Today, every Republican member of the House Committee on Natural Resources sent a letter to Chair Raúl Grijalva, expressing procedural concerns over committee Democrats' sweeping, vague subpoena of FTI Consulting. In part, the members wrote:
"We urge you to quash the proposed subpoena, and consider the precedent your actions will establish.
"The justification you submitted rests upon meager arguments and legally questionable bases, seemingly due to the majority’s inability to negotiate document production with a private entity who faces no allegations of wrongdoing. The majority’s requests for documents spanning almost a decade’s worth of information and subsequent failure to negotiate any document production more than two months into its investigation is indicative of an overly broad request and flawed investigative practices. An ineffective investigatory strategy is hardly grounds to warrant use of Congressional subpoena authority. We hope that this consultative process will provide you an opportunity to recognize that pursuing a subpoena unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny is wasteful of taxpayer and Congressional resources...
"Issuing the proposed subpoena without proper foundations degrades the Committee’s oversight and investigative authority. If contested, the proposed subpoena may not survive judicial review, given the jurisdictional overreach, lack of legislative relevance, and flippant use of investigative authority. Therefore, upon review of your submitted justification and production schedule as part of the consultative process, we urge you to not issue the proposed subpoena."
