Political Theater in the Science Committee: Majority Authorizes Subpoenas for Documents and Testimony Already Promised by White House
(Washington, DC) – Today, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Oversight held a business meeting to issue subpoenas to the White House for documents and testimony related to the former Chief Technology Officer at the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the development of Healthcare.gov. In a party-line vote of 4-3, the Majority authorized the subpoenas.
Ironically, just the day before, the Counsel to the President pledged to provide testimony by Mr. Park before the Committee and additional materials that the Committee was seeking. The letter can be found here.
That letter clearly explains that for 8 months the Majority never raised concerns or submitted further inquiries about the documents delivered to the Committee back in January of this year. The first time the Administration knew there was a problem was when a subpoena meeting was noticed. The letter also explains that Mr. Park would be happy to appear at a hearing before the Committee during the November lame duck session.
Despite that pledge, the Majority proceeded to issue the subpoena, thus imploring the White House to do what they had already promised.
Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) said in her statement at the meeting, “The Majority should have examined the documents in January and communicated its displeasure then. However, when the White House learned of this concern, they immediately produced more material and also promised full cooperation getting you what you need in your effort to get to the bottom of security on HealthCare.gov. Issuing a subpoena now is not something we can defend and shows a real disrespect to the Executive Branch.”
Ms. Johnson also commented on the allegations made about Mr. Park: “I am sorry to see that the Majority have leaped to conclusions about Mr. Park that are not borne out by the evidence before us. The Chairman alleges that OSTP and Mr. Park knew more than they have acknowledged, but the truth is that we cannot come to a fair conclusion absent the documents which the White House was willing to give us. I hope that in its hunt for headlines the Committee treats Mr. Park with courtesy and fairness. Today’s actions to reject the White House’s offer and insist on unnecessary subpoenas unfortunately suggest that fairness is not going to be the hallmark of this effort.”
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