Republican who probed Clinton White House hits at Democrats for House investigations

04/10/2007 @ 11:56 am

Filed by Michael Roston

Republican congressman who issued a large number of subpoenas for Clinton administration officials in the 1990s joined fellow Republicans in criticizing Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman for alleged overuse of subpoena authority, according to a story in today's edition of Roll Call. A former Clinton administration attorney fired back that Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) was employing a double standard.

Burton chaired the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the 1990s, and became famous for issuing a wide variety of subpoenas to Clinton White House staff and other executive branch officials. In a report on the oversight activities conducted to date in the 110th Congress, Burton joined other House Republicans to warn Democrats not to "abuse" their authority.

"The minority is concerned the majority may abuse the deposition authority provided to this committee under the 110th House Rules. The minority also is concerned with the majority's practice of threatening subpoenas to witnesses unless they ‘agree’ to transcribed interviews," warned Burton with other Congress members.

But Lanny Davis, the White House special counsel who responded to Burton subpoenas on campaign finances and other matters while serving under Clinton, compared the situation to a late night TV show comedy sketch.

"That is so funny in its obvious double standard that it has got to be Dan Burton’s idea for a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit," he told Roll Call's Paul Singer, adding that Burton's chairmanship of the committee had been "the ultimate example of partisan political use of the subpoena power with no obvious legislative intent."...[Open in new window]

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Aw, poor pukes. Call the waaaambulance.

As far as I'm concerned the job of the Democratic congress is to inflict as much damage as possible on the GOP. That's what we're paying their (for the most part, with some notable exceptions) sorry asses for.

Get 'em.

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