GOP plans wave of White House probes and paralysis, should it win either house

If President Barack Obama needed any more incentive to go all out for Democrats this fall, here it is: Republicans are planning a wave of committee investigations targeting the White House and Democratic allies if they win back the majority.

Everything from the microscopic – the New Black Panther party – to the massive –- think bailouts – is on the GOP to-do list, according to a half-dozen Republican aides interviewed by POLITICO.

Republican staffers say there won’t be any self-destructive witch hunts – but they are clearly relishing the prospect of extracting information from an administration that touts transparency. 

And a handful of aggressive would-be committee chairmen – led by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) – are quietly gearing up for a possible season of subpoenas not seen since the Clinton wars of the late 1990s.

Issa would like Obama’s cooperation, says Kurt Bardella, spokesman for the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But it’s not essential.

“How acrimonious things get really depend on how willing the administration is in accepting our findings [and] responding to our questions,” adds Bardella, who refers to his boss as “Questioner-in-Chief.’

That’s feeding anxieties within the West Wing – even if administration officials won’t admit it publicly.

“I actually think it will be even worse than what happened to Bill Clinton, because of the animosity they already feel for President Obama,” says Lanny Davis, a deputy White House counsel who lived through Clinton’s trials.

With that in mind, here’s a list of six possible committee investigations if Republicans take back the House in November, culled from GOP aides, Democratic insiders and outside experts:

Sestak, Romanoff and Jobgate. Most of the Clinton-era investigations – from Whitewater to Vince Foster to the Lewinsky scandal — targeted the president personally.

Most potential GOP probes of Obama, by contrast, seem to be aimed at the administration’s periphery or policies – with the ironic exception of the one that revolves around – yep — Bill Clinton.

Issa has made no secret of his interest in getting to the bottom of muddled, mishandled White House attempts to force Democratic Senate candidates Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff from races in Pennsylvania and Colorado.

White Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina sent Romanoff an email with several potential non-Senate job possibilities; Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel enlisted Clinton to dangle the possibility of several unpaid executive branch appointments to Sestak in exchange for allowing Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter to run unopposed. Sestak said no – and trounced Specter.