John Yarmuth: “While we received a partial production of documents from OMB, they left out large batches of requested materials.…”

“While we received a partial production of documents from OMB, they left out large batches of requested materials. Meanwhile, the House committees involved in the impeachment inquiry were getting completely stonewalled by the administration. If they did nothing wrong, why wouldn't they turn over documents or allow officials to testify? If the President could clear his name, don't you think he would have done it by now? Instead, the President and his Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, have gone on national television and confessed to the very thing Congress caught them doing. Mulvaney's response? ``Get over it,'' and, ``We do it all the time.'' In December 2019, the House Budget Committee released a report, which I intend to put in the Record, outlining three main takeaways from the documents produced by OMB. Number one, the timeline of actions taken by OMB, as seen in the provided apportionments, shows suspicious activity and document a pattern of abuse of the apportionment process, OMB's authority, and current law. Number two, OMB took the seemingly unprecedented step of stripping career officials of their normal role in the apportionment process and instead vested a political appointee with that authority. And, three, OMB's actions hindered agencies' ability to prudently obligate funds by the end of the fiscal year, bypassing Congress and creating backdoor rescissions in violation of the ICA.…”