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A possible source of the so-called "birther" issue--or at least a potential cause of the rumors that have dogged President Barack Obama--has been identified. Obama's former literary agency misidentified his birthplace as Kenya while trying to promote the then-Harvard Law grad as an author in 1991. According to a promotional booklet produced by the agency, Acton & Dystel, to showcase its roster of writers, Obama was "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of...

A key House Republican says the $2 billion trading loss at JPMorgan Chase raises critical questions about how banks control their risks. But Republican lawmakers rejected calls from Democrats for stricter regulation. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, Republican chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee, noted the loss during a hearing about how best to regulate banks big enough to bring down the broader financial system. Lawmakers said a firm's character should count when regulators determine if they are "systemically important financial institutions." Such a designation would subject them to a stricter level of oversight. The panel's hearing on a key...

Congress has punted on doing the kind of scrutiny of federal agencies that’s required to prevent waste and keep the government running smoothly, according to a new report by Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who serves as the institution’s unofficial watchdog. Mr. Coburn said the drop in oversight comes even as Congress is contemplating significant cuts to the Government Accountability Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress and is the one agency that’s kept up its pace of scrutiny. “Long-term trends show a sharp decline in congressional oversight,” Mr Coburn said. “The problem, however, has not been a...

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has said that the United States Postal Service will default on its obligations to the federal government on September 30, at the end of the current fiscal year. Now the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has launched a website to educate the public about the Postal Service’s financial troubles and some possible solutions. The Postal Service lost $8.5 billion in the last fiscal year. Oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican from California, and other committee members have said the result will likely be a taxpayer bailout.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday expanded its investigation into the negotiations that led to newly announced vehicle fuel economy standards, charging that the White House worked out a secret deal that was outside the scope of the law. In a letter (pdf) to White House legal counsel Kathryn Ruemmler yesterday, Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) also said he was concerned that the new corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) and vehicle greenhouse gas standards that President Obama spent much of the past two weeks touting would increase vehicle costs for consumers and negatively affect safety standards.

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Border: A 2-year-old video shows a high Justice official saying "the president has directed us," including the attorney general, to speed up Project Gunrunner and the offshoot that got a border agent killed. This tape has no 18-minute gap, and while it does not feature the president himself, the March 24, 2009, video may rival the tape that turned a "third-rate burglary" into a presidential resignation. No one died at Watergate. Agent Brian Terry lost his life in the administration's obsessive pursuit of gun control. In addition to Agent Terry, Immigration Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata was also killed in...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, discusses new details of the deadly, failed Operation Fast and Furious, along with William La Jeunesse on Fox News. July 6, 2011

House Oversight Democrat says he will advise administration not to testify before committeeC.j. Ciaramella – 30 mins ago Democrats in the House Oversight Committee are in full revolt against Republican Chairman Darrell Issa, so much that one Democrat said he will urge members of the Obama administration not to testify before the committee. Today during a meeting of the technology subcommittee, Democrat Gerald Connolly said, “I’m going to advise the [Obama] administration to decline all requests by the Majority to testify before this Subcommittee and the full committee until this matter is resolved.” **SNIP** Democrats object to Issa’s interpretation of...

For the first time since Republicans took control of the House and gained the power of congressional subpoena, the Obama administration has declined to comply with a subpoena issued by top GOP oversight official Rep. Darrell Issa. In the face of a subpoena by Issa, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) provided no documents by the April 13 deadline, according to an April 20 letter from Issa to ATF’s director, Kenneth Melson. Issa is threatening contempt proceedings if ATF does not comply. At issue are documents related to Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious, in which...

The powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is expanding its investigation of possible ethics violations by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, including improper "backdoor communications" between the panel and trial lawyers suing major banks over subprime investments, IBD has learned. The Democrat-appointed commission, tasked with examining the "root causes" of the crisis, used its subpoena power to extract millions of pages of confidential memos and emails from banks. Those documents were posted on the Web and are now being used in major litigation against these banks. Some documents posted on the FCIC site include correspondence with federal regulators that...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A leading House Republican warned the Obama administration on Thursday about demoting a federal worker who complained to her agency's internal watchdog that political appointees were interfering with records requests by journalists and others. Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the demotion at the Department of Homeland Security "appeared to be an act of retaliation." The committee is investigating the political reviews of records requests under the Freedom of Information Act. "Obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime," said Issa, R-Calif. The department said it had done nothing wrong. -snip-...

