Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He wrote a letter to the White House requesting that the Office of Legal Counsel withdraw its opinion that Democrats’ requests for information be ignored.
Unfortunately, the May 1, 2017 Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion authored by Acting Assistant Attorney General Curtis E. Gannon on this topic completely misses the mark. It erroneously rejects any notion that individual members of Congress who may not chair a relevant committee need to obtain information from the Executive Branch in order to carry out their Constitutional duties. It falsely asserts that only requests from committees or their chairs are “constitutionally authorized,” and relegates requests from non-Chairmen to the position of “non-oversight” inquiries— whatever that means.
This is nonsense.
…
For OLC to so fundamentally misunderstand and misstate such a simple fact exposes its shocking lack of professionalism and objectivity. Indeed, OLC appears to have utterly failed to live up to its own standards. You are being ill-served and illadvised.
Six pages, with footnotes.
It’s good to see a senator doing his job. And the fact that he’s Republican shines a little ray of hope.
Here’s an article about it in Politico, if you want to go there.