re: #406 albusteve

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the committee’s ranking member, has announced he will release a report later today on the oil spill response. It appears to bolster criticisms from both the Left and the Right that have rained down on the administration since this disaster began.

not good for the admin if true…look for the report

Read more at the Washington Examiner: [Link: www.washingtonexaminer.com…]

Authored by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). Let have a look at Rep. Issa’s background:

Darrell Issa (R-CA) Criticism and controversy

Allegations of criminal involvement in early years

In 1971, Issa allegedly stole a Dodge sedan from an Army post near Pittsburgh. The allegation was made by a retired Army sergeant, and published in a 1998 newspaper article. Issa denied the allegation. No charges were filed. In 1972, Issa and his brother allegedly stole a red Maserati sports car from a car dealership in Cleveland. He and his brother were indicted for car theft, but the case was dropped. That same year, Issa was convicted in Michigan for possession of an unregistered gun. He received three months probation and paid a $204 fine.

On December 28, 1979, Issa and his brother allegedly faked the theft of Issa’s Mercedes Benz sedan. Issa and his brother were charged for grand theft auto, but the case was dropped by prosecutors for lack of evidence. Later, Issa and his brother were charged for misdemeanors, but that case was not pursued by prosecutors. Issa accused his brother of stealing the car, and said that the experience with his brother was the reason he went into the car alarm business.

A day after a court order was issued, giving Issa control of automotive alarm company A.C. Custom over an unpaid $60,000 debt, Issa allegedly carried a cardboard box containing a handgun into the office of A.C. Custom executive, Jack Frantz, and told Frantz he was fired. In a 1998 newspaper article, Frantz said Issa had invited him to hold the gun and claimed extensive knowledge of guns and explosives from his Army service. In response, Issa said, “Shots were never fired. … I don’t recall having a gun. I really don’t. I don’t think I ever pulled a gun on anyone in my life.”

Blackwater controversy

On February 7, 2007, during a hearing in which four mothers, wives, and daughters of four security guards killed in Iraq testified in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Issa made controversial remarks, implying that the hearing was partisan and insinuating that the women’s testimony was written by their attorney. The families have sued North Carolina-based Blackwater USA, the company that employed their relatives as security guards, to gain information about the circumstances surrounding the men’s deaths, and to seek compensatory damages. Congresswoman Janice Schakowsky of Illinois lambasted Issa saying, “I also wanted to take exception to questions about who wrote this, first of all, because I think clearly the implication was that somehow these wonderful women could not possibly have written that wonderful, heartfelt testimony and that it took a lawyer in order to put it together and I resent that very much.”

9/11 victims

In April 2008, Issa said that the federal government “just threw” buckets of cash at New York for the September 11, 2001 attacks “that had no dirty bomb in it, it had no chemical munitions in it.” He went on: “I have to ask … why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration.”