Biden’s White House Goes To War With House GOP

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The Biden administration has criticized incoming House Republicans for their plans to launch oversight actions in the next Congress. The administration has also sent letters to special counsel informing Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, informed them that currently, they did not plan to respond to the records requests they have been making.

Special Counsel Richard Sauber, in the letters, stated that the requests were not yet legitimate as Jordan and Comer have not yet been officially delegated to head their committees. Sauber, a top oversight lawyer for the White House, has said that the administration will act in “good faith” but that oversight demands would need to be made when Congress restarts on Jan. 3 and not during the last session of Congress.

He noted that if similar requests are filed in the 118th Congress, they will be reviewed and responded to accordingly. He added that “we expect the new Congress will undertake its oversight responsibilities in the same spirit of good faith.”

Jordan is expected to be the next head of the House Judiciary Committee, while Cromer is expected to become the head of the Oversight Committee. However, as Sauber pointed out these positions have not yet been deleted by these members of Congress, and thus the two members are not yet committee chairmen.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain received a letter on Nov. 18 in which Jordan warned that his committee “may be forced to compulsory process” in order to gain access to the materials requested if they have not been received by the time the 118th Congress was opened.