Twitterview wrap: Issa calls on Rangel to leave chairmanship, skirts question on GOP’s future

ABC newsman George Stephanopoulos’s second-ever Twitterview has concluded, and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has called on Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) to resign from his leadership post.

While Issa tweeted candidly about the Countrywide loan scandal, he dodged a question posed by Stephanopoulos regarding Republican “fallout” in the wake of the Ensign and Sanford sex scandals.

On the Countrywide home loan scandal:

@darrellIssa Think he’s just resigning RGA, not governorship. You really think Rangel, Murtha and Dodd should resign?

@GStephanopoulos i certainly think there known failures in ethics and in the case of rangel – failure to adhere to tax law he now creates…

@GStephanopoulos …stepping down from leadership were always the first calls that speaker pelosi made and now ignores

@GStephanopoulos don’t you believe that one country, one congress and one standard should be the rule?

@GStephanopoulos he’s been making for decades – so my answer is yes. But he should only step down if there is an ongoing process by spkr

@GStephanopoulos he has the confidence of speaker and it is that confidence that has me not having confidence in the speaker

Issa clearly stated that he believes Rangel should step down as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He also expressed some doubt in House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s willingness to do so. Issa, however, did not say if Sens. John Murtha (D-Pa.) or Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) should abandon their leadership posts.

In contrast with Issa’s straightforward answers regarding Rangel, he did not Stephanopoulos’s question on the GOP’s future:

@darrellIssa Riveting and sad. Are you concerned in wake of Ensign story about fallout for your party?

Yesterday, Stephanopoulos seemed to indicate that he would “Twitterview” would focus on the stimulus and the war in Afghanistan. Instead, the questions keyed in on Issa’s leadership role on the Countrywide investigation and the fast developing Mark Sanford story.