:
Issa has said that an “earmark is tantamount to a bribe.” While Issa has handed outearmarks to his campaign donors in the past, in this case, he appears to be helping himself.
Although the highway project has not begun yet (because of local budget problems), the federal money is allocated through Issa’s efforts. Already, a firm representing Issa’s real estate company is advertising the Vista Medical Building and its “Excellent Access with Freeway Visibility.” As ethics experts have explained, lawmakers shouldavoid earmarks in the immediate area of their own business interests.
Issa’s highway earmarks not only potentially benefit his multi-million dollar medical office building, they provide better access to his other properties in the area. About 2 miles down West Vista Way from the Vista Medical Center, Issa owns a commercialoffice building worth over $9 million, as well as an adjacent retail office building. The commercial office building leases to a number of different clients, and Issa’s retail building leases to a Hooter’s. All three properties are on the same highway, which Issa plans to retrofit with taxpayer money.
Rep. Darrell Issa's past includes arrests for weapons charges and auto theft, suspicions of arson, and accusations of intimidation with a gun, but you'd hardly know it from the media's recent coverage of the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. While Issa was substantially mentioned in 15 articles in the nation's largest newspapers since the last election -- including several major profiles -- only one of those articles mentioned any of these allegations. Likewise, interviewers did not ask Issa about his alleged criminal past in any of the cable or network interviews he sat for during that period.
Network and Cable Interviewers Won't Ask Issa About Criminal Allegations
In 11 Interviews Since Election Day, No Network Or Cable Anchor Has Asked Issa About The Allegations Against Him. Media Matters reviewed the Nexis database for cable and network interviews of Issa from November 3, 2010 through January 10, 2011. In 11 interviews on ABC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox Broadcasting Co., Fox News, and CNN, no host or anchor asked Issa about the criminal allegations that have been made against him.
Print Media Largely Overlooks Issa's Alleged Criminal Past
Only One Of 15 Articles Substantially Mentioning Issa Referenced Any Of The Allegations. Media Matters examined coverage of Issa in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times from November 3, 2010, through January 10, 2011. Of the 15 articles in that period that included substantial coverage of Issa, only one referenced any of the allegations against him.
Wash. Post Article Mentions In Passing Issa's Arrest For Car Theft. A 1300-word Washington Post profile of Issa published December 19, 2010, stated, "After Issa (pronounced EYE-suh) and his brother ran into trouble with the law for car theft (Issa's brother, William, claimed responsibility), Darrell Issa invested all of his savings, about $7,000, in starting a car-alarm business that he grew into a behemoth." The article did not mention Issa was also suspected of arson, accused of intimidation with a weapon, and repeatedly arrested on weapons charges. [Washington Post, 12/19/10]
The Real Issa: Suspected Arson
1982: Issa Suspected, But Never Charged, In Arson Incident At Manufacturing Plant. According to the Los Angeles Times: "A suspected arson fire ripped through [Issa's Ohio] manufacturing plant in 1982. No one was ever charged in the fire, but authorities were troubled by a dramatic escalation in the facility's fire insurance just weeks earlier. Even before the blaze was put out, investigators began peppering Issa and his partner with 'crazy questions' regarding their whereabouts before the fire, Issa recalled." [Los Angeles Times, 5/23/98, via Nexis, emphasis added]
Prior To Fire, Issa "Boosted" Fire Insurance And Removed A Computer From The Premises. According to the Los Angeles Times: "Weeks before the fire, Issa and [business partner Miles] Hunsinger boosted their fire insurance from $ 100,000 to $ 462,000 on property stored for other companies...At the same time, a separate company that contracted with Quantum to outfit bug zappers increased its insurance to $ 400,000, and, according to an insurance report, one investigator was 'concerned about the coincidence.' Fire investigators also noted that a computer was taken off the site eight days before the fire, 'allegedly to be reprogrammed' by Issa's lawyer, and that business blueprints were put away in a safe -- which was 'not previously done before.'" [Los Angeles Times, 5/23/98, via Nexis]
"Suspicious Burn Patterns" And "Out Of Normal Practice" Behavior Alerted Investigators. The Washington Post reported: "Investigators reported 'suspicious burn patterns' and said the fire may have been set. A company bookkeeper, Karen Brasdovich, also told them that computers and records had been removed from the site days before the fire for no clear reason. 'It was totally out of normal practice,' she said in a telephone interview last week." [Washington Post via FTLComm.com, 7/8/03]
