House Oversight and Reform ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on Wednesday requesting he release the non-public memo he and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) wrote regarding their efforts to attack President Donald Trump’s administration.
Jordan urged Cummings to release the secret Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Financial Services chairwoman Waters as part of what Jordan contended amounts to a coordinated campaign to use congressional oversight to attack the president for political gain.
You have sought to avoid public scrutiny of your quest to obtain the President’s financial information. First, you wrote to Mazars in secret to request the President’s financial information; second, you executed a nonpublic MOU to coordinate with Chairwoman Waters; and finally, you broke your promise to hold a public business meeting to debate a subpoena to Mazars. Your nonpublic MOU has now become a matter of significant public interest due to your unprecedented actions. In the interest of promoting the utmost transparency about the Committee’s business, I encourage you to release publicly your MOU with Chairwoman Waters and any other signed or unsigned MOUs that you have entered into so that the American people can understand the extent to which you and other Democrat chairpersons are engaged in an orchestrated effort to attack the President for political gain.
Rep. Jordan revealed that Cummings did not respond to his letter in April, nor did he consult with Republican members of the committee regarding the terms of the secret MOU. Further, the Ohio conservative emphasized that Cummings did not even disclose the existence of the MOU until Jordan raised the issue to the Maryland Democrat, and Cummings has not released the MOU to the public.
Jordan also noted that the MOU “underscores the investigative and policing focus, highlighting the ‘overlapping jurisdictional interest in certain individuals and entities’ and ‘the value of approaching certain individuals jointly.’”
The Ohio congressman noted that Waters and Cummings have coordinated in a way to aid each other’s investigation; Waters issued a subpoena to Capitol One, while Cummings issued a subpoena to Mazars USA LLP (Mazars) for “eight years of sensitive, personal information about President Trump.”
Read Jordan’s full letter to Cummings here.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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