Hensarling to subpoena administration officials
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) will issue subpoenas Monday to administration officials that he says are stonewalling his committee.
Hensarling wrote in a Wednesday letter to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the panel, that he plans to subpoena officials at the New York Federal Reserve, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Treasury Department for three separate instances.
Hensarling told Waters in a letter first obtained by The Hill that the subpoenas are a last resort “in light of the unprecedented and extraordinary stonewalling demonstrated by these agencies resulting in unfulfilled Committee requests.”
“I am left with no reasonable alternative,” Hensarling wrote.
5-6-15 JH to RM Waters Re Subpoenas
Waters called it “characteristically undemocratic” to issue the subpoenas without a Committee vote.
Waters refuted Hensarling’s claims about administration stonewalling.
“I find this determination unpersuasive at best,” Waters wrote. “I am aware of numerous efforts made by the agencies to meet your demands for documents and information.”
2015.05.08 CMW to JH Re Issuance of Subpoenas
Hensarling will subpoena officials at the U.S. Department of Justice to submit documents Republicans first requested in March 2013 pertaining to DOJ officials’ “decision not to prosecute large financial institutions based on the potential impact that such as prosecution may have on the national economy,” according to his letter.
He will also subpoena New York Federal Reserve Bank officials to get information “pertaining to the debt ceiling” that he first requested in November 2013.
“The Committee has been seeking to understand what effect, if any, a default on sovereign debt would have on capital markets,” Hensarling wrote.
Lastly, Hensarling will subpoenas officials at the U.S. Department of Treasury officials for documents pertaining to the megabank’s “violations of federal anti-money laundering laws and related offenses.”
Those requests were initially filed by Public Citizen in a Freedom of Information Act request that the Committee had looked into in June 2013.
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