'The committee has outstanding questions for Mr. Simas,' Issa says. Simas won't appear before Issa panel

David Simas, director of the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, will not comply with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s subpoena for him to testify, White House Counsel Neil Eggleston said in a letter Tuesday to panel Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

“The committee’s effort to compel Mr. Simas’s testimony threatens longstanding interests of the executive branch in preserving the president’s independence and autonomy, as well as his ability to obtain candidate advice and counsel to aid him in the discharge of his constitutional duties,” Eggleston wrote.


“In light of those principles, and for reasons set forth below,” Eggleston continued, tipping to advice provided to the White House by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, “Mr. Simas is immune from congressional compulsion to testify on matters relating to his official duties” and will not appear at the hearing Issa’s committee had scheduled for Wednesday morning. The White House also took the rare step of releasing the OLC’s opinion.

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But Issa said late Tuesday night that he rejects the White House’s immunity claims and he will still convene the Wednesday morning hearing.

The White House has, it contends, provided Issa with “a significant amount of detail about the operations of” the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach and its efforts to abide by the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits most high-level executive branch officials — though not the president or vice president — from engaging in partisan political activities in their official capacities.

Eggleston added that Issa has “made no effort to justify your extraordinary demand that one of the president’s immediate advisers testify.” The committee’s “hasty decision” to subpoena Simas, the counsel continued, is “all the more unfounded because the committee has been unable to point to any indication OPSO has violated the Hatch Act or even operated contrary to our explanations.”

The White House reopened its political office in January, after shuttering its operations ahead of the launch of the president’s reelection campaign and as an investigation into the Bush administration’s mixing of official and political business heated up in 2011. Issa quickly launched an inquiry into OPSO, in February asking the Office of Special Counsel to share all its correspondence with the White House about the office’s reopening.

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Before Eggleston sent Tuesday’s letter, Issa was insistent that Simas testify, arguing that the White House had not sufficiently answered his questions about OPSO, even after a Tuesday briefing attended by White House and committee staff, though by neither Simas nor Issa.

Issa rejected the White House’s assertion of immunity, citing a 2008 federal court case that found that senior advisers to presidents are “not absolutely immune from congressional process.” That case — Committee on the Judiciary v. Miers — was brought by congressional Democrats against White House Counsel Harriet Miers.

“The Obama White House’s claim that David Simas, the director of its political office, is absolutely immune from testifying before Congress is a sweeping assertion that a federal court has already rejected,” Issa said. “I intend to examine whether President Obama actually intends to assert executive privilege, and I will convene tomorrow’s hearing to ensure that Mr. Simas has an opportunity to comply with his legal obligation to appear.”