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Kurt Bardella’s Comback Complete

In July, we called the fired congressional staffer a potential comeback kid. Now, his comeback is complete.
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Kurt Bardella, left, with Republican California Representative Darrell Issa. Photograph courtesy Kurt Bardella

Just six months after being tossed from Capitol Hill in disgrace, controversial GOP press operative Kurt Bardella has been rehired by the very congressional committee that fired him.

The news that the House Commmittee on Oversight and Government Reform rehired Bardella was first reported by FishbowlDC’s Betsy Rothstein early Wednesday morning.

Bardella was an ambitious young press aide working for Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, before he was fired in March for leaking reporter emails to a New York Times reporter who was working on a book about Washington culture. The development precipitated a political media firestorm and sparked a debate about journalistic ethics in the digital age.

Bardella was the subject of a feature story in the July issue of The Washingtonian magazine.

During their time together, Bardella had a remarkably close relationship with Issa. Even after Bardella’s downfall, Issa left the door open to rehiring the young aide. “He always has a home with us,” Issa told The Washingtonian in July. Though Bardella himself wouldn’t comment on his rehire, he referred us to the committee.

“Kurt Bardella has accepted a position as a Professional Staff Member with the Oversight Committee,” committee spokesman Frederick R. Hill said in a statement Wednesday. “He will work under the committee’s General Counsel and not as a spokesman or taking media inquiries.”

The development completes Bardella’s remarkably quick comeback from Capital Hill pariah to congressional staffer.

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Senior Writer

Luke Mullins is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine focusing on the people and institutions that control the city’s levers of power. He has written about the Koch Brothers’ attempt to take over The Cato Institute, David Gregory’s ouster as moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, the collapse of Washington’s Metro system, and the conflict that split apart the founders of Politico.