On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) reacted to the FBI canceling multiple briefings with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is part of a repeated pattern of stonewalling Congress by agencies that “just fundamentally don’t understand that they work for the American people, that they have to respond to the American people. They’re not an entity unto themselves.”
Stewart said the Intelligence Committee is set up to provide oversight over agencies with “enormous power, the ability to provide surveillance on any U.S. citizen. And when those agencies refuse to reply or to respond to Kevin McCarthy, for example, or to the Intelligence Committee, as they have done again and again and again over the last four years. How many times have we asked them for information on the original Russia hoax, and they stonewalled us, essentially, not for months, not for years, forever. They never provided some of that information. How in the world do you tell the majority — or the Minority Leader in the U.S. House, Kevin McCarthy, hey, sorry, we had something come up. We can’t come down and brief you on Eric Swalwell, we’re a little bit too busy today? I mean, that’s outrageous that they would do that. Now, to do it once, maybe, but to do it again and again like we’ve seen is — the arrogance of it is just incredible to me, and they just fundamentally don’t understand that they work for the American people, that they have to respond to the American people. They’re not an entity unto themselves.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett