Of the committee and cover site site government oversight reform in key best issues including benghazi fast and furious and irs targeting controversy but his book is sub six the real stories behind the headlines from the congressman who exposed washingtons biggest scandals. Host welcome to booktv. Im former congressman, former chairman of the house government reform and Oversight Committee tom davis and we are here today to discuss a book by the retired chairman of the house government Oversight Committee, darrell issa called watchdog and watchdog tells about basically your political history but also a lot about the investigations that you underwent as the chairman of the committee and is the minority member of the committee from the troubled asset relief, and nature sing for readers to gray davis recall in california and the behindthescenes story of how that came about and was financed and a little bit of chairman tom daviss time in there too. Guest i think you learned from my mistakes to move out but was what prompted you to write the book . Guest i think voters right now, they have lost a little bit of hope. They see the wrongdoing, not all of it that some of that and then they dont see what difference it makes you guide by the book that took the stories of people knew about and linked it to what difference it makes would really help people because there are things that were done as a result of our successes. I touch on the fact that as you do when you were chairman, sent out about 2000 letters and a congressional cycle and most of those and in government complying, making changes, dressing issues and our investigations. Many of them led to fundamental change. For example the gsa and member gsa and the number of other agencies including the irs and the Veterans Administration all held lavish parties on taxpayers money. Our oversight and are making that aware have change how the administration oversees that to make sure that taxpayer dollars are better spent. These kinds of changes are Success Stories but i touch on the additional changes. Changes in the freedom of information act, changes in Government Transparency including what is become to be known as the data act in law and changes in how congress can bring to the courts complaints about wrongdoing of the administration. All of those are part of what we touch on as the next step, what we are going to do to create a government responses to his people. Host we are supposed to be balance of power but the legislative branch and maybe im reminiscing since i Left Congress for looks at the Congressional Branch has been. Neutered over the last few years and i think your book explains some of the things you try to do and oversight in imports of oversight from legislative branch to make sure the executive branch doesnt get out of control. Guest i think you are hitting the nail on the head. Congress. At its periodically the power goes to administration when you give the power to the administration and the poor christy takes more than he can we find our constituents saying where do we go and how is it that unelected officials are making vast amounts of laws . The other part of it is an interesting one, the courts when addressing the oversight of congress have always sided with the legitimate requirement an obligation of the administration to comply with our oversight. What they havent done is they havent seen the cases brought to them for what oversight leads to so they are very good things and they have a right to see these these documents any of her right to call witnesses but then we say what you are doing is wrong if the Administration Simply shows you the back of their hand and moves on we havent been able to give back to the courts in a way which they can side with us too against one and we are right and get the administration to do what they need to do. The Obama Administration is taken a lot of well thought and received grief for being above the law but they are above congress. When the courts have spoken the Obama Administration has in fact applied. What we need to do candidly is get to the courts when there are differences in views between the American People and the administration. Postcode administrations ever like to give up information and congress is a nuisance that they have to put up with. After the Associated Press and the rules under foia. You have subpoena power and you were the only member the house of heads at kenya our. Hewitt one point held members in contempt of congress but the administration had to enforce that and you just get stymied at that point. Guest that was one of the Lessons Learned host during the Bush Administration in your tenure when president bush and his people were held in contempt for not laboring witnesses to the Judiciary Committee and the firing of u. S. Attorneys and again eric holder when he was withholding documents about the false statements in the coverup in congress and the fast and furious investigation. Both cases we eventually were vindicated by the courts but the administration was over surging their right to privacy and it took time. These are covered in the book. Host they run the clock out a lot of times. Guest they run the clock out. The deal on the firing of the attorney was made after the election of barack obama. They were willing to cut a deal that they had been ordered by a judge to do so. In the case of fast and furious documents are still coming in but the real closing of that will probably happen if the administration is about to turn and the obama does ration wants to make us go away before they leap to. Host i want to get to fast and furious. This is a great. Its an easy. Guest i use small words. Postcodes very readable. If you talk about your roots and how you started to get into it. Why do you tell the readers a little bit about how you got into politics and business and your successes and some of the trials you went through getting