Powerful House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) has abruptly suspended the contracts of “60 investigators who had worked for his committee rooting out fraud, waste and abuse, effective immediately.” The investigators were “brought on to handle the extraordinary level of fraud investigations facing the panel.”
Lewis is currently under federal investigation over corruption charges reportedly uncovered during the Duke Cunningham investigation. He has spent nearly $800,000 in legal fees since May.
Lewis’ spokesman yesterday tried to portray the suspensions as part of a bipartisan review that occured with the support of the committee’s ranking member Rep. David Obey (D-WI):
Committee spokesman John Scofield said Thursday that the contracts were not renewed because the panel is conducting a “bipartisan review” of the unit’s staff.
“Frankly, the work we’ve been getting as of late has not been that good,” Scofield said. “There is nothing sinister going on.”
Scofield said the review has the backing of ranking Democratic House appropriator David R. Obey of Wisconsin.
But a press spokesman tells ThinkProgress that while the minority agreed there were problems with the investigative staff that had to be addressed, committee Democrats had not been consulted prior to the suspension of the investigators. The spokesman said that oversight of the Appropriations Committee, which manages Congress’ annual spending of $900 billion, has become an increasingly severe problem, and that Rep. Obey had been involved in a review to improve the effectiveness of the committee investigators. But, the spokesman said, the decision to stop all contract operations was made without consultation from committee Democra
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/20/lewis-obey/
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