By Robert Willmann
Today the U.S. Senate committees on Finance and on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs released a report called "Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Corruption: The Impact on U.S. Government Policy and Related Concerns". Charles Grassley (Repub. Iowa) is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Ron Johnson (Repub. Wisconsin) heads the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
As the last paragraph of the 87-page report says, "The Chairmen’s investigation has faced many obstacles from the minority and from executive agencies that have failed to comply with document requests. Accordingly, there remains much work to be done".
https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC%20-%20Finance%20Joint%20Report%202020.09.23.pdf
"The Chairmen’s investigation has faced many obstacles from the minority and from executive agencies that have failed to comply with document requests."
Obstacles from the minority in the Senate is understandable. But....the Trump administration??
Posted by: blue peacock | 23 September 2020 at 02:15 PM
The deep state just gets deeper every year. We have no Hercules to clean out D.C.'s equivalent of the Augean Stapes.
Posted by: Diana Croissant | 23 September 2020 at 05:20 PM
BP
No. The Deep Staters therein.
Posted by: turcopolier | 23 September 2020 at 05:26 PM
Barr alleged to his own difficulties getting witness testimonies and government agency document production, since they were all hiding behind the "covid screen". Cui bono.
Short on staff, working remotely, don't have access to onsite files, can't travel, doctors orders ........ sorry I can't be more helpful. Schade.
Posted by: Deap | 24 September 2020 at 02:12 PM
"...from executive agencies that have failed to comply with document requests"
One of the greater causes for elections losing significance or impact.
Many agree that here is a problem: career bureaucracies command elected officials, not the other way round. Why is there no public discussion about remedies?
Blow it all up and rebuild from the ground? Redefining mission and scope. Not long ago, our host proposed elimination and reconstruction of CIA and FBI.
Wasn't there a proposal floated a year or two ago, by a congressman, to scatter the different executive agencies among the states? That would, at least, move the personnel of those overgrown bureaucracies out of the SameThink culture of the Richmond-Boston coast.
Moving out of the sclerotic traffic and overpriced living costs of greater D.C. should be appealing to ground level and mid-level workers. And it would spread the wealth of steady, government employment around. Perhaps it might even dissuade Congress from gifting the military with expensive weapons that the military do not want, simply because weapons production will produce jobs and profits in their home districts or states.
Congresscritters jet back and forth to their home districts on now-standard, long weekends, we are told. Biz execs travel regularly. Could not agency and cabinet heads split their work locations, too? Covid lockdowns are demonstrating that much can be done (and some cannot) at a distance. Federal agencies work on a national and international scope anyway, not local.
How much of this failure to respond is created by the political appointees, who head the agencies, leave behind their imprint, and exercise influence after they depart? How much is internal factionalism that arises inevitably, esp within overlarge bureaucracies?
Oversight, as it exists, seems to fail. Can capture of the overseer of any powerful body or institution be prevented?
Are ineffectiveness and willful enervation within government agencies too far advanced for remedial deconstruction? Do we await collapse, under their own weight, of the unwieldy superstructures?
Posted by: smoke | 25 September 2020 at 01:57 PM
Don't know if this is the perfect place to post this, but it's not too inappropriate:
https://youtu.be/ys5KlLluSBI?t=3m58s
Devin Nunes is a real American hero, IMO.
In this interview, dating from about 2020-10-01, he makes some very important points about how crucial information, concerning how the Deep State manufactured Russiagate, has been withheld.
Posted by: Keith Harbaugh | 06 October 2020 at 06:26 PM