House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz had a private meeting with President Trump and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus in the Oval Office Tuesday, but they did not discuss the Utah Republican’s chief role as a government watchdog.
“Before my bum even hit the chair,” the president said no oversight; you can’t talk about anything that has to do with oversight and I said, ‘fair enough,” Chaffetz said after the 30-minute meeting.
When the two met briefly in Philadelphia last month during Republicans’ annual retreat, Trump gave him the same order, Chaffetz said.
“He proactively said, ‘feel free to investigate anything you want; it’s your job, your role,'” Chaffetz recalled. “He’s not going to put a heavy hand in one direction or the other” about the chairman’s investigations, he said. “We have a job to do and we’re going to do it.”
Chaffetz said he “didn’t bring up anything “Trump-related.”
Chaffetz has asked the General Services Administration to give him an “unredacted” copy of the Trump Organization’s lease for its Trump International Hotel in Washington located in the Old Post Office, which the GSA manages.
Under the terms of the lease, federal officials are barred from profiting from the hotel. But Trump has not divested himself of his company and hosted a party at the hotel for his inauguration, which Democrats and watchdog groups say violates the lease.
Chaffetz said he is concerned the company may have violated the lease. “I still have questions for the GSA relating to that specific contract,” he said.
Chaffetz has received the document but was not ready to discuss its contents. Chaffetz also said he didn’t feel he was given the honor of a private meeting because Trump is trying to get on his good side.
“It was an honor to sit with the president; it doesn’t happen every day,” Chaffetz said. “It was the first time I was ever in the Oval. It was surreal to be there.”
