Report: GOP asked ex-fugitive McAfee to testify on ObamaCare website

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce wanted to speak with John McAfee, the technology pioneer who last year fled a murder investigation in Belize, as part of their investigation into the flawed ObamaCare website, according to emails obtained by CNBC.

Sean Hayes, who serves as counsel for the committee, apparently reached out to Francois Garcia, an attorney for McAfee last week. 

“Given the failures of Healthcare.gov, and Mr. McAfee’s expertise, I was hoping he might be able to discuss his views with staff on the hill,” Hayes wrote, according to the CNBC emails. “It would be an informal discussion: we would take notes but these would not be for attribution, it would mainly guide our oversight and review of the program.”

{mosads}Hayes said the panel would ask McAfee about potential vulnerabilities in the website that could lead to the compromise of personal information or identity theft.

The committee aide later wrote McAfee to say that an in-person meeting was too logistically difficult, although he left open the possibility of a phone consultation. 

Soliciting McAfee to testify could raise eyebrows after the tech pioneer — who made millions off his eponymous anti-virus software — made international headlines last year following his neighbor’s murder.

In November 2012, Belize police identified McAfee as a “person of interest” after his neighbor, American expat Gregory Faull, was found dead of a gunshot wound. McAfee went on the lam, but posted frequently to his blog to describe how he was evading authorities in Belize. McAffee said he was afraid police in Belize would kill him.

The tech pioneer later sneaked across the border to Guatemala, where he was later discovered and arrested. After a failed attempt to seek political asylum, McAfee was returned to the United States. He has never been formally charged in connection to the murder investigation.

The ObamaCare website has been plagued by technical glitches since its launch at the beginning of the month, and on Monday, President Obama said the administration was undertaking a “tech surge” to fix its problems.

On Thursday, the Commerce Committee will hold hearings into those technological woes, with contractors involved in developing the website expected to testify.