This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The decline and fall of Jason Chaffetz. First a promising newcomer. Then a disappointing partisan. Now an utter embarrassment, to his constituents, to his party and to the nation.
The young Republican from Utah County appeared out of practically nowhere eight years ago to unseat an incumbent representative and bring a telegenic new energy to the House of Representatives. He won easy re-election three times, rose quickly to become chairman of the crucial House Oversight Committee and even took a semi-serious run at becoming speaker of the House.
But Chaffetz quickly fell far short of his promise as a committee chairman. He focused most of his attacks on tea party targets, like the IRS and Planned Parenthood, while confiscatory increases in the costs of necessary drugs and mass deception campaigns carried out by major financial institutions got scant attention.
There was a glimmer of hope when, in the wake of that disgusting tape of Donald Trump bragging about his ability to commit sexual assault, Chaffetz said, "I'm out." He was among the first high-profile Republican to renounce his support for the thuggish nominee.
But then, just the other day, Chaffetz said that while he was not going to endorse Trump, he was going to vote for him. As if publicly announcing the latter were any different from doing the former.
And then Chaffetz threw away what was left of his political and leadership credibility by making it clear that, come the now all-but-assured election of Hillary Clinton, he is ready to do all he can to harass, belittle and undermine the duly elected president of the United States with unending probes of her tenure as secretary of state.
"It's a target-rich environment," Chaffetz told The Washington Post, "Even before we get to Day One, we've got two years' worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain't good."
And he said that even before Friday's news that the FBI was taking another look at some of Clinton's emails, months after having determined that her use of a private email server violated no laws.
The announcement to reopen the investigation will only play into the innate political instincts to milk it for partisan gain. The chairman of a major committee should be divorcing himself from political rhetoric, yet Chaffetz is pouring more fuel on the fire.
This is not what people want. It is why public approval of Congress sits at 15 percent. As far as "target-rich environment," Chaffetz is stuck in tea party rhetoric and his obsession yields no results for the taxpayers, while it brings him more appearances on cable talk shows.
In addition to being a guarantee of at least two more years of partisan gridlock, wasted money and diverted energy, what Chaffetz has promised is a clear path for Clinton or her associates to dismiss any future allegations of wrongdoing as just another of Jason's witch hunts.
This is reason enough for the voters of the 3rd District to oust Chaffetz and replace him with the Democratic challenger, retired Army officer Stephen Tryon.
The executive branch of our government is a huge beast with many tentacles. Sometime over the next four years, one of them — maybe at the top, maybe somewhere far below — will do something questionable, foolish, even illegal.
But it will have to be someone other than the congressman from Utah's 3rd District who calls them out. Because Jason Chaffetz has abandoned his bully pulpit for the role of simple bully.