Rep. Issa's First Subpoena

Is it the Sestak bribery probe? Stimulus mismanagement? Pigford II? The GM dealerships kerfuffle? Is it even the things reportedly on his "to-do list" like Wikileaks or Fannie/Freddie?

In a word, hellno:

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s first subpoena takes aim at Countrywide Financial’s VIP program, launching a probe that seeks to out lawmakers who got sweetheart terms on home loans.

The California Republican issued an unusually wide-ranging subpoena for documents about the defunct lender’s program, demanding names, addresses and e-mail exchanges of all those involved, a major expansion of an inquiry launched in the preceding Congress.

Rep. Issa is not just looking for members of Congress who got special treatment. He's also hoping to net any local, state, or federal officials who got deals not generally available to the public.

I guess I'm underwhelmed. This just isn't an Obama-era issue. Sure, the mortgages were ethical violations, but nobody's getting carted off to jail for this. The mortgages were made years ago and have been investigated since before the election in 2008. Chris Dodd is out of office now. Countrywide was purchased by Bank of America and its management team was promptly shuffled out the door. As a political issue, this has pretty much been played out.

So I don't see why Issa is dallying with it when there are so many issues that are both politically ripe and economically timely. Not to mention, several of the problems I listed at the top of this post might just result in officials getting frogmarched out of their offices for actual crimes. Why not go for the red meat, Issa?

posted by Gabriel Malor at 07:29 AM

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