Congressman Gerry Connolly has served on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability since he was sworn in to Congress in 2009, including as a subcommittee Chairman or Ranking Member and as Vice Ranking Member of the full committee under then-Ranking Member Elijah Cummings.
"A man who has just been tireless...He has done just a phenomenal job. Mr. Connolly of Virginia.”
— then-Ranking Member Elijah Cummings
He is currently the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation. He previously served as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations in the 117th Congress, then the largest and most active Oversight and Reform subcommittee. Under Congressman Connolly's leadership, the Subcommittee on Government Operations moved more bills, conducted more hearings, and sent more oversight letters than any other Oversight and Accountability subcommittee.
Congressman Connolly is the top legislator on the full Committee, having passed the most standalone Oversight bills through the Committee and the full House over the course of the past four Congresses.
A Record of Fighting Obama-Era Republican Witch Hunts
As Vice Ranking Member under the late Elijah Cummings, Rep. Connolly was an unapologetic defender of the progress made under President Obama’s leadership and is a battle tested foil to baseless GOP attacks. For 8 years in the minority, Rep. Connolly held the line against Jim Jordan, Trey Gowdy, Ron DeSantis, Jody Hice, and Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, setting the record straight on GOP misinformation.
"Gerry, you've often been the bane of my existence."
— then-outgoing Republican Chairman Darrell Issa
Benghazi: Rep. Connolly exposed the GOP star witness, Brig. Gen. Robert Lovell, as unreliable, derailing Darrell Issa's witch hunt and eliciting this statement from Republican Chairman Buck McKean:
“The Armed Services Committee has interviewed more than a dozen witnesses in the operational chain of command that night, yielding thousands of pages of transcripts, e-mails, and other documents. We have no evidence that Department of State officials delayed the decision to deploy what few resources DoD had available to respond.” (May 2014)
Fast and Furious/Eric Holder: Connolly stood up for AG Eric Holder in the face of manufactured GOP attacks. Working with then-Ranking Member Cummings, he got the ATF on record that stricter gun control measures would help stem the flow of illegal guns into the U.S. and demonstrated that the programs in question were started by the George W. Bush administration. (February 2012)
Obamacare: Rep. Connolly worked with Ranking Member Cummings to fight unfounded accusations and subpoenas Republicans lobbed at the dedicated civil servants tasked with implementing Obamacare. (November 2013)
Women's Rights: Rep. Connolly fought to ensure Sandra Fluke’s voice was heard on the issue of contraception, telling the infamous “panel of men” that "your participation on the panel makes you complicit in, of course, the trampling of freedom.” (February 16, 2012)
IRS: Rep. Connolly worked with a small group of Members to stop the impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. The House subsequently defeated Rep. Jim Jordan with a broad bipartisan vote against his impeachment resolution, 372-72. (December 6, 2016)
Lois Lerner: Rep. Connolly fought for the rights of all citizens in defending Lois Lerner’s Fifth Amendment Rights, and demonstrated GOP claims that the IRS only targeted Tea Party groups were patently false.
Clinton Emails: Rep. Connolly defended Secretary Clinton from the Republican witch hunt and called out GOP hypocrisy, noting the Bush White House lost 22 million emails and used a private server housed by the RNC.
A Record of Holding Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans Accountable
As a senior member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, Connolly joined Chairs Cummings and Maloney in leading the fight to hold Donald Trump accountable for his rampant conflicts of interests, cruel, inhumane policies, and blatant abuses of power. A battle-tested defender of our democracy and a proven antagonist of MAGA Republicans, Connolly conducted the most oversight of any subcommittee.
The work of the Committee on Oversight and Reform is often granular and technical, but Connolly exposed for the nation Trump’s self-dealing, attacks on the federal workforce, attempts to politicize the Postal Service before the 2020 election, efforts to undermine the Census, and abuse of the Executive Branch to stay in power.
"[Connolly] has a reputation as a tenacious bulldog who hasn't shied away from tangling with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)." — Politico, 10/3/2022
Postal Service: When Trump appointed GOP megadonor Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General, Connolly led the fight against GOP efforts to politicize and undermine the Postal Service on the eve of a presidential election. At a hearing in August of 2020, Rep. Connolly got PMG DeJoy to admit under oath that he did, in fact, have contact with the Trump campaign — an assertion he previously denied to the public and to Congress itself.
🚨🚨🚨
Postmaster General DeJoy told the Senate, under oath, that he has had no contact with the Trump campaign.
I asked him the same question today, and got him to admit that he DID in fact have that contact.
