Congressman Jason Chaffetz Announces Leave from Congress for Surgery

Today Congressman Jason Chaffetz shared a photo of a foot and ankle on Instagram and Facebook, along with a message about upcoming surgery.
“Almost 12 years ago, I shattered several bones in my foot which required 14 screws and a metal plate to repair. Yes, I wish I could say I was cliff diving in Mexico but the truth is I fell off a ladder while repairing something in my garage. The University of Utah doctors now recommend immediate surgery to remove all the hardware or I could be at risk for serious infection. My recovery is expected to take three to four weeks.”

Chaffetz has had a busy couple of weeks.
 
April 19: Announces he will not seek re-election.

April 20: Announces that he may not finish his term.

April 21: Announces that he is already seeking a job in the private sector, possibly in television.

April 26: Announces that he must leave immediately to have surgery on a 12-year-old foot injury. He will be gone from Congress for 3-4 weeks.
 
Chaffetz, as head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, planned in October to pursue Oversight investigations into Hillary Clinton, expected to win the presidency. The Washington Post reported on October 26, 2016 that Chaffetz expected to have multiple investigations beginning soon.
 
“Chaffetz, too, views Clinton as a lucky candidate whose past will catch up with her after the polls close.
‘She’s not getting a clean slate,’ he said. ‘It’s not like the State Department was bending over backwards to help us understand what was going on. We’ve got document destruction. We’ve got their own rogue system. We’ve got classified information out the door. We’ve got their foundation doing who knows what. I mean, it took them four years just to release her schedule.’"
 
Hillary Clinton did not win the election. Donald Trump became president. Chaffetz, a Republican and a member of the Trump transition team, has resisted calls to investigate members of the Trump team for ethical violations.

The Democrats on the Oversight Committee have been requesting action on the many financial conflicts of interest of President Trump and aides Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and Kellyanne Conway. Chaffetz attempted to pressure Walter Shaub, Jr., head of the Office of Government Ethics (a federal agency providing guidance on ethics to the executive branch), into dropping his insistence that President Trump should divest of his businesses before his inauguration.
 
Yesterday several news outlets reported that the White House rejected a request from the Oversight Committee for documents related to the vetting of former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.

Think Progress has a clip of the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee talking about the Flynn investigation.
https://thinkprogress.org/white-house-stonewalls-russia-chaffetz-accuses-flynn-of-criminal-acts-a7587f5f330
 
The Washington Post article from October of 2016, about the investigations planned for Hillary Clinton in the event of her election to the presidency, can be found here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-republicans-are-already-preparing-for-years-of-investigations-of-clinton/2016/10/26/e153a714-9ac3-11e6-9980-50913d68eacb_story.html?utm_term=.275f75b6608e
 
 
NBC News reported on the White House refusal to release documents.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/white-house-denies-lawmakers-request-info-about-flynn-payments-n750676
 
A Red State article has a copy of the letter from the White House.
http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/04/25/373717/

Chaffetz played a role in the "October surprise" that helped catapult Trump into the presidency. he posted a message to Twitter on October 28 announcing that FBI Director James Comey had reopened an investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. Comey closed that investigation November 3. Clinton's popularity in polls declined after the announcement of the reopened investigation, and did not fully recover after the investigation was closed.

FBI personnel generally do not comment publicly on open investigations. 

A Vanity Fair article about the circumstances of the leak of information about the reopening of the investigation can be found here.
www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/james-comey-fbi-director-letter

The link to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform can be found here.
https://oversight.house.gov/subcommittee/full-committee/

The Democrat website for the Oversight Committee can be found here.
https://democrats-oversight.house.gov/