The Oversight and Reform Body is the primary investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. House Oversight Committee asks National Archives for torn-up Trump documents in a new records request.
Because of its vast jurisdiction and legislative powers, the committee is one of the House’s most significant and powerful bodies. Its chairman is one of only three members of the House who can issue subpoenas (Witness Summon) without a committee vote or consultation with the ranking member. However, in recent years, it has been customary to refrain from issuing unilateral subpoenas.
The Committee on Oversight and Reform replaced the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, which was established in 1927. This intended to combine 11 distinct Committees on Expenditures that had previously monitored the expenditures of several federal government agencies. This explains why the committee wields such enormous authority.
The Committee on Government Operations, the modern-day committee’s direct predecessor, was created in 1952. The committee’s comprehensive goal was meant to be reflected in the new name, which was to review “the operations of Government activities at all levels with a view to determining their economy and efficiency”
After Republicans took control of the House in 1994, the committee was reconfigured to have seven subcommittees rather than 14.
This reorganization unified the authority previously covered by three full committees, resulting in a 50% reduction in manpower. The tasks of the seven subcommittees were merged into five in 2007, as part of a restructure under a new Democratic majority.
The panel was renamed the Committee on Government Reform during the 106th Congress. While keeping the prior Committee on Government Operations’ agenda, the new committee also took over the responsibilities of the former House Committee on the Post Office and Civil Service, as well as the Committee on the District of Columbia. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was renamed the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by the 110th Congress on January 4, 2007. The Committee on Oversight and Reform was renamed by the 116th Congress to its current form: the Committee on Oversight and Reform. Since 2007, it has been referred to as the “Oversight Committee”
The House Oversight Committee expands its investigation into the mishandling of government documents by Trump
The House Oversight Committee recently informed the National Archives that it is expanding its investigation into former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of government documents after he left office by requesting additional information, including the torn-up pieces of paper obtained from Trump’s White House, in a new letter.
The letter from the House to the Archives requests more of the mismanaged presidential records. Detailed explanations from the Archives regarding what it discovered in boxes maintained at Trump’s Florida property until recently, including what sensitive information was discovered. Also included are still-secret conversations between the Trump White House and the Archives about the management of federal records.
“The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provided new details of what appear to be the largest-scale violations of the Presidential Records Act since its enactment,” Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, who chairs the committee, wrote in the new letter dated Thursday and sent to the Archives.
The committee has voiced worry that sensitive information was in the Mar-a-Lago cache, that Trump tore up memoranda despite being advised not to, and that White House personnel did not preserve comprehensive logs of their interactions on encrypted apps or social media.
The Archives, which has recently brought attention to presidential record-keeping issues from the Trump administration, had stated that it planned to finish its inventory of the 15 boxes it received from Mar-a-Lago on Friday. Last month, the Archives arranged for the delivery of the boxes of papers from Trump’s Florida estate after the agency requested them from the former President’s staff.
In addition to requesting a detailed description of the contents of the boxes discovered at Mar-a-Lago, as well as all presidential records that have been or attempted to be torn up, destroyed, or mutilated, the committee also requests all correspondence between the Archives and the Trump administration regarding the Presidential Records Act that has not been provided to the committee.
The committee is focusing on a request for records from Trump’s Executive Office of the President, following the revelation by the Archives that some social media records and correspondence by White House staff were not properly kept as official documents, despite previous warnings to Trump officials.
The committee requests that the Archives provide over the social media accounts, including direct messaging, of some of Trump’s most senior officials in order to precisely examine what was kept or erased. Rudy Giuliani, Ivanka Trump, Mark Meadows, former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, former Trump senior counsellor Kellyanne Conway, former trade adviser Peter Navarro, and former Trump assistant press secretary Chad Gilmartin are among those whose accounts the committee requests the Archives process first. The panel also requests any data pertaining to how Trump’s Twitter account was deactivated.
