"I want indictments," Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, said to Miller. "That's a great way to get people's attention. Not a memo, not a report. An indictment."

Working for the government "is a sacred trust, which you have blown," Gowdy said to the GSA officials. He lamented the culture of waste and extravagance, saying of the team-building exercise that "I hate that you robbed yourself of the satisfaction of knowing what it feels like yourself instead of spending somebody else's money to do it."

The hearing included several harsh exchanges, including when Issa questioned Robertson, a former staffer for Obama in the Senate, about when he first told anyone in the White