there and how that helped you in some of your campaigns. Guest i did grow up big kid, one of six and i was from a middleclass family. I was lucky. I was given an opportunity to go to college paid for by the u. S. Army and another four years like you to serve as an army officer. That sort of took me from a street kid with a likelihood that the bluecollar job and took me to the opportunities to start a business, to have the education to grow a business and ultimately to do well enough that i began looking at what was wrong in our society. The class warfare that was being instigated some several president s ago but also the whole question of was government or business, antibusiness or did they just not understand business . Guest you were in suburban cleveland growing up in a very ethnic neighborhood. What was it like . Guest are ethnic neighborhood was jewish so we wouldnt have called ourselves arabs. We would have called ourselves lebanese or maybe the nations by their neighbors, my schoolteachers and so one i was steeped in that culture and it was a great opportunity. It was the 60s but there were also challenges. The air of israeli word that rogue out in 67. I was a freshman in high school. It was a very interesting time to have older brothers of some of my friends heading off to israel to defend against an existential threat to a lot of that was part of it but also this is a community of Small Business people. A lot of my neighbors, my friends families owned Small Businesses come, everything from retail shops and manufacturing and it gave me an opportunity to see that there was an america an almost unlimited ability to join a company and grow with it or start their own company. My father never have that opportunity until fairly late when he started the business after you have a heart attack and couldnt quite candidly his career was somewhat stifled so we started a business. Growing up i had lots of examples and for all of us that sort of lived the American Dream theres always the question of whats next. Politics and philanthropy become what is next and i kind of have an interesting deal. My wife does the majority of the philanthropy and we have a foundation is able to help people and i participate that i really have an interest in trying to get back, to have government do a better job on behalf of the American People. I started off as somebody coming to washington to describe what i was seeing including after the debate i testified on behalf of the chamber but i did get hooked on it and eventually helped candidates win and then ran for office myself. Host you are not a stellar student in college. You are obviously one of the smartest guys that i have run across in the congress. You had learning disabilities to contend with along the way but you ended up and bending a lot of things. I guess you got skills in the army and you got into the electronics business. Guest to not think that i went through college as it does this measure major but i was at tinker if you will. I worked in high School Working on what was then two radios maybe with a transistor or two and then to the army i was fortunate not to head up an organization of engineers and run a computer facility so i had the balance of the big picture, a couple hundred Million Dollar facility iran and was trained in software. When i left let the military at the good i could do anything so i joined a bankrupt electronics manic action firm with a partner and it never really did that well but it got into business and got me to where i could start looking at the insurers of my own and by 1982, 83 i was starting to invent things. I got my first patent in 1981 and ive had dirty 7 cents. Some have done very well. Most of them have been a radiofrequency controlled products but i was also lucky in that the industry was changing. When i came into security he stuck the key in your fender to protect your car, you blocked it or you lock the hood. By the time i left everything was hightech radio controlled and it interfaced with the Engine Computers to shut down the car or to open the trunk, whatever you wanted to do and it was a lot of fun. Innovating in that kind of space as a car guy is a winwin. Host so you are is subcommittee chairman and patent over trademarks firsthand experience and how it affects people. Guest fixing the Patent Office is something ive been involved in and its been very much a passion. They came to congress or with the number of federal judges and have become friends and they have been good counselors and helpers. Early on in my career my second or third terms signed a pilot bill and that includes federal judges who specialize in Patent Litigation with additional capability expertise so they are able to dismiss these cases, dispatch them if you will quickly and accurately but the calendar of these cases, very complex cases are moving better and the judges are more confident making good rulings with less overturning on appeal. But it isnt over. We are innovating as a country and as a world and becoming more valuable and as a result there are people who litigate for a living sometimes with a very weak patent but for a great product. Thats part of what im working on post my chairmanship of oversight. Host you are certainly the right guy in understanding this at every level. So you came to testify for nafta in 1993 i think it was. You kind of got the bug in and the San Diego Chamber adopted you and you ran for the senate at that point. Guest i ran for the senate not until 98. In tommy came to san diego in 1996. A group of his chamber folks got together and they were doling out what everyone should do it and the guy with the short straw got to be the fundraiser. I was in between the short and long straw so i didnt have to be fundraiser indicted up cheering all the volunteers. We put together 10,000 volunteers doing every thing that needed to be done about convention and was kind of my