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Disgraced CEO Richard Fuld, who oversaw the demise of venerable Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc that helped tip the credit crunch into a full-blown crisis, will testify at a congressional hearing next week. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has called Fuld and former chief executives of insurer American International Group Inc to appear at hearings into the financial excesses that led to the collapse of the companies. "Lax oversight and reckless investments on Wall Street are causing massive disruption throughout our economy," Waxman said in a statement on...

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman warned Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Tuesday to turn over a copy of a FBI interview with Vice President Dick Cheney or face contempt charges. The document in question is an interview Cheney gave to the FBI in the investigation of the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent. “The arguments you have raised for withholding the interview report are not tenable,” Waxman wrote in a letter to Mukasey. “When the FBI interview with the Vice President was conducted, the Vice President knew that the information...

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) accused the State Department Wednesday of issuing “misleading” denials regarding its involvement in Hunt Oil’s controversial contract with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, also alleged that the results of his panel’s investigation raised serious questions as to the role the State Department played in the recently reported no-bid contracts between the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and prominent U.S. and multinational oil corporations. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Waxman demanded that her office hand over all communications on the negotiation of the...

Cheney gets last laugh By Kevin Bogardus and Rebecca Brown Posted: 06/19/08 07:51 PM [ET] Vice President Dick Cheney has won his battle to withhold records from the public despite efforts by Congress and other critics who say they should be open to scrutiny. The Democrats are conceding defeat. The party’s top investigator in the House of Representatives acknowledges that there is nothing more he can do to force the vice president’s hand. “He has managed to stonewall everyone,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “I’m not sure there’s anything we can...

Nation's largest utility will be focus as U.S. House committee takes closer look at industry. By Claudia Grisales AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Saturday, June 14, 2008 The Pedernales Electric Cooperative will face questions from Congress this month as the U.S. House of Representatives' main investigative committee takes up the controversy that has embroiled the country's largest member-owned utility for the past year. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee plans a June 26 hearing in Washington focused primarily on Pedernales. The chairman of the committee is U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who Time magazine once dubbed the "scariest guy in Washington," partly for...

Just when it looked like the financial crisis couldn't get worse, Congressman Henry Waxman, among others, is threatening to mount an investigation into the collapse of Bear Stearns. He is alarmed over the Fed's role in facilitating the liquidation of the investment banking house and delivering its remains to J.P. Morgan Chase. To which we can only say that if Congress wants to find a scandal, the one to look at is the collapse not of Bear Stearns but of the dollar, which in the past seven years has plummeted to less than a 900th of an ounce of gold...

A senior House Democrat has called for a wide-ranging federal investigation into Blackwater Worldwide, alleging that the private security contractor violated tax and labor laws by classifying its guards as independent contractors rather than company employees. Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the charges are "completely without merit." "Blackwater's classification of its personnel is accurate, and Blackwater has always been forthcoming about this aspect of its business with its customer, the U.S. government," she said in an e-mailed statement on Monday. But Rep. Henry Waxman, who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, says Blackwater's claims on its business status...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The fat compensation packages of three U.S. CEOs whose companies are being hammered by the widening mortgage crisis came under harsh criticism on Friday at a congressional hearing on executive pay. In the last two quarters of 2007 alone, the three executives' firms lost more than $20 billion on investments in subprime and other risky mortgages, said the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Operations Committee. Yet the three took home fortunes in 2007 -- $120 million for Countrywide Financial Corp CEO Angelo Mozilo; a $161 million retirement package for ex-Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal; and $39.5...

House Republicans had an opportunity to take a bold stand on pork by declaring a unilateral moratorium on earmarking in 2008. Instead, they offered one in conjunction with the Democrats, who scoffed at the notion of ending the bacon ride for even a single year. Porkbusters decried the lost opportunity for Republicans in building a message of clean government and real transparency. Jim DeMint has taken up the cause in the upper chamber instead. He plans on introducing legislation that will force the moratorium on the entire Congress: Hoping to bring the House fight over earmark reform to the Senate,...

While the bipartisan Senate FISA legislation languished on the desk of House Democratic leadership, Henry Waxman had his sights focused on more important issues than national security. He grilled Roger Clemens on whether he had ever had human growth hormone (HGH) injected into his buttocks. Now even Waxman says his hearings were a colossal waste of time, and blamed Clemens for it (via Michelle Malkin): A day after a dramatic, nationally televised hearing that pitted Roger Clemens against his former personal trainer and Democrats against Republicans, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Thursday that...

