[18][19] Max Chaffetz was the brother of Hammond E. Chaffetz, who pioneered federal antitrust prosecution policies later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., before building Kirkland & Ellis into one of the most powerful law firms in the United States, as well as the second cousin of Washington, D.C. real estate developer and philanthropist Morris Cafritz.

[43] Chaffetz has also served as a member of the Highland City planning commission and as chairman for the Utah National Guard adjutant general review.

On January 1, 2007, before the 110th Congress was sworn in, Jason Chaffetz announced that he was "testing the waters" for a Congressional run against six-term incumbent Chris Cannon, for the Republican nomination in the 3rd District.

[47] A March 2008 Deseret News/KSL TV poll by Dan Jones & Associates released two days before the party caucuses showed Chaffetz with 4% support.

[83] On April 19, 2017, Chaffetz abruptly announced that he would neither seek reelection to the United States House of Representatives nor run for any other elected office in 2018.

His first book, The Deep State: How an Army of Bureaucrats Protected Barack Obama and Is Working to Destroy the Trump Agenda was published in September 2018 and became a New York Times bestseller.

"[101][102][103] Chaffetz's statement was rejected by Mayor Bowser, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, and D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who stated that I-71 was the law and implemented it as scheduled.

[102][103] In 2017, Chaffetz stated that he planned to seek a congressional vote to overturn D.C. legislation allowing terminally ill individuals to end their life.

[115][116][117] Chaffetz has opposed federal protection for Utah's resident greater-sage grouse, a bird whose population has shrunk from 16 million 100 years ago to about 200,000 today.

In 2007, a court ruled that political tampering by Julie A. MacDonald, then-deputy assistant secretary for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, had "tainted" the bird's assessment, and a new review was ordered.

[108][119] Chaffetz criticized the surge of 30,000 troops President Obama authorized for the war in Afghanistan, saying that the United States does not have a clear policy or exit strategy.

There was a very conscious decision made, I believe—my personal opinion is that they wanted the appearance of 'normalization' there in Libya and building up of an infrastructure, putting up barbed wire on our facility would lead to the wrong impression.

In his freshman year, in what critics have described as political grandstanding, he accused TSA agents at his hometown airport in Salt Lake City of unfairly targeting him to pass through a full-body scanning machine—a device Chaffetz believes is invasive.

[128] In 2014 and 2015, Chaffetz headed congressional hearings into United States Secret Service security failures in response to incidents at the time including a White House fence jumper, a CDC security guard being armed while riding an elevator with President Barack Obama, and agents crashing a car into a White House barricade.

[129] In a hearing on March 24, 2015, Chaffetz accused Joseph Clancy, then-director of the Secret Service, of "keeping Congress and the American public in the dark" by not allowing witnesses to testify regarding the car crash.

[131] The OPM director Katherine Archuleta faced criticism at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the wake of the revelation of the Office of Personnel Management data breach.

[132] Regarding Jakelin Caal Maquin, a seven-year-old girl who died in the custody of US Border Patrol on December 8, 2018, Chaffetz said on Fox News: "That should be the message, don't make this journey, it will kill you.

"[133] Beginning with his time as a Dublin, California city councilor, Eric Swalwell was targeted by a Chinese woman believed to be a clandestine officer of China's Ministry of State Security.

[105] After the District of Columbia legalized same-sex marriage in 2009, Chaffetz led the charge in attempts to overturn the decision taken by mayor of DC.

[105] On the one-month anniversary of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Chaffetz chaired committee hearings on the First Amendment Defense Act, which would prevent the government from taking discriminatory action against people from taxpayer-funded entities and would protect tax exemption status of parochial organizations if they refused service to LGBT individuals on the basis of their religious beliefs.

[136][137] The American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign, the NAACP and Planned Parenthood Federation of America were among those who criticized him for it.

[136] Chaffetz opposes net neutrality, the principle that Internet service providers should not be allowed to discriminate or charge differentially by user, content, website or platform.

[138] In March 2015, he held hearings as to whether the Obama administration had secretly influenced the Federal Communications Commission when it adopted rules to ensure net neutrality.

[141] Experts in data presentation said this was an egregious example of using a chart to mislead; Alberto Cairo of the University of Miami, an expert in visual communication, said it was a "damn lie,"[141] and Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics and political science, and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University, described the graph as a "truly immoral bit of graphical manipulation.

[144][145][146][147] Upon hearing that Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, Chaffetz said he had "lost all respect for the award" and that "it used to be one of distinction, but [now] it is hard to give it any credibility.

"[150] The Washington Post quoted Chaffetz as saying that he couldn't look his 15-year-old daughter in the eye and talk about what the GOP presidential nominee said, "It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine.

[155][156] Chaffetz has said that Trump's global financial ties don't merit a congressional investigation: "It's interesting, because under Section 208 of the criminal code, the president is exempt from almost every conflict-of-interest [law] ...

"[156] Chaffetz also declined to investigate the circumstances surrounding the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who stepped down amid controversy over his communications with the Russian government before Trump took office.

[157] Some commentators criticized Chaffetz's perceived lack of interest in Trump administration oversight, especially in light of Chaffetz's zealous investigation of items such as the CDC's use of the Sid the Science Kid cartoon character as part of an anti-Zika virus campaign[158] and a December 2016 tweet from Bryce Canyon National Park welcoming the designation of a new national monument.

[160] A January 2017 poll by The Salt Lake Tribune and Hinckley Institute of Politics found that 65% of registered Utah voters supported a probe into Trump's conflicts of interest, compared to just 31% opposed.