State Department Efforts to Mute Congressional Interrogations

The Washington Times reports that State Department officials have approved a contract worth up to $545,000 to help train themselves for how to brief lawmakers and to testify at hearings. The contract with Orlando, Florida-based AMTIS, Inc. includes classes entitled “Communicating with Congress: Briefing and Testifying” and pays for one-on-one sessions to hold a mock hearing with questioners playing the role of lawmakers asking hard questions of the would-be witnesses.
In commenting on this, Leslie Paige, spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste said it best. She said that if officials were doing their jobs correctly, such training would not be needed. All they have to do is sit there at a microphone, read their testimony and answer questions truthfully, honestly and thoroughly and explain to the American people what they’re doing.
Half a million dollars, as an expense item, is not a lot of money in the way Congress thinks on having developed a national debt of $17 trillion, but it is another waste, with intention to deceive. If this were a court trial with the State Department as defendant, it might be justified to spend a half $1 million on a good lawyer. However, that is not the case. Congress is only asking State Department officials to describe their actions as witnesses.
The House of Representatives and Senate approved legislation to establish a Department of Foreign Affairs on July 21, 1789, and President Washington signed it into law on July 27. In September 1789, additional legislation changed the name of the agency to the Department of State.
Since Congress set up the State Department, Congressional members have every right to question State Department officials on any aspect of the business, in order to determine whether the State Department is properly doing its job, as intended by the original Congressional legislation. It is also a felony for any individual, including State Department employees, to lie to Congress.
Training State Department officials on how they can best handle congressional questions in their favor without lying, will be a typical deceptive maneuver. However, it will be up to the Congressional interrogators, many of whom are lawyers, to tack down the witnesses to specific answers to specific questions to get at the facts, or force the witnesses to take the Fifth Amendment.