Waxman Regrets Hearing Was HeldBy DUFF WILSON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT Published: February 15, 2008 WASHINGTON — A day after a dramatic, nationally televised hearing that pitted Roger Clemens against his former personal trainer and Democrats against Republicans, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Thursday that he regretted holding the hearing in the first place. The chairman, Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said the four-hour hearing unnecessarily embarrassed Clemens, who he thought did not tell the truth, as well as the trainer, Brian McNamee, who he thought was unfairly attacked by committee Republicans....

WASHINGTON — The window for Congressional earmarks is open once again. Lawmakers from both parties are inviting constituents and lobbyists to recommend pet projects that could be financed by the federal government as the 2008 earmark season gets under way. ~Snip~ In a surprise move, a prominent Democrat, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, said Tuesday that the use of earmarks was “out of control.” He said Congress should “suspend all earmarks for the 2009 appropriations cycle,” and he said he would not request any this year. House Republican leaders called last month for an immediate moratorium on earmarks. But...

I trust baseball more than I trust Congress. And as soon as Congress gets done investigating baseball, I hope baseball returns the favor. A bunch of burly men with Louisville Sluggers turned loose in the halls of Congress might be just what this country needs. But what this country doesn’t need is a committee of blowhard political pukes meddling in baseball. Our country is falling apart and these morons are on national TV worried about a game. This is disgusting. As soon as they figure out how to get a hearing on Britney Spears, they’ll haul her in. What’s most...

Howard Krongard worked his last day at the State Department recently, having learned a hard lesson in the ways of modern Congressional "oversight." To wit, if you don't follow Henry Waxman's orders, he'll try to ruin you. Comfortable after four successful decades in private life, Mr. Krongard thought he'd do a turn in public service by taking a job in 2005 as State's Inspector General, a supposedly "independent" role. Little did the political rookie realize that Congressional barons like Mr. Waxman think that the IGs work for them. In July, Mr. Krongard testified before Mr. Waxman's House oversight committee about...

There is an organization attempting to stand in the way of the transformation of the US military into a more efficient, more effective, high technology force. That organization is the so-called Project On Government Oversight—POGO for short. Consider that the San Francisco Bay Area Progressive Directory lists POGO’s web site as a favorite web site. Hmmm. If the San Francisco Bay Area Progressive Directory likes POGO, something must be rotten.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US military contractor Blackwater USA rejected Saturday allegations that it had been shipping unlicensed automatic weapons and military equipment to Iraq. Blackwater's denial came as the security firm has been embroiled in controversy over a fatal shooting incident in Baghdad last Sunday that resulted in the deaths of 10 people. "Allegations that Blackwater was in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities are baseless," Blackwater, which guards US embassy officials in Iraq, said in a statement. "The company has no knowledge of any employee improperly exporting weapons," said the company based in Moyock, North Carolina....

Hours after Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace prize for his work raising awareness about climate change, House Democrats accused the man who beat him in 2000 of manipulating government data to downplay the effects and impact of global warming. Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a report Monday detailing the Bush administration's efforts "to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming." In the report, committee Democrats argue that the White House monitored media interviews with federal scientists and edited congressional testimony "that could conflict with administration...

In any battle to preserve that most fundamental constitutional guarantee -- the privilege of the great writ of habeas corpus -- there may be no better standard-bearer than Seth P. Waxman.

Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on Wednesday in a case to decide the legal rights of terrorism suspects held in the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Following are quotes about the case taken from legal briefs and interviews. U.S. GOVERNMENT (in brief): "Congress has authorized a war against an international terrorist organization with no uniformed soldiers, and the detention of its members and supporters is a critical component of any such war."

WASHINGTON - The State Department's acerbic top auditor wasn't happy when Justice Department officials told one of his aides to leave the room so they could discuss a criminal investigation of Blackwater Worldwide, the contractor protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The episode reveals the badly strained relationship between Bush administration officials over the probe into whether Blackwater smuggled weapons into Iraq that could have gotten into insurgents' hands. As a result of the bureaucratic crosscurrents between State's top auditor and Justice, the investigation has been bogged down for months.

