Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley called on President Trump Friday to rescind a policy that directs federal agencies to ignore oversight requests from Democrats.
The new policy from the Office of Legal Counsel that limits oversight requests to just congressional chairmen is “nonsense,” the Iowa Republican wrote in a letter to President Trump, dated Wednesday and released Friday.
“Shutting down oversight requests doesn’t drain the swamp, Mr. President. It floods the swamp,” Grassley wrote. “I respectfully request that the White House rescinds this OLC opinion and any policy of ignoring oversight request from non-chairmen.”
He added that the OLC memo shields bureaucrats, and said Trump is being “ill-served and ill-advised” by the Justice Department office.
“[A]ll members need accurate information from the Executive Branch in order to carry out their constitutional function to make informed decisions on all sorts of legislative issues,” he said.
Last month, the OLC issued a letter opinion that said “individual members of Congress, including ranking minority members, do not have the authority to conduct oversight in the absence of a specific delegation by a full house, committee or subcommittee.”
“The Executive Branch’s longstanding policy has been to engage in the established process for accommodating congressional requests for information only when those requests come from a committee, subcommittee or chairman authorized to conduct oversight,” the May 1 opinion by acting Assistant Attorney General Curtis Gannon reads.
