Issa might have the power to compel such an interview but
Pickering has the ability to control the communication. He should request that
the interview be taped, or at least transcribed verbatim, that he receive an
unedited and untouched copy of the recording, and that he would insist upon the
right to use the information in that recording as he sees fit in insuring that
his views and statements are properly and accurately represented by any
individual who makes claims related to them. There are many advantages to this
for Pickering, some obvious and some not so. On the obvious side would be his
ability to clarify any representation made that is either factually inaccurate
or lacking in sustentative intellectual comprehensive skills on the part of an
individual who could not understand his testimony. In another context, it would
permit him to assess such incongruous interpretations as indicative of someone
who is either duplicitous or less than intellectually up to the task required
or expected of a representative of the people.
On the less obvious side, the recorded testimony would
become an ideal tool to be used by Pickering in conducting his public hearing
testimony, assuming that after the closed-door interview the public hearings
were not deferred or cancelled. That possibility of the public hearings being postponed
for the equivalent of an infinite amount of time would then permit Pickering to
conduct the equivalent of a public hearing independent of the Congressional
committee.
Now Issa and the Committee may not agree to the recording of
the closed-door proceedings, granting those recording an official status; but
there are recourses to that also. You just need to be flexible and creative.
Rather than viewing Issa’s committee demands for a
closed-door hearing, Pickering should be welcoming it. People are to often
assessing situations in a much narrower context than they should. When the
conditions are not to your satisfaction, that is the time when you need to step
back and expand the strategies and tactics that you employ in dealing with the
problem facing you. When you see people testifying before Congress, more often
than not, they are of the opinion that Congress holds all the power in those
situations. For that statement to be true, Congress would also have to be better
informed, more knowledgeable and smarter than the people being questioned.
Statistically speaking you would assume that that should only be true about
half the time; and with our familiarity with Congress I think that most people
would probably assess that that would be true less than ten-percent of the
time.
