“It’s commonplace for Republican and Democratic staff to lend their expertise to presidential transition teams,” Goodlatte said at the National Press Club in answer to a question posed by The Daily Beast.
He refused to answer a question about whether his staff signed non-disclosure agreements, even after being chased down the hall of the press club by 10 or so reporters who sought a simple “Yes” or “No” from the powerful chairman.
Critics argue his office shattered the sacred constitutional mandate that power be separated between Congress and the White House. The ethics watchdog the Campaign for Accountability called on the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate whether the staffers broke any laws or internal House rules in crafting the order at the behest of the White House. Democrats also seized on the unforced error.
“Why would I look at Goodlatte as anything other than as a pawn of the president of the United States, if his staff has already written the legislation that we’re supposed to be considering? That’s bad,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told The Daily Beast. “People expect there to be checks and balances in their government. This is not a dictatorship—at least not yet—and he’s not Dear Leader to which we all bow.”
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