WASHINGTON — A congressional probe found that a major U.S. security contractor stole at least two Iraqi Air Force planes. House Oversight and Government Reform Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman has demanded that Blackwater provide his panel with documents on the shipment of the Iraqi aircraft abroad. Waxman also wanted to know the current location of the air platforms. The investigation determined that Blackwater USA sought to fly at least two Iraqi military aircraft out of the country in 2005. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee stated that Blackwater, the leading security contractor of the...

Blackwater USA, the security company that has come under intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill after a September 16 incident in which it allegedly opened fire on Iraqi civilians and killed 17, was accused on Monday by a senior Democratic lawmaker of evading tens of millions of dollars in federal taxes. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, who is leading congressional investigations into Blackwater, said that a newly discovered March 2007 ruling by the Internal Revenue Service, the tax authority, found that Blackwater's designation of one of its employees as an "independent contractor" was "without merit". Unlike two other...

Waxman Denies Investigation of Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Staff Writer October 10, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) on Wednesday denied that he is conducting or ever planned to conduct a congressional investigation of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin and called on a conservative magazine to retract its report that he asked investigators to compile information on the popular conservative talk radio hosts. "The American Spectator report about a congressional investigation into talk radio is completely false," Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement to Cybercast News...

...Being a Republican does not put you on a continuum towards authoritarian government. The GOP is not connected to some extant external ideology outside of itself. It is a self-contained phenomenon, born in 1854 out of a desire to end slavery in America. The more "Republican" you get, the more likely it becomes that you might wear an elephant pin and a red, white, and blue tie, or perhaps a gaudy red hat. The Democrats, on the other hand, ARE moored to an extant external ideology. The Democrats are the American manifestation of the worldwide left. This means that the...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 — Erik D. Prince, the crew-cut, square-jawed founder of Blackwater USA, the security contractor now at the center of a political storm in both Washington and Baghdad, is a man seemingly born to play a leading role in the private sector side of the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is both a former member of the Navy Seals and the scion of a fabulously wealthy, deeply religious family that is enmeshed in Republican Party politics. As a result, the 38-year-old Mr. Prince stands at the nexus between American Special Operations, which has played such a...

A month after voters last year had given Democrats control that would elevate Nancy Pelosi to House speaker, she received a letter from a trial lawyer in Santa Ana, Calif., named Daniel J. Callahan. "We look forward," he wrote, "to the New Direction of America, and to your dedication to putting an end to the fleecing of the American taxpayers and death to its citizens in the name of war profiteers such as Blackwater." That plea was answered last week by House hearings. Callahan did not disguise his political orientation, requesting a full-scale investigation of an "extremely Republican" company: Blackwater...

I just heard on Rush's show that Henry Waxman is going to investigate conservative talk radio. I propose a name for his committee:The House American Activities Committee (HAAC)

Henry ‘Little Torquemada’ Waxman is determined to investigate corruption in Iraq! This is another sign of things going well there. If Democrats can no longer charge that the Iraqis are not bearing a fair load when the news is full, even if reluctantly, of Iraq military and police taking on the terror-insurgents and now Sunni tribals are gunning for AQI, there must be something else to discredit an ally.

A U.S. congressional oversight committee accused the State Department's inspector general on Friday of threatening to fire several of his staff if they cooperated with an investigation into his conduct. In a letter to Inspector General Howard Krongard, Rep. Henry Waxman accused Krongard for the second time in 10 days of interfering with a probe by the House of Representatives oversight committee the California Democrat chairs. The panel is looking into whether Krongard, who acts as an independent internal investigator for the State Department, failed to examine claims of government waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq and elsewhere so as...

Friday, September 28, 2007 WASHINGTON -- Two weeks after the 2006 elections put Democrats in charge of Congress, Time magazine depicted Rep. Henry Waxman, now the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, as "The Scariest Guy in Washington." In the column by Karen Tumulty, the ultraliberal Beverly Hills Democrat is portrayed as "tenacious," and Tumulty says there is "no one tougher." Quoting from the left-wing magazine The Nation, she calls the Napoleonic Waxman the "Eliot Ness of the Democrats" and describes those who work for him as "one of the most highly regarded staffs on Capitol...

In a concession to Republicans, House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) has promised to ask the National Archives for documents relating to President Bill Clinton’s Office of Political Affairs. As a result, a Democratic push to investigate the activities of former White House senior adviser Karl Rove and other aides to President Bush could mean fresh scrutiny and publicity for long-forgotten meetings and presentations during the Clinton administration. In a letter this week, Waxman suggested Republicans satisfy their curiosity by reexamining what he estimates are more than 2 million pages of documents about the Clinton White House and...

