Grassley Blasts DOJ Opinion That Trump Can Ignore Democrats’ Info Requests

By Caitlin MacNeal @ TalkingPointsMemo.com, June 9

In a blistering letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) criticized a May opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel allowing the White House to ignore information requests from Democrats, writing that the opinion is “nonsense.”

The OLC issued a legal opinion in May arguing that the White House did not have to complete requests for information from individual members of Congress, even those who are ranking members on committees, and was only required to fulfill requests sent by committee chairs or full committees. The opinion did not bar the White House from fulfilling requests from individual members, but did have the effect of allowing the executive branch to ignore them, leading Democrats to charge that the White House has been ignoring their oversight requests.

Grassley argued in his Wednesday letter that the OLC’s opinion “completely misses the mark” and that its implications are troubling.

“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,” Grassley wrote. “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.”

Grassley explained that committees are simply a structure to help Congress manage a heavy workload and noted they’re not even mentioned in the Constitution [.....]