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As Cenk Uygur noted here, apparently the current Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wasn't doing much oversight of his own company. And as he noted, ironically this is the same man who once made the statement that "There will be a certain degree of gridlock as the president adjusts to the fact that he has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times."

Par for the course, Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds. Here's more from The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Company Issa founded underpaid tariffs:

The Vista car-alarm company once owned by Congressman Darrell Issa was paying about half the required tariffs on certain parts it imported from China for years and paid an estimated $2.5 million in back duties earlier this year to rectify the situation.

Issa no longer owns DEI Holdings Inc., although he is still on the board of the company, which is being sold to Boston-based Charlesbank Capital Partners for $285 million in cash.

In a prepared response to questions from The Watchdog, Issa said he was aware of the misclassifications and participated in efforts to resolve them.

“Once these issues came to the attention of the board of directors, we called for an independent review by expert counsel,” he wrote. “My understanding is the company has made appropriate tariff adjustments and disclosures both to Customs and our independent auditors.”

DEI said the classifications were corrected as quickly as possible when the problem was discovered early in 2010. In the first quarter of this year, the company reported the underpayments to Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency that enforces tariffs.

Former DEI executive Mike Wilhelm noted that the disclosure was made a year after the fact, and only after he filed a whistle-blower complaint with Customs on March 14 of this year.

“They weren’t going to do it unless I forced them to,” said Wilhelm, a DEI vice president who resigned over the issue in March after 10 years with the company. “Frankly, I became ashamed to work there.” Read on...

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I agree with Leo Gerard. This is at least a step in the right direction with our trade laws.

SCHULTZ: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW. Tomorrow, President Obama will head to Pittsburgh to speak to union leaders at the annual AFL-CIO conference. Labor is fired up. I was there last night, had a radio town hall meeting. They‘re expecting a lot from President Obama.

The union‘s got a big victory from the Obama White House over the weekend, when the president agreed to impose temporary tariffs on tires imported from China. Union leaders say cheap Chinese tires have cost American jobs and shut down plants, and putting an import tax on them will level the playing field for American workers.

Joining me now is Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers International. Mr. Gerard, good to have you with us tonight. How bold a move was this by President Obama to go ahead and uphold the U.S. International Trade Commission‘s ruling on this? This is something the Bush administration did not do. How bold is this in your opinion?

LEO GERARD, UNITED STEELWORKERS INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT: I think it was a very important step, very important move. In fact, this is the first time a president has brought meaning for sanctions against a foreign—a foreign country since Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan did it twice. So I‘m pleased that President Obama stepped in.

We believe that this is a rule-base country. We went to the International Trade Commission and said, China‘s breaking the rules. They agreed. Now President Obama‘s agreed. I‘m very pleased.

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