life. I got to know so many people, some of them republicans some of them democrats who were so civically minded that they were willing to go through weeks of preparation and training to make that a success. It was a Great Convention because on the east coast time everything ended early. It did allow you to have an early supper a long and enjoyable evening and sleep in a little bit in the morning. In 1998 you ended up running for the senate and spent a lot of her own money and the voters probably did you a favor in not nominating you that year. Guest you allude to that in the book. Guess who i have a real soft spot for matt vaughn. He is now passed away. He was a state treasure and a superb man a graduate of the air force academy, great candidate. He didnt win that he did do better in the primary than i did so he became the nominee of our party and through losing in the primary i gained a friend, i gained an opportunity to be seen as somebody who flock hard for what they believed and that supported the nominee of our party and the day after you get your kicked in the primary and show up to the unity breakfast and say good things about somebody who, i liked him but i had some hurt feelings helps you understand politics. Politics is fighting hard, losing at least half the time and then coming back and being a gentleman about it and knowing theres another day where you will try to do things for this country. It was good training. Matt remained a friend until he passed away of cancer and i never ran for statewide office again. Two years later my congressman announced his retirement and i was already pretty close to a shooin in many ways because i had run statewide and i was wellregarded so iran and won handily and have been there ever since. Hosts are your opponent state senator bill maher old who represented a good heart of that congressional district. Guest you didnt just walk into this. Tell us about the ad that he ran politics is interesting. A tick the ads that were available some away to never think we are fighting they tried to rerun it so he tries to go after me for being a soldier. Some said i was at that tried it. Host everyone who serves that you have sergeant that was was. I will never disagree that the 17yearold private can be. Questionable and im sure i was but ive responded with deficiency ratings from officers that served with some metal bombers to dance in some kernels threestar generals and two of them from general wesley dark. I worked for him on two separate commands. That sort of shut them up. Thats the core of the question of what i said right at three. The issue, its a good lieutenant and a good captain. Host it also made them look back. Guess what made them look bad in the. Elsa my background. I have an arabamerican name. He claims some of the money it received was tainted. It came from most terrible arab states because his company and by the way the guy that headed the company was an arab. His last name was nasa. We got ambassador tom nassar in there. It then the head of the protocol to Ronald Reagan and had gone on to be ambassador to morocco morocco name by reagan and he said by the way this golfing, said gulf of mexico. Again it made it look foolish. Iowa wasnt tainted by some sort of foreign money. The man he accused was an incredible figure in history and a great help to the president , president reagan and those kinds of mistakes changed the race. It was a mistake or the state senators overplay his hand. He served well and might have one but it became between somebody with the false accusation that could be disproved, he tumbled that he never really recovered. He actually never ran for office again. Host when he came to washington you thought you would get one or two committees and you got the Judiciary Committee even though you werent a lawyer you ended up which makes a lot of sense for an arabamerican and somebody with your background and connections and government oversight which is probably a clear choice at the time. You dont quite allude to that in the book but it was your first love i think. Guest tom you are given respect and to oversight and i would say might her choice was the committee on Small Business. As a freshman they put me on that and i didnt want to be a Small Businessman. We all want to be big businessman. We all start off this Small Businessman. I went to energy and commerce for short time and because of the work you were doing in the fact that government oversight often does not enjoy my first choice but i saw the potential for him them by my third term i realized what you were doing even in the Bush Administration holding the Administration Accountable was important. With the help of now former speaker hastert i got that temporary transfer and that temporary transfer lasted for a decade. Host take you on to greater things. As you know there is a bounce of power in government and when you have one Party Controlling the house, the senate and the presidency they tend to see their destinies intertwine. You didnt do that as you know and we will talk about your leadership there. I will never forget going after something that the Bush Administration did wrong. Karl rove would call the speaker and tried to get us off the scent and i would say its our job. We have an institutional responsibility when we see wrongdoing in the executive branch. Its not gotcha but we need to shine a light on the things that go unchecked. You were subcommittee chairman. I think that what you offer people in seniority because i cite your capability. Tell us about what you found over there. Guest under Ronald Reagan they put together organizations that seemed logical at the time and they oversaw three parts of a few well federal land. The leasing of them, the fair use of them in the collecting of the revenues of them. That became logical as you realize they didnt seem to write leases accurately and we had a number of examples where