WASHINGTON - House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa's investigation into the foreclosure crisis is off to a rough start. On Wednesday, the ranking Democrat on the oversight panel, Elijah Cummings (Md.), planned to use his opening statement to charge Issa with blocking the summoning of a witness from JPMorgan Chase to explain the bank's role in alleged foreclosure fraud.
Cummings never got the chance. In a move that diverged radically from congressional custom, Issa (Calif.) refused to allow the ranking Democrat to offer his statement, deciding instead to bar all opening statements from the assembled committee members, himself included.
"I know the tradition is that we hold the witnesses here for sometimes an hour through opening statements," Issa said Wednesday. "That is a tradition that I intend to break."
On Tuesday, at the organizational meeting to prepare for the hearing, Cummings had expressed concern that he might be barred from speaking. "Will you give me notice when you and I are not going to speak. I don't want to staff to spend all night preparing a memorable opening statement and then we don't get to give it," he said, according to a transcript of the meeting.
"I will commit to you that -- although when they're put in the record, sometimes it looks even better -- I will commit to you that if we believe a hearing has a limited time, we will notice that as quickly as we notice the committee. Because, as quickly as we notice the committee, I think we would be able to give you an anticipated start time and finish time for our witness," Issa responded.
A spokesman for Cummings told HuffPost that the Maryland Democrat was alerted at 8:53 a.m. Wednesday that he wouldn't be allowed to deliver the statement. The hearing was scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m., but was slightly delayed due to wrangling over the opening statements.
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