Hundreds of people chanted “Do your job!” at the senior Republican legislator over his role in investigating Donald Trump.
People lined up to attend an open meeting with Jason Chaffetz, chair of the House Oversight Committee, over what they see as his failure to investigate President's business enterprises and the potential conflicts of interest they potentially create.
The Oversight Committee is responsible for investigating “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the federal government, giving Mr Chaffetz more power than anyone else to curb any possible effort by Mr Trump or his family to leverage the White House for personal gain.
More than a thousand people arrived at the meeting in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, to demand he do more.
"The town hall was scheduled to begin at 7pm, but by 5.15pm, people were already lined up around the building — many of them holding signs asking when Chaffetz will investigate the President Donald Trump's tax returns, or questioning the president's immigration policies," a local paper, the Daily Herald, reported. "When the doors opened at 6pm, the auditorium quickly filled nearly to its capacity of 1,080."
Mr Chaffetz has reportedly requested documents related to Mr Trump’s hotel in Washington DC, and on Thursday he called Kellyanne Conway “wrong, wrong, wrong” for publicly endorsing Ivanka Trump’s clothing label.
But critics have pointed out that in comparison Mr Chaffetz was relentless in his investigation of the executive branch under Barack Obama’s administration, particularly over Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi scandal, provoking anger at perceived double standards.
The Daily Herald reported: "Chaffetz was met with a round of booing from a rowdy crowd who also shouted down the fire marshal who informed the crowd that no more people would be let in to fill the few remaining seats in the back row.
"Multiple groups dissatisfied with Chaffetz's previous answers on issues like investigating Trump's possible conflicts of interests, the congressman's handling of public lands and his stance on abolishing the US Department of Education, had mobilised people on Facebook beforehand."
Videos of the meeting show people demanding Mr Chaffetz define his “line in the sand” for Mr Trump, and loudly booing Mr Chaffetz for saying he doesn’t believe Mr Trump should release his tax returns.
As recently as two weeks ago, Mr Chaffetz said he would not look to investigate Mr Trump’s business activities. In an interview after one meeting of the Oversight Committee, he said that he was “not interested in engaging in fishing expeditions” over Mr Trump.
“I’ll remind people that I never did a quote-unquote ‘investigation’ of Barack Obama when he was president,“ Mr Chaffetz told Vox. ”I am personally not diving into the individual roles of the family members. I haven’t done that with President Obama, and I have not done that with Donald Trump.“
