Big reveal by William Lacy Clay [MO-1st] in today’s House Oversight and Reform Committee markup of action to hold Commerce Secretary Ross and Attorney General Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas related to a citizenship question added to the 2020 Census showed that in 7 hours of interview by Cmte. STAFF yesterday, James Uthmeier (a key witness who works directly with Wilbur Ross) refused to answer over 100 questions put to him.
Uthmeier wrote the secret memo from Dept. Commerce to Dept. Justice. Following instructions from White House to Dept. Commerce, Uthmeier refused to answer the 100 or more questions put by the Cmte. Staff, information the Oversight Committee has been trying to get ever since March 14, 2019 when Commerce Sec’y. Ross testified and lied to the Committee while refusing to answer many questions and refusing to supply documentation of the truth about when and how the citizenship question for the 2020 Census emerged. Here’s a classic example of Cmte. work, a letter of May7th, to get Uthmeir and therefore Ross to come clean on the issue(s).
Wm. Lacy Clay [MO-1, Financial Servs., Nat. Resources, Oversight/Reform] new Reveal today, fwd to 1:01:11
your players guide: Who is this Trump guy playing for Commerce?
Uthmeier is Counsel to the Office of Secretary Wilbur Ross and Special Advisor to the Secretary for Space. He works on several priority issues for the Department, including space commerce, deregulation, new technology, and infrastructure. Uthmeier also serves as the Department’s Regulatory Reform Officer (RRO) position created by Trump’s Executive Order 13777 on deregulation and oversees Commerce’s Regulatory Reform Task Force and related initiatives. Since the establishment of the Task Force last year, the Department has already identified over 65 de-regulatory actions to remove accountability of U.S. and other businesses. Before joining Commerce, Uthmeier worked at the “white shoe law firm”, Jones Day in Washington DC (5th largest law firm in U.S., 13th highest grossing law firm in the world, operates in 18 countries on 5 continents). Jones Day focused Uthmeier on government and business litigation, political law, antitrust and telecommunications after he graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Florida’s Hough Graduate School of Business.
(Previously on this channel last Friday→ White House Interference with Oversight Committee Interview of Kris Kobach)