Waxman Takes Center Stage as Chief Investigator

[babylonsister]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3471.html

Waxman Takes Center Stage as Chief Investigator
By: Patrick O'Connor
April 10, 2007



The diminutive Henry A. Waxman is a towering figure on Capitol Hill these days.

As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the veteran Democratic congressman from California has broad jurisdiction and sweeping subpoena power over a wide spectrum of the federal government -- and corporate America, too.

He's a reformer, an advocate, a showman. And "he understands the investigative process," said Norm Ornstein, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Since claiming the committee gavel in the new Democratic-controlled Congress, Waxman has opened investigations into potential Hatch Act violations by political appointees at the General Services Administration, requested all the e-mails on the Republican National Committee servers written by White House staff members and reviewed contracting in Iraq, among other hot spots.

Along the way, he has commanded an A-list of witnesses who not only help him ferret out information but also invariably guarantee a stream of headlines.

It was a full house, for instance, in his committee room when Valerie Plame, the former clandestine CIA operative-turned-public celebrity, made her congressional debut last month.

Backed by subpoena power, though he has yet to use it, Waxman has sought to question Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and top White House political adviser Karl Rove, among other administration officials.

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[izzie]

1. Well I am with him all the way.

It is something the GOP should have done.