Citing a lack of cooperation from federal officials, a House panel chairman Monday issued subpoenas to the Justice and Treasury departments and the New York Federal Reserve.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said he has not received requested information needed for a trio of ongoing investigations.
“These agencies have failed to respond to repeated requests, one of which dates back more than two years,” Hensarling said. “In light of this extraordinary stonewalling, the committee is left with no reasonable alternative but to subpoena long-overdue information.”
Hensarling’s move prompted criticism from the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who said the subpoenas are “undemocratic and unprecedented,” and outlined her opposition in a letter to Hensarling.
Specifically, Waters says the decision to issue subpoenas should have been brought before the committee for a vote and not sent unilaterally by Hensarling.
She called Hensarling’s move “autocratic.”
But Hensarling said he was left with little choice after the three agencies refused to cooperate.
The Financial Services panel is probing whether Justice and Treasury are unfairly prosecuting the nation’s larger financial institutions under the new Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. The panel also is investigating whether the Justice Department retaliated against Standard & Poor’s after it downgraded the federal government’s credit rating.
The New York Federal Reserve Bank is under the scrutiny of the Financial Services Committee after failing to provide the panel with the Obama administration’s contingency plans if the nation’s debt ceiling is not raised.
“My hope was that subpoenas would never be necessary because government agencies would hold themselves accountable, answer the legitimate questions we’ve asked, and provide the information we’ve appropriately requested as our committee fulfills its constitutional oversight responsibilities to the American people,” Hensarling said. “Regrettably, these three government agencies have chosen to unlawfully obstruct, delay and withhold information that our committee and the taxpayers have the right to know. ”
