By Robin Bravender | Arizona Mirror
The U.S. Interior Department appears to have intentionally delayed responses to oversight requests from Rep. Raúl Grijalva, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.
At a hearing before the panel Thursday, the Tucson Democrat said his committee had obtained emails showing that Interior employees had been instructed to withhold communications from him and that any documents he requested were to be reviewed first by political appointees.
Grijalva said the unresponsiveness appears to have been targeted at him personally.
“No other member of the House was singled out” the same way, Grijalva added.
The committee provided Arizona Mirror with a March 14 email from a staffer in Interior’s Office of the Executive Secretariat directing other Interior employees that correspondence being sent to the Senate or to Grijalva “NOT be sent until you have further direction.”
The names of the agency employees, including the sender, were redacted.
