U.S. Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and Bill Huizenga (R-MI) are urging House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) to investigate recent changes to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).
In a letter to Waters, the two Republicans expressed concern over the removal of PCAOB Chair William Duhnke by a vote of 3-2 last June.
“Committee Republicans obtained documents and information that indicate SEC Chair Gary Gensler and Commissioner Allison Herren Lee may have orchestrated a purge of the Board for partisan purposes. Indeed, on November 8, 2021, Chair Gensler announced four handpicked replacements, despite unresolved concerns about the process by which Gensler and Lee created vacancies at the PCAOB in the first place,” McHenry, the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee, and Huizenga, the top Republican on the Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets, wrote to Waters.
The GOP lawmakers said that Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler had not been willing to provide information to the Committee voluntarily.
“On June 28, 2021, we issued letters to Chair Gensler and the Acting Chair of the PCAOB, Duane DesParte. You were copied on those letters. Committee Republicans requested specific documents and communications regarding the basis for the SEC’s decision to terminate Duhnke and replace the entire board. In response, the SEC provided a single document: a taxpayer-funded report prepared by Kalorama Legal Services (KLS) on PCAOB governance issues that had been withheld by the SEC since January 2021. The KLS report—which did not recommend the removal of Duhnke or any other Board member—raised more questions about how and why the SEC’s Democratic majority overhauled the PCAOB. The SEC subsequently advised our staff that the agency would not produce any further responsive documents,” they wrote.
They closed by asking Waters to join the investigation or delegate the authority to a subcommittee chairperson.