GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy just acquired the gavel for the powerful House Oversight Committee given that Rep. Jason Chaffetz is officially due to exit the House next week. But while Chaffetz appeared to be dipping his little toe in the sea of investigatory needs for the Trump administration, Gowdy—whose House panel dedicated nearly $8 million and two-plus years at its completely fruitless inquiry into Hillary Clinton's role in the Benghazi tragedy— suddenly appears to be shying away from his new oversight role. Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post writes:
Gowdy’s office declined requests for an interview last week, citing an ongoing review of the committee’s staff and agenda. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Saturday, Gowdy said he saw his tenure as a “rare opportunity to depoliticize oversight” and said he had confidence in Mueller to lead the criminal probe into Trump’s orbit. He said he would prefer the committee focus on issues such as the federal workforce, the coming 2020 Census and drafting reform legislation.
A GOP aide acknowledged last week that Gowdy had conversations with other committee chairmen in recent weeks about their potentially overlapping jurisdiction.
“Rep. Gowdy respects the jurisdiction of each committee and has had similar conversations with all committee chairs,” the aide said. “House rules clearly lay out the jurisdiction of each committee.”
Also a "rare opportunity" to collect a pay check and do nothing, apparently. Of course, when Barack Obama was president, the GOP had no trouble whatsoever with "overlapping" investigations. The more, the better!
Democrats have little patience for the notion that the Trump probes might be left to other committees. They pointed to multiple Obama administration issues in which the House Oversight panel conducted its own — often higher-profile — investigations of matters that were also being probed by other committees of jurisdiction.
Four other House committees — Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Judiciary — also probed the Benghazi attack, for instance.
But if Gowdy's looking for areas of inquiry that won't impinge on the House Intel Committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the election, Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who sits on that panel, has some ideas.
“There certainly appear to be violations of the emoluments clause on a pretty daily basis, and somebody needs to investigate those,” Schiff said. “Those are not within the purview, for the most part, of the Intelligence Committee. They are directly under the purview of Government Reform.”