Congressman Darrell Issa’s trip to trade show has raised some eyebrows.  Check out the end of this article to find out some other interesting news.

Roll Call newspaper recently reported:

Issa’s Trade Show Visits Blur Congressional, Personal Business

Attendees at the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas may have been confused when they ran into Darrell Issa: Were they meeting the California Republican Congressman and new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee? Or were they meeting the board member of a private company Issa founded called DEI Holdings Inc.?

Issa declared he was there as a board member on personal business, and therefore exempt from House ethics rules governing travel provided to Members by outside parties. But his press secretary, standing next to him, declared he was there on official Oversight Committee business, and the Committee paid his way.

Issa approved the travel of two personal office staffers to attend the glitzy gadget event and let the Consumer Electronics Association, the sponsor, pay the tab, all of which was properly reported to the Ethics Committee. Dozens of other Members and staff also accepted the association’s invitation to the event and traveled in their official Congressional capacity. Documents on file with the Ethics Committee indicate that Issa was invited in his official capacity, but he traveled instead as a private businessman. read full article

Issa also fired his spokesman last week:

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) fired one of the most prominent press secretaries on Capitol Hill today for improperly sharing reporters’ emails with the New York Times’ Mark Leibovich in connection with a book that the reporter is writing. The news of that the committee was looking into Kurt Bardella’s actions was first reported last night by Politico.

The Times called Kurt Bardella Issa’s “mini-me.” And a recent New Yorker profile of Issa raised eyebrows among the Capitol Hill press corps when Bardella told the reporter that “some people in the press, I think, are just lazy as hell.”

Bardella was describing his practice of packaging stories for reporters. That’s where he basically would hand reporters relevant documents and a quote and give them an exclusive. Numerous news organizations have published these stories. No matter how small the investigation, the exclusivity makes the story bigger and generates buzz inside the beltway. And Bardella told the New Yorker that some reporters would publish his pitches almost word for word, which he called “embarrassing.”

 Issa never seemed to mind sharing the spotlight with Bardella, however. In fact, he told the New Yorker that Bardella was his “secret weapon.”

The Hill reported that Issa has hired Becca Glover Watkins, former spokesperson for Tucker Carlson’s “The Daily Caller.”  The Daily Caller was in the news recently for publishing an article on USPS bailout. The article was then used by Congressman Dennis Ross to show a history of  USPS finances. 

Hmmm… it makes a person wonder if the story on Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller about “bailout” was “packaged.”