AC Custom Fire: Flammable Liquid Had "Been Poured On The Only Area Not Covered By Fire Sprinklers." The Los Angeles Times reported that "seven months after Issa took control," a fire broke out at the "Quantum manufacturing plant." "Case files from Maple Heights, the Ohio fire marshal and insurers pointed repeatedly to the likelihood of arson in the blaze, which officials estimated caused $ 800,000 in damage. Although an accident could not be ruled out, the uneven and unnatural burn patterns made the blaze 'suspicious in nature,' the state concluded two months later. Flammable liquid appeared to have been poured on the only area not covered by fire sprinklers, investigators found." [Los Angeles Times, 5/23/98, via Nexis, emphasis added]
The Real Issa: Intimidation With A Weapon
Former AC Custom Executive Claimed Issa Intimidated Him With A Gun. According to the Los Angeles Times: "One of Issa's first tasks as the new boss [of AC Custom] was to remove an executive named Jack Frantz. According to Frantz, Issa came into his office, placed a small box on the desk and opened it. Inside, he said, was a gun." [Los Angeles Times, 5/23/98, via Nexis]
Issa Allegedly Used Intimidation To Fire Executive Frantz. According to the Los Angeles Times, Frantz claimed, "'He just showed [the gun] to me and said 'You know what this is?' Issa invited Frantz to hold the gun at one point and told him he had learned about guns and explosives during his military days, Frantz said. Because he was about to be fired, Frantz said he saw it as 'pure intimidation.'" [Los Angeles Times, 5/23/98, via Nexis]
Former AC Custom Bookkeeper: "It Was Pretty Terrifying." According to the Los Angeles Times: "The bookkeeper, [Karen] Brasdovich, also recalled Issa having a gun at the company that day. 'It was pretty terrifying,' she said." [Los Angeles Times, 5/23/98, via Nexis]
Issa On The Incident: "Shots Were Never Fired." The Los Angeles Times reported: "Issa said, 'Shots were never fired. If I asked Jack to leave, then I think I had every right to ask Jack to leave...I don't recall having a gun. I really don't. I don't think I ever pulled a gun on anyone in my life.'" [Los Angeles Times, 5/23/98, via Nexis, emphasis added]
The Real Issa: Auto Theft & Weapons Charges
Issa "Twice Arrested In 1972 On Weapons Charges." According to the San Francisco Chronicle: "Issa was twice arrested in 1972 on weapons charges -- once in Ohio, once in Michigan." [San Francisco Chronicle, 7/2/03]
Issa Was Convicted Of "Possession Of An Unregistered Handgun," Paid Fine, And Served Probation. According to the San Francisco Chronicle: "[W]hen Issa was attending college in Michigan, was fined $100 and put on three months' probation after being arrested for possession of an unregistered handgun, Michigan court records show." [San Francisco Chronicle, 7/2/03]
1972: Issa Was Arrested For Auto Theft. According to the New York Times: "In 1972, [Darrell Issa] and his brother William were arrested in the theft of a Maserati from a Cleveland car dealership." [New York Times, 7/23/03]
1972: Issa Also Charged With "Carrying A Concealed Weapon." According to the San Francisco Chronicle: "Court records...show that in March 1972, one month after getting out of the Army, Issa was arrested on charges of carrying a concealed weapon and auto theft. The court file doesn't indicate the type of weapon involved." [San Francisco Chronicle, 7/2/03]
Auto Theft, Concealed Weapons Charges Were Ultimately Dropped. According to the San Francisco Chronicle: "In May 1972, a grand jury indicted Issa on a larceny charge in connection with the car theft but dropped the weapons charge. Two weeks later, a prosecutor dropped the car theft charge as well." [San Francisco Chronicle, 7/2/03]
Charges Were Dropped Despite Witness Reports. According to the Los Angeles Times, "a witness reported seeing [Darrell and William Issa] pushing the sports car down the street just before midnight, records and interviews show. But the charges were dismissed -- months before the older brother, [William], was convicted of stealing another car amid a string of offenses." [Los Angeles Times, 5/23/98, via Nexis]
By Sahil Kapur
A longtime columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post suggested the new House oversight chairman might follow in the footsteps of one of US history's most notorious demagogues.
David Ignatius on Wednesday warned Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and his Republican colleagues not to get too comfortable with their new subpoena powers, writing on the Washington Post's "PostPartisan" blog that it would tempt them to pursue "witch-hunts."
In the post -- titled "Is Darrell Issa the new Joe McCarthy?" -- Ignatius examines Issa's expressed desires to conduct a panoply of probes into the Obama administration, which the California Republican has labeled "one of the most corrupt."
"When you see the righteous gleam in Issa's eye, recall other zealous congressional investigators who claimed to be doing the public's business but ended up pursuing vendettas," Ignatius wrote. "... And, more chilling, I think of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's use of that subcommittee to probe what he imagined was Communist Party subversion in America."
McCarthy, a US Senator from Wisconsin during the 1940s and 1950s, was branded a demagogue and censured by the Senate for impugning the patriotism of public servants without cause, after which he resigned in disgrace.
As chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Issa possesses considerable power to conduct federal investigations and to steer the regulatory regime, and appears intent on using that power against President Obama and his Democratic adversaries.
While Issa argues that his goal is merely to seek greater accountability in government, critics fear his intentions are more partisan than substantive as an invigorated Republican Party prepares to take on Obama in the 2012 elections.
Ignatius, whose political beliefs compromise regular defenses of fiscal responsibility and sympathy for the tea party's stated goals therein, averred that Issa "doesn't come across as a McCarthyite." But he warned the senior Republican that power can corrupt.
"But he now has the whip in his hand, and investigative power, as we have so many times in American history, can be grotesquely abused," he concluded.
WASHINGTON — Companies spend millions of dollars each year complaining to Congress about burdensome laws and regulations, pressing their concerns in public campaigns and in private meetings. They rarely wait for invitations.
Last month a senior House Republican, Representative Darrell Issa of California, nevertheless dispatched letters to 150 companies, trade groups and research organizations asking them to identify federal regulations that are restraining economic recovery and job growth.
Mr. Issa, incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the concerns of businesses had been ignored by the Obama administration as it pursued what he described as an unprecedented regulatory expansion.
The responses have been predictable but, in asking, Mr. Issa also is underscoring the commitment of the new House majority to help business by curtailing government.
“A lot of people have felt shut out of the process the last few years, and they have welcomed the opportunity to give input,” said Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Mr. Issa.
The rejoinder from Democrats perhaps also was predictable.
“This is even more evidence that House Republicans are in the business of protecting corporate special interests instead of creating middle-income jobs,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a statement.
Others were harsher: “Rather than providing a platform for presentation of a corporate wish list, Representative Issa should be subjecting corporate claims to the withering scrutiny he promises for the Obama administration,” the consumer group Public Citizen said in a statement.” It’s time we ended the Kabuki theater of corporate whining, and got on with the serious business of creating jobs and making America safer and cleaner.”
The Obama administration has indeed significantly expanded federal oversight in areas including finance, health care and food production, and it has increased enforcement of existing regulations in a wider range of areas. The effort has been hailed by consumer groups as a necessary corrective to years of regulatory leniency. But business groups have countered that the measures will reduce profits, impede innovation and limit job creation.
Respondents to Mr. Issa’s letter said they generally focused on their own industries. Financial companies cited price controls on debit card transactions. Manufacturers highlighted new oversight of emissions.
But several groups said they saw an important opportunity to focus attention on the cumulative impact of all those regulations.
Rosario A. Palmieri, vice president of regulatory policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, said the weight of regulation had reached an unprecedented level. He noted that Mr. Issa’s committee had a broad mandate to turn its investigative resources on almost any subject, providing a rare opportunity for a wide-angle focus.
“We need to look governmentwide at the cost of regulation and its impact on industry. Few take so broad a look at regulation. Mostly they review the individual agencies or program areas. So this particular review could be very promising because of its ability to look at the cumulative burden of regulation,” Mr. Palmieri said.
In the letters, Mr. Issa said that federal agencies promulgated 43 “major” regulations in the last fiscal year, which he said would impose a cost on business of $28 billion. He described that as the largest increase in federal regulation in a single year.
He asked recipients to identify “existing and proposed regulations that negatively impact the economy and jobs.” The existence of the letters was first reported by Politico.
Mr. Bardella said that Mr. Issa reached out regularly to industry and other groups. He said that the responses to these letters would be compiled and shared with the public, but that it was impossible to say what other action might be taken.
Reed D. Rubinstein, a regulatory counsel at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that the group hoped the letters were an indication that Congress was taking more seriously its responsibility to oversee the work of regulatory agencies.
“What’s heartening to me at least, is that Congress is beginning to pay attention again to vetting regulation,” Mr. Rubinstein said. “You have a very activist administration and you have statutes that are very broad, allowing agencies to do what they see fit, and it’s really a perfect storm. It’s really unprecedented.”
Mr. Issa’s interest in regulatory burden is part of a broader agenda for his committee that he began to describe in greater detail this week. In a series of Twitter posts, he listed topics including corruption in Afghanistan, the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the handling of food and drug recalls.
In the posts, Mr. Issa described those topics as an “initial oversight investigations lineup,” but Mr. Bardella said Tuesday that those areas would not necessarily become the subjects of investigations. He said they were simply topics of interest.
Other subjects on the list include WikiLeaks and the performance of the commission appointed by Congress to write a history of the financial crisis.
Democrats are gearing up too, passing over two more senior members to select Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, regarded as a more effective foil to Mr. Issa’s ambitions, as the new ranking member of the oversight committee.
Mr. Cummings, in turn, hired as his staff director David Rapallo, a veteran Congressional investigator with previous experience working for the committee when Democrats were in the minority.