Yes, I was so outraged at the treatment of Gen. Petraeus by the House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats yesterday that I wrote to my Congressman. Unfortunately my Congressman is the Stalinist woodchuck Henry Waxman. Now, Mr. Waxman was somewhere else yesterday, no doubt cooking up some new plot to destroy the economy or support the terrorists, but his heart was with the moveon.org ad entitled 'Gen. Petraeus or Gen. Betray-us'. Its disheartening to see a major political party sink so low. At what point do the dummies that vote for them catch on to how disgraceful and disgusting the Democrats...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended himself and took no personal responsibility Wednesday for the military's bungled response to Army Ranger Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld, in his first public appearance on Capitol Hill since President Bush replaced him with Robert Gates late last year, reiterated previous testimony to investigators that he didn't have early knowledge that Tillman was cut down by fellow Rangers, not by enemy militia, as was initially claimed. He told a House committee hearing that he'd always impressed upon Pentagon underlings the importance of telling the truth. "Early in my...

WASHINGTON — A fresh round of Pentagon finger-pointing didn't settle Democrats' questions about the bungled response to Army Cpl. Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death. Maybe grilling former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will. Rumsfeld was a late addition to the witness list for a House hearing Wednesday on who knew what and when about Tillman's death in Afghanistan in 2004, which initially was falsely blamed on enemy fire. The congressional inquiry comes a day after the Army laid most of the blame on Philip Kensinger, a retired three-star general who led Army special operations forces after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks....

WASHINGTON — Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended himself and took no personal responsibility Wednesday for the military's bungled response to Army Ranger Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld, in his first public appearance on Capitol Hill since President Bush replaced him with Robert Gates late last year, reiterated previous testimony to investigators that he didn't have early knowledge that Tillman was cut down by fellow Rangers, not by enemy militia, as was initially claimed. He told a House committee hearing that he'd always impressed upon Pentagon underlings the importance of telling the truth. "Early in my tenure...

FP: Buzz Patterson, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Patterson: Hi Jamie. It’s great to be back with you. Thank you for the opportunity. FP: And it's great to talk to you again.So what inspired you to write this book? Patterson: Virtually since September 12, 2001, as fires still smoldered at Ground Zero and the Pentagon, elements of the American Left mobilized against their country and created a de facto alliance with our Islamofascist enemies. I'd retired from the Air Force only 11 days prior to the attacks and I was increasingly shocked that so many of my fellow citizens could choose...

Pillars of the Hate America Left, who have taken great pains to aid the enemy in every American military venture for 20 years, just returned {in January) from Iraq, where they delivered more than half-a-million dollars in aid to “the other side”– with the full knowledge and consent of left-wing Congressman Henry Waxman, D-CA. Waxman signed a letter allowing radical leftist Medea Benjamin and a dozen of her cohorts – some of whom had lost relatives in the Iraq War – to slip the $600,000 of cash and supplies into camps housing refugees from Fallujah, with less outside scrutiny of...

Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, and the Hate America Left meet with pro-Ba'athist members of the Iraqi parliament to discuss “peace.” TO FIND PEOPLE WHO HATE AMERICA AS MUCH AS THEY DO, the Fifth Column Left had to go halfway around the world to meet with Iraqi political leaders who call terrorism “honorable national resistance” and say foreign jihadists “are guaranteed Paradise” – and at least one of whom has ties to militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. By the end of the trip, the American leftists would echo these sentiments. Somehow most of the media – occupied with interminable coverage of Hurricane...

House Democrats Denounce Cheney's National Security Exemption Friday , June 22, 2007 AP WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Thursday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney's idea of abolishing a government office charged with safeguarding national security information — and criticized him for refusing to cooperate with the agency. Cheney's office — over the objections of the National Archives — has exempted itself from a presidential executive order that seeks to protect national security information generated by the government, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Under the order, executive branch offices are required to give the Information Security...

