Say Anything Blog

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has delayed delivering documents to Congress explaining how a multibillion-dollar loophole exempting overseas work from scrutiny was slipped into a rule intended to crack down on fraud in government contracts.

A House panel will hear April 15 from White House and other administration officials about the loophole, which drew protests from Democrats and Republican lawmakers alike and been disavowed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

“If this loophole was a bureaucratic mistake as some in the administration have claimed, then our requests should be easy to meet,” Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said in a statement Monday. “This should be simple. Someone in the administration made this change and it should be easy to explain why. A delay only raises more questions.”