In recent weeks, the president of the United States has publicly abraded a private company for refusing to sell his daughter’s fashion line; had his senior adviser lobby CNN’s parent company (which has a proposed merger pending before the Executive branch) for more favorable news coverage; praised his former national security adviser’s (apparent) violation of the Logan Act; profited off payments from foreign governments in an apparent violation of the Constitution; and sent electronic messages over his unsecured, personal Android phone.
You may think some — or all — of those activities warrant congressional scrutiny. If so, then Jason Chaffetz has three words for you: “But her emails.”
On Thursday, the House Oversight chair formally asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to convene a grand jury or charge Bryan Pagliano, the IT guy who helped set up Hillary Clinton’s private server at the State Department. Pagliano failed to comply with two subpoenas ordering him to appear before the Oversight Committee, leading the Republican-helmed panel to hold him in contempt of Congress.
Allowing Pagliano’s conduct “to go unaddressed would gravely harm Congress’s ability to conduct oversight,” Chaffetz explained in a statement.
Whether that ability would also be harmed by allowing a spineless, partisan hack to retain leadership of the Oversight Committee, Chaffetz did not say.
