WASHINGTON — Rep. Darrell Issa said Tuesday that he has fired his deputy communications director after learning the aide shared reporter e-mail correspondence with another journalist.
The California Republican, who chairs the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and is the House GOP’s chief investigator, said he fired Kurt Bardella because his sharing of reporter e-mails with New York Times journalist Mark Leibovich was “a basic breach of trust with the reporters it was his job to assist.”
Issa said Bardella received permission from his supervisors to participate in a book project with Leibovich but that no one in his office was aware, until the committee was contacted Friday by the publication Politico, that it entailed sharing e-mails.
He said an initial review found no evidence that Bardella had provided Leibovich internal committee or congressional documents or conversations.
He said Bardella, 27, had explained to him that he saw his participation in Leibovich’s book “as an opportunity to contribute a narrative about what a press secretary does on Capitol Hill and was not about offering salacious details designed to settle scores or embarrass anyone.”
Issa said, “It’s very clear that he had a mistake in judgment, thinking that his cooperating with a book somehow didn’t follow all the same standards that should have been followed in all cases.”