Security Clearances: Connolly blew the whistle on Trump’s attempts to bypass protocols to give security clearances to Jared Kushner and Rob Porter, a White House staffer with a history of domestic abuse.
Trump and the Emoluments Clause:Before Trump was even sworn into office, Connolly joined Elijah Cummings and Adam Schiff in hosting a Minority hearing on the vast conflicts of interests and violations of the Emoluments Clause stemming from Trump’s refusal to divest from the Trump Organization. Connolly continued this fight with his oversight of foreign payments to the Trump Hotel and the corruption of the FBI Headquarters procurement.
Trump Hotel/FBI HQ: Connolly spearheaded the investigation into Trump's cancellation of the FBI Headquarters relocation. His work with the GSA Inspector General led to the shocking discovery that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy lied to Congress and met with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss the project, and there were pictures to prove it!
Census: One of Connolly’s first oversight priorities when Democrats won back the House was to ensure a fair Census. Partnering with Chairwoman Maloney, they beat back Wilbur Ross’s attempts to add a citizenship question, which threatened an accurate count of every community.
Schedule F: Connolly immediately identified Trump's Schedule F Executive Order as an effort to politicize our merit-based civil service and install MAGA Republicans in government. The House passed Connolly's bill to prevent such an order from ever being implemented, the Preventing a Patronage System Act, in this year's NDAA and as a standalone bill under a rule.
2020 Election Ascertainment:When Trump crony Emily Murphy failed to ascertain the winner of the 2020 presidential election, Connolly joined Reps. Pascrell and Titus in immediately condemning her actions and brought a national spotlight to this little-known requirement in the democratic transition of power.
Kids in Cages: Connolly fought the Trump Administration’s inhumane family separation policy and exposed the cruelty of former ICE Director Thomas Homan when he sought to defend the Administration. "You can talk all you want about whether the poor border control is overwhelmed. That makes no excuse for how we are treating children! If there's one basic value that ought to unite us as Democrats and Republicans—as Americans— it's how we treat children! Their children, our children, it doesn't matter."
I didn't believe what was happening to these children at first. I thought I was reading a horror story. Our children, their children -- it doesn't matter. ANY child within our care is our child.
— Rep. Gerry Connolly (@GerryConnolly) July 12, 2019
The Top Oversight Legislator in Congress
Rep. Connolly is the top legislator on the Oversight and Reform Committee, having passed the most standalone Oversight bills through the Committee and the full House over the course of the past three Congresses. Additionally, under his leadership as Chairman, the Subcommittee on Government Operations has moved more bills, conducted more hearings, and sent more oversight letters than any other Oversight and Reform subcommittee.
Oversight bills introduced in the 115th-117th Congress: 62
Oversight bills marked up or passed in the 115th-117th Congresses: 28
Oversight Hearings held in the 116th and 117th Congresses: 41
Oversight letters sent in the 116th and 117th Congresses: 1,042
An Experienced and Effective National Communicator
Rep. Connolly has garnered a reputation as an experienced and effective communicator for the Committee on Oversight and Reform. He has a proven record of using any medium —TV, print, digital — to cut through the noise of the Trump years and shine the national spotlight to an array of critical issues that otherwise could have fallen by the wayside — including Donald Trump's scheme to destroy the Postal Service, Trump's politicization of our merit-based civil service via executive fiat, and Trump's corrupt cancellation of the FBI HQ relocation in order to protect his DC hotel's bottom line.
Saving the Postal Service:
August 3, 2020 — MSNBC:
August 22, 2020 — CNN:
Stopping Trump's Politicization of the Civil Service:
August 30, 2022 — Washington Post Editorial
July 26, 2022 — OpEd by Rep. Connolly for the Washington Post
Trump Hotel and the FBI HQ Relocation:
Viral twitter thread exposing Donald Trump's shady Trump International Hotel dealings (700,000 views):
BREAKING: After 5 years of investigation, @RepMaloney and I have obtained evidence that Donald Trump hid debts, concealed millions in losses, and received millions more from Foreign Governments at Trump Hotel.
Viral twitter thread on Donald Trump's GSA Administrator, as she was refusing to ascertain the winner of the 2020 election, and her role in facilitating Trump's corrupt plan to cancel the FBI HQ relocation in order to protect Trump International Hotel's bottom line (5,000,000 views):
I’ve seen several recent stories in the press that seem to point to a coordinated attempt to portray @GSAEmily as some kind of unassuming, apolitical bureaucrat.
My subcommittee oversees GSA. I know Admin Murphy. She is a Trump loyalist, through and through.