Next up for an immunity deal, after the the Gonzalez scandal's Monica Goodling, is the Jack Abramoff scandal's (and former Karl Rove top aide) Susan Ralston. According to today's Wall Street Journal, Ralston is ready to plead the Fifth unless she's given immunity before answering questions from Rep. Henry Waxman's committee about past Abramoff contacts with the White House.It is the first indication that Abramoff-related probes, mainly limited until now to his dealings with lawmakers and federal agency officials, may be advancing into the White House. says the Journal.

Former CIA Director George Tenet has agreed to cooperate with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as the panel investigates the Bush administration’s pre-war claims about Iraq’s efforts to acquire uranium. Tenet will testify before the panel and has agreed to provide a deposition prior to his appearance, according to a committee release. Waxman’s staff also announced Monday that a hearing with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been pushed back to June 19 from Tuesday. Rice has been subpoenaed to appear but has indicated that she will not comply. According to a committee release, however, Waxman still...

On Tuesday April 24, the Oversight Committee held a hearing regarding the controversies surrounding the death of Cpt. Pat Tillman and the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch. In Chairman Henry Waxman's opening statement he accused the military of providing false information to the media in order to fabricate "heros." “For Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, the government violated its most basic responsibility” "In working on this hearing, the Committee has learned of many other cases in which the military failed to tell families the truth.” Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong (USMC, ret.) was deputy commander at United States Central Command from...

Most Republicans viewed Barney Frank's recent hearing on subprime mortgages as ...typical Democratic corporation-bashing... The House Financial Services chief is surely grinning that so few picked up on his bigger purpose: bestowing a big, wet smooch on the trial bar. Democrats devoted their first months in the majority to paying back unions... Now it's time for the other huge campaign bankrollers. Since 1994, ...lawyers have thrown a half-billion dollars at getting lawsuit-friendly Democrats back in the majority. They've also taken ...their own to Washington. Of the 30 House seats Dems won in 2006, 14 were claimed by former attorneys... Democrats...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has already answered the questions she has been subpoenaed to answer before a congressional committee and suggested she is not inclined to comply with the order.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic lawmakers voted on Wednesday to subpoena Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify about administration justifications for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. On a party-line vote of 21-10, the House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Committee directed Rice to appear before the panel next month. Republicans accused Democrats of a "fishing expedition." But Democrats said they want Rice to explain what she knew about administration's warnings, later proven false, that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger for nuclear arms.

Waxman threatens to subpoena Card, Rice By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 21, 1:51 AM ET WASHINGTON - If President Bush ‘s former chief of staff can chat about the identifying of CIA agent Valerie Plame on Jon Stewart‘s comedy show, he c, , ), D-Calif. "Mr. Fielding‘s position appears to be that it is appropriate for you to discuss these matters on ‘The Daily Show‘ but not before a congressional committee," Waxman wrote to Card on Friday. "You will not be surprised to learn that I take a different view of this matter." Also being considered for...

Waxman Peddles Wilson's Lie By Clarice Feldman Is Congressman Harry Waxman, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, ignorant, lying or counting on the fact that the press is both?He is now picking a fight with Secretary of State Condi Rice based on utterly false premises. Chairman Waxman insists that Rice explain why in his 2003 State of the Union address the President "asserted that Iraq sought uranium from Niger" and demands that she provide information about what she knew about this assertion and how it ended up in the address. In this demand, Waxman continues to cite...

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) has asked the Republican National Committee to provide his committee with copies of all the e-mails sent by administration officials “for partisan political purposes.� Waxman, who is traveling in the Middle East this week with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), sent a letter to RNC Chairman Mike Duncan on Wednesday requesting his political committee to provide the government reform panel with e-mails that are still stored on RNC servers. The government reform chairman is following up on revelations that surfaced during a hearing last week that White House political aide...

Another federal agency, and another appointee of President Bush's, is stuck in the klieg lights of ethics allegations. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked Wednesday why Lurita Doan, administrator of the General Services Administration, allowed a White House aide to brief her managers on the Republican Party's prospects for 2008. Doan calls herself an "unabashed entrepreneur." She has also raised $200,000 for the Republican Party. GSA is the government's landlord and office supplier. In her testimony, Doan preferred to emphasize her entrepreneurial efforts. But Democrats were interested in other things: a contract that she tried to award...

"U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will visit Damascus next week for talks with Syrian officials, a U.S. Embassy official said Friday, making her the highest-ranking American politician to come to Syria since relations began souring in 2003. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Pelosi would be leading a delegation of members of Congress and would arrive on Tuesday and leave Wednesday."