Darrel Issa

Darrel Issa (R-CA) chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. When Republicans gained control of the house in the 2010 elections, Issa promised to use his chairmanship to harass and embarrass the Obama administration. Mostly, he has spent his time haranguing any government agency that investigates possible wrongdoing by wealthy businesspeople.

Now we know why:

<< Darrell Issa is back in hot water for using his powerful Congressional perch to help his personal investments. A new report out today from Think Progress finds that Issa was busy last year buying up Goldman Sachs High Yield Bonds worth up to $50,000 a pop while pressing strongly to thwart an SEC investigation into potential wrongdoing at Goldman Sachs.... >>

Source:
http://obrag.org/?p=40551


Issa has a checkered past:

* arrested and charged twice for car theft but not convicted

* suspected by investigators of setting fire to his own building

* fined for possessing an unregistered handgun

Source:
http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201006010007


Issa has also requested Congressional earmarks (which he calls "bribes" when members of Congress request them for their constitutents) that would benefit his real estate purchases:

<< 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. >>

Source:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/30/151097/issa-earmark-property/

Actually the website says he chairs this:

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has legislative jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, the government procurement process, federal personnel systems, the Postal Service and other matters. Its primary responsibility, however, is oversight of virtually everything government does – from national security to homeland security grants, from federal workforce policies to regulatory reform and reorganization authority, from information technology procurements at individual agencies to government-wide data security standards.

Scary.

Bairyn

Actually, I hadn't noticed the fine.

The two things that bothered me more were a) the welching on an agreement to extend a loan; then sneaking in to court to grab his first company - the one he claimed to have started, and b) the arson suspicion. Issa actually admitted the first, and was apparently willing to settle for less than a full insurance settlement on the second.

If the chairman of the oversight committee thinks these are "normal business practices" heaven knows what political practices he would describe as normal.

Bairyn