Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) scolded lawyers at the Justice Department for skipping out on an oversight hearing where they were asked to defend a contentious legal opinion that hinders public oversight of government agencies.
“Members should be able to ask the Office of Legal Counsel about this and many other problems with its opinion,” Grassley said on Wednesday in his opening remarks. “Unfortunately, the Department refused to provide a witness from OLC for today’s hearing,” he noted.
Grassley remarked that OLC chief Karl Thompson is out of the country and said “the Department claimed that it did not have enough time to prepare a witness.”
“That is astonishing,” he said.
Wednesday’s hearing examined the OLC memo last month stipulating that certain records can be withheld from the department’s inspector general—a restriction that could significantly hinder the work of watchdogs across the government.
Also invited to the hearing but declined to attend was Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates, who directed department employees to comply with the OLC’s restrictive opinion. Associate Deputy General Carlos Uriarte was dispatched by the department to testify in her stead.
Although representatives from the OLC were a no-show, inspectors general from multiple agencies were in attendance both in the audience and from the witness panel. Testifying before the committee were DOJ IG Michael Horowitz and Commerce Department’s acting IG David Smith, who, like his counterparts in the Justice Department, has faced trouble collecting records.
Last week, The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General released a statement slamming the “troubling language” within the OLC memo, and cautioned that it “may justify agencies withholding other information needed to conduct vigorous and independent oversight.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) claimed that “this is maybe one of the most important hearings we’ve had in the Untied States Congress in a long, long time.” He argued that the OLC opinion “undermined the oversight that Congress has under the constitution.”
IG Horowitz called on senators to construct a legislative fix.
“The only means to address this serious threat to Inspector General independence is for Congress to promptly pass legislation,” he said.
