Since the GOP took back the House in 2010, it’s been common to hear about California Rep. Darrell Issa, the head of Oversight Committee, launching investigations into alleged misconduct. He famously called a hearing on contraceptives, asking a group of only men to testify.

It’s not as common, though, that we hear about the man himself. As it turns out, he has a criminal history of his own. In the 1970s, he was arrested on suspicion of stealing a Maserati. The charges were later dropped, but it was ironic, considering he later made his fortune creating the security system used in the Viper. His brother ended up serving hard time for auto theft.

In addition to that, Issa got nailed for illegally carrying a concealed weapon — in fact, a handgun and a teargas gun, with ammunition for both. He pleaded guilty in that case.





And then there are his lies. He used to brag that he had been on a special bomb detail that had protected President Nixon at the 1971 World Series. NPR looked into it, and found that Nixon never went to a World Series game that year.

Issa was, at one time, particularly vocal about his honorable military career, too. But as it turns out, Issa had ended up with a bad conduct rating. He was demoted, and was accused by a fellow solider of — yup, you guessed it — stealing a car.

And then there was the big one. In 1982, just three weeks after quadrupling his fire insurance policy and putting all important documents in a fire safe, a warehouse owned by Issa suspiciously burned down. Issa never got fingered for it, but with reports of “suspicious burn patterns,” it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to think he set the fire.

I wonder what he’s been up to since then that we haven’t heard about?

Of course, all this makes him a perfect candidate, in the GOP’s mind, to head the Oversight Committee. Who better to catch criminals in Washington than a man who is himself a criminal?