Rep. Trey Gowdy's subpoena threat follows a bipartisan request for details on travel from 24 federal departments, as well as from the West Wing. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Gowdy threatens to subpoena DOJ, USDA over officials’ air travel

House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy on Wednesday threatened to subpoena the Department of Justice and Department of Agriculture for failing to adequately respond to a bipartisan inquiry on the use of private jets by senior officials.

In a letter to leaders of the two cabinet agencies, the South Carolina Republican and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), said both departments missed their Oct. 10 deadline to provide documents detailing the use of charter jets and other taxpayer-funded flights for officials' personal travel.


The lawmakers said they’re prepared to issue a subpoena for documents detailing any such travel if the committee doesn't receive answers by Oct. 31. It's an escalation of scrutiny that comes after POLITICO detailed hundreds of thousands of dollars in charter jet travel by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who resigned last month amid the controversy. Since then, reports have followed about the costly travel choices by several other Trump cabinet secretaries.

Gowdy's subpoena threat follows a bipartisan request for details on travel from 24 federal departments, as well as from the West Wing, issued by the committee on Sept. 26. DOJ and the Agriculture Department were the only two deemed non-compliant.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Another 13 departments — including the White House and HHS — were only "partially" compliant, according to the committee. The lawmakers stopped short of issuing subpoena threats to those agencies but extended the deadline for full compliance to Oct. 31. Ten agencies were fully compliant.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is required to travel on a secure government jet so he can maintain access to secure communications systems. DOJ officials say other senior department officials travel commercially.

In their letters to each agency, Gowdy and Cummings said they're also adding a new request: data on the travel options selected during the last year of the Obama administration.

"This additional request is necessary to assess the frequency and nature of this issue to help determine whether new policies or regulations need to be enacted or perhaps to even change the nature of appropriations to your department," they wrote.

In the White House's response to the committee, the president's top congressional liaison Marc Short said the administration hadn't answered the committee's request because chief of staff John Kelly — to whom lawmakers directed their request — was not best positioned to get them an answer.

"[N]ot all components" of the West Wing "are under the supervision of the President's Chief of Staff," Short wrote. "As such, the heads of those components are in the best position to respond to reqeusts from your committee concerning legal compliance."