Rep. Womack: Ryan can ‘unify’ GOP, leave email server investigation to Justice Department
by November 8, 2015 9:58 am 186 views
U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, argues that new House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, can unify the House Republican conference, defended his vote for last week’s budget bill, and explained that a new Congressional investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server while she was Secretary of State should be left to Justice Department officials.
Appearing on this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9:30 a.m. on KATV Ch. 7, Rep. Womack said he’s had several personal, private conversations with newly-elected Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Womack said Ryan “can unify the conference” and has already shown examples of that promise by bringing “regular order back to Congress.”
“[It] is something that Paul believes in and he’s showing us an example of that just this week,” Womack said.
Womack said Ryan has dual attributes of a deep understanding of public policy and the ability to articulate conservative positions.
“In all of his ‘wonkiness’ as we call it, Paul is also a gifted speaker on behalf of the values and the planks in our platform,” Womack said.
The Third District Congressman, first elected in 2010, also weighed in on a report this week that Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, is considering opening a new Congressional investigation into Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email server from her time as Secretary of State. Womack said there is enough investigation taking place and that the proper course is to let U.S. Justice Department officials complete their review.
“With all due respect to my friend and colleague Jason Chaffetz, who is the chairman of the Oversight Government Reform committee… I think this clearly a Justice Department area,” said Womack. “We often get into what I refer to as ‘diminishing returns’ when you open so many pieces of investigations and have so much ‘mission creep’ with all of these different agencies.”
“There have been multiple reports and at some point in time, we’ve got to look at the responsible agencies, and in the case of the email server, I think that’s clearly a Justice Department area and I would just as soon we leave it to the Justice Department right now and focus our attention on the committees we already have established and let those committee chairmen run those separate investigations,” he said.
Watch Womack’s full interview below, including his reasons for supporting a House budget bill that provided funding for national defense and extended the debt ceiling to avoid a credit default by the U.S.