Kurt Bardella

Opinion columnist

Ever since Democrats reclaimed the House majority, there has been a prevailing sense that it wasn’t a matter of if but when the Trump administration would find itself under siege from investigative congressional committees wielding their subpoena authority. This week, that “sense” became a reality.

On Wednesday, House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal officially requested six years of President Donald Trump’s personal and business tax returns. Earlier the same day, the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to authorize a subpoena to obtain the completed Mueller report and underlying evidence gathered during the special counsel's investigation. On Tuesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform authorized four subpoenas to advance two significant investigations.

Three of the Oversight subpoenas call for additional testimony and documents related to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ unprecedented and potentially illegal decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The fourth subpoena compels testimony from former White House Personnel Security Director Carl Kline in connection with the committee's investigation into the security clearance process at the White House. It follows Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings' disclosure Monday of cooperation from a “whistleblower” who works in the White House Personnel Security Office.

Read more commentary:

Congress is right to probe White House security clearances. Hand over the documents.

I vetted judges and senior officials and never came across anyone like Jared Kushner

Don't play games with security clearances

The official, Tricia Newbold, informed the committee that “she and other career officials adjudicated denials of dozens of applications for security clearances that were later overturned. As a result, she warned that security clearance applications for White House officials 'were not always adjudicated in the best interest of national security.' "

Newbold listed approximately 25 individuals, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who were granted security clearances or eligibility to access national security information despite recommendations to deny their applications.

Every single person who lives in this country and claims to care about our national security should be terrified by the idea that people who are trusted with our nation’s most sensitive secrets were initially rejected to receive a security clearance. This concern with keeping our secrets safe was one of the primary justifications for the House Republicans' prolonged multiyear investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server and the creation of the Benghazi Select Committee.

Bigger than Benghazi or emails

As someone who spent five years working for Republicans on the House Oversight Committee during the Obama presidency, I can tell you that what Trump has done with these security clearances is a far bigger scandal than “Hillary’s emails,” Benghazi, Fast & Furious, IRS “targeting” of conservative groups or any of the other so-called scandals Republicans obsessed over under the guise of transparency and security.

When you consider the many details about the Trump family finances and entanglements that have been kept secret from the American people, the potential for conflicts of interest is extremely troubling and dangerous. There are legitimate questions about what people are doing with state secrets and why. Are some of them putting their financial interests ahead of our national security? What is the motivation behind the president’s decision to overrule his own security and intelligence experts?

Republican default: Undermine whistleblower

This is why the Cummings investigation is so important. It’s not just that 25 or so people received clearances who probably shouldn’t have. We need to know why their clearances were denied or rejected.

I have no doubt that if this had happened under the Obama administration, Republicans would be holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and demanding accountability from the Democratic White House. It’s telling that the Republicans’ default position, made clear in a memo this week, is to try to undermine Newbold. She testified that "only 4-5 of her unfavorable 25 adjudications were for 'very serious reasons,' ” they noted. Republicans are once again shifting the goal posts. They’ve gone from “lock her up” to “only 4-5” potentially "very serious" security risks and "Ms. Newbold's concerns seem overblown."

For the better part of four years, congressional Republicans vigorously investigated the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton in the name of protecting America. They can’t cry foul now that Democrats are holding Trump to the same standard of oversight. Well, they can and they will, but they shouldn’t.

Kurt Bardella, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors, served as the spokesperson and senior adviser for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee from 2009 to 2013. Follow him on Twitter: @kurtbardella