How the longest government shutdown derailed Andrew Garbarino's first months as Homeland Security chair

WASHINGTON — The nation's emergency response agency is in turmoil.

It has coincided with Long Island GOP Rep. Andrew Garbarino’s first four months as chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, which has borne witness to a parade of explosive agency actions, dysfunctions and other controversies that fall under the oversight jurisdictions of his panel. That includes the Homeland Security secretary approving a $200 million purchase of private jets during the government shutdown. Military and immigration agents have also been dispatched into Democratic-run cities.

But Garbarino (R-Bayport) has yet to chair a single full Homeland Security Committee hearing featuring any Trump administration officials, combative or otherwise, to peel back deeper understandings to the public and lawmakers.

Instead, Garbarino’s chairmanship has been saddled since he took the gavel on July 21 by a congressional August recess and a 43-day government shutdown starting Oct. 1.

"I intend to have administration officials testify whenever possible to help educate members and allow for important oversight and transparency," Garbarino said in a statement when pressed about plans for any upcoming public hearings with Trump officials.

Garbarino’s intentions are not necessarily doubted by members of his committee — from both parties — based on interviews.

Those lawmakers also do not dismiss the difficulty the new chairman has faced in navigating a limited congressional schedule and a shutdown that, at the very least, has complicated scheduling for hearings.

But any aims that Garbarino does have for holding substantive, public hearings with Trump officials, they also say, must confront the same stark and major obstacle that has undercut efforts all year by the committee, under a previous chairman. It’s an obstacle Garbarino now shoulders.

"The administration has simply chosen not to engage," with this committee and others, senior Republican committee member Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said. That has "absolutely" been the case with the Homeland Security Committee, he added.

Aside from a single appearance in May before the full committee by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, none of the heads or acting heads of key agencies under the panel’s jurisdiction have come before the committee this year, in any capacity, committee officials say.

That includes such agencies as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard.

The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said that even now — entering two weeks after the shutdown — there remains no scheduled public witness hearings. An Oct. 8 annual "Worldwide Threats to the Homeland" hearing that was to feature Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel is also yet to be rescheduled, with rising suspicion among Democrats that Noem no longer plans to show.

The lack of hearings continues, Thompson said, despite a wide list of topics that should be tackled.

He ticks off, among other things, dysfunction and turmoil at FEMA, including criticism of its response to the Texas flood and talk of Trump administration aims to dismantle it; Noem’s purchase of the two jets during the shutdown; and uses of force by federal immigration agents in Chicago and other cities.

"We’ve had three FEMA directors, and we’ve never brought in one?" Thompson said. As Thompson was speaking about vanishing acting FEMA directors with Newsday, the latest acting chief of the agency abruptly left his job after just six months.

Thompson, who said he gets along with Garbarino, underscores that he understands the new chairman has had to organize and put a staff together, and then was hit with the August recess and the shutdown. But that’s over, Thompson said, and it’s time to move ahead with hearings.

"I think bypassing the traditional role of the committee is not in the interest of the country," he said. Open hearings with administration officials are important for the public as well as members of Congress, he said, "because hearings allow you to ask questions that wouldn’t normally get answers to."

So frustrated are Thompson and fellow Democrats that they have been holding their own so-called "shadow hearings," including one last week on how "Donald Trump’s immigration raids are targeting U.S. citizens and terrorizing American communities."

Republican McCaul said it appears to him that the Trump administration believes "there is no value in engaging with Congress, which I think is a huge mistake."

As for Garbarino, aides said he isn’t going to discuss what has happened to previous committee efforts to obtain testimony from administration officials before he became chairman. But he does view hearings on the threats to homeland security and other topics as valuable, they said.

In a statement, Garbarino noted there has been other committee work accomplished since he took the gavel, which includes passing more than a dozen bills out of the House, a committee briefing last week on Chinese cyber attackers, multiple subcommittee meetings and a bipartisan Sept. 11 remembrance visit to New York City.

"We have been preparing tirelessly to lead a robust and bipartisan — whenever possible — Committee schedule," he said, including the rescheduling of the Worldwide Threat hearing.

Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, suggests there might also be some chaos-avoidance in Garbarino's calculations. He said another public hearing with Noem being grilled by Democrats "would be a barnburner."

For Garbarino, he said, the thinking may be that it's "best to avoid the barn."