The leaders of two Republican-led committees are quietly locked in a behind-the-scenes turf battle.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who helms the Senate Banking Committee, sent a letter this week to Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary panel, saying he was “surprised” to learn that Judiciary had convened a hearing on the history of Credit Suisse’s servicing of Nazi-linked bank accounts.
“While this subject matter is of historic importance, its connection to the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction is less clear,” Scott wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO.
In his opening statement at the Judiciary hearing earlier this week, Grassley said the proceedings were designed to provide an “interim investigative update” on the probe he launched in the previous Congress with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) when the two men served as the ranking member and chair of the Budget Committee.
But Scott, in his letter, said that Senate rules gave the Banking Committee jurisdiction over banks, banking and financial institutions — and “the rules do not provide an exception to this exclusive jurisdiction for morally grave topics.”
“The subject matter of this hearing should therefore fall under the Banking Committee’s oversight because the Banking Committee has the expertise, jurisdiction, and institutional responsibility to investigate these kinds of banking matters,” he added.
It’s not the first time the two committees have clashed, according to the letter: Scott recalled receiving a note from the Judiciary Committee last month when the Banking Committee took up legislation on which Judiciary believed it should have been consulted.
Now, Scott contended, the Judiciary Committee is revisiting previous work by the Banking Committee that “could provide benefits to banking regulation and bring additional accountability to banks” — but it had to be done in consultation with Banking.
Scott is asking Grassley and Durbin to hand over a swath of information, including records related to U.S. banks and details on any future hearings on the subject, by Feb. 25.
A spokesperson for Grassley declined to comment on the letter.
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