There have been some real characters elected to Congress over the years. Davy Crockett, for instance, served one term in the House of Representatives, then told his constituents to go to hell and headed for Texas where he died defending the Alamo and became an American icon. And who could ever forget those delightful violin concertos delivered so frequently by Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia? Fortunately, the current Congress is not without its share of fascinating personalities. Take Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who must be moonlighting at the Comedy Club. Seems he had folks rolling in the...

House Dem says Oversight panel on healthcare law 'fishing expedition'By Jason Millman - 02/03/11 12:35 PM ET The ranking Democrat on a powerful House committee is accusing the new Republican leadership of abusing its investigatory powers after they launched several investigations into the new healthcare reform law. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said he supports oversight, but believes the Republican efforts on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are politically motivated and probe too deep. “I do not believe your oversight powers justify going on fishing expeditions or making extensive requests for internal e-mails and other communications where there is no...

Reps. Issa, Cummings to meet on Oversight agenda after public sparringBy Susan Crabtree - 01/24/11 10:50 AM ET The top Republican and Democrat on the House oversight panel, who have sparred publicly in the opening days of the 112th Congress over the committee’s investigative agenda and approach, are meeting Monday morning to discuss their differences. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. Elijiah Cummings (D-Md.) were expected to meet at 10:30 a.m. to hash out Issa’s plans for the panel — a day before the panel’s first organizational meeting and after Issa and Cummings have traded early hostile fire. It remains...

Republicans have started to make good on their promises to conduct stringent oversight of the Obama administration right from the start. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has requested information from the Department of Homeland Security over a reported practice of investigating the politics of those seeking government records through Freedom of Information Act requests: A House committee has asked the Homeland Security Department to provide documents about an agency policy that required political appointees to review many Freedom of InformationAct requests, according to a letter obtained Sunday by The Associated Press. The...

Darrell Issa and John Boehner Announce Release of Broadcast-Quality Oversight Hearing VideosTuesday, January 11, 2011 WASHINGTON, DC – House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and House Speaker John Boehner announced the release of broadcast-quality Oversight hearing videos going back to the beginning of 2009, moving to fulfill the Pledge to America’s commitment to a more transparent and accountable government. Going forward, HD videos of Oversight Committee hearings, presented in partnership with YouTube, will be available at www.youtube.com/HouseResourceOrg. “Oversight in HD is part of our mission is to shape a government where you can see – hassle free – what Washington...

Rep. Darrell Issa is aiming to launch investigations on everything from WikiLeaks to Fannie Mae to corruption in Afghanistan in the first few months of what promises to be a high profile chairmanship of the top oversight committee in Congress. According to an outline of the committee’s hearing topics obtained by POLITICO, the House Oversight and Government Reform is also planning to investigate how regulation impacts job creation, the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the foreclosure crisis; recalls at the Food and Drug Administration and the failure of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to agree on the...

The Democrat set to face off against Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on the House Oversight panel suggested brokering an agreement between Issa and the Obama administration on the public release of sensitive information to congressional investigators. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the incoming ranking member of the committee, said it might be possible to negotiate a compromise that would avoid exposing national security secrets or other privileged information. "I think that Mr. Issa and I should sit down and try to figure this out. Make sure the country isn't being threatened," Cummings said on Monday during an appearance on MSNBC.

Holder Urges GOP Oversight To Focus On "Substance," Not "Politically Attractive" Things; Incoming Chairman Vows "Fair" Oversight As House Republicans weigh how to spend their time after taking power of the oversight committees in January, Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday urged the committee overseeing his department to "focus on things that are not going to be politically attractive but will be of substance." Before November's mid-term elections, Republicans on Capitol Hill promised to investigate allegations by two attorneys -- one currently with the Justice Department -- that the department's Civil Rights Division is "hostile" toward "race-neutral enforcement" of voting...