Report: U.S. Senator Calls for Gov. Haley Investigation

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin is calling for federal investigators to check into S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley's alleged meddling in the findings of a nonpartisan health care panel, according to this report in The State.

"Harkin cited a report last week from the (Charleston) Post and Courier that Haley told the South Carolina Health Planning Committee in an email that the committee was to figure out a way to opt out of a requirement in the new federal health care law requiring states to set up health insurance exchanges," the paper reported.

That committee had been established by Haley thanks to a $1 million federal grant designed to help states determine how to implement new health care reforms. The paper reports the state has so far spent $109.000 of that grant.

“It was certainly not the intent for those taxpayer funds to be distributed for a predetermined and meaningless outcome,” Harkin said in a news release. “Spending taxpayer funds to construct an ideologically-motivated façade not only violates Congress’s intent, but also the public’s trust in government.”

Harkin is calling on the feds to investigate whether Haley and the state met the grant's legal requirements and whether that money should be returned.