Issa’s office says Fox Business report was wrong

Dylan Byers of Politico reports that Rep. Darrell Issa’s office has denied a Fox Business Network report stating that he wants to hold hearings about how the government collects unemployment data.

Byers writes, “The report that the House oversight committee chair is planning to hold hearings on the September jobs data was repeated several times Thursday on Fox Business Network, starting with FBN’s Peter Barnes saying that Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren asked Issa about the jobs numbers — on behalf of FBN — in an interview on Wednesday.

“‘Now Chairman Issa says he wants to have hearings on this,’ Barnes said Thursday.

“The show cut to a clip of Issa saying, ‘The way it’s being done, with the constant revision, the significant revision, tells us it’s not as exact a science as it needs to be and there’s got to be a better way to get those numbers or don’t put them out if they’re going to be wrong by as much as half a point.’

“Barnes then said,’“Greta asked him when he’d like to have these hearings, you know, in the next couple of months, the lame duck session of Congress we’ll see starting in mid-November, and he said, quote, ‘We very much intend to work every day through November and December to get these kinds of things done. We’re hoping this is a good non-partisan time,’ — he said he wants to do this on a non-partisan basis — and ‘this is an issue where I think our committee has important jurisdiction to make sure we get it right.’ So look for hearings at some point from Chairman Darrell Issa on this question.’

“Issa’s office told POLITICO Pro, however, that ‘at no point did he say he has made plans to convene a hearing on this subject.'”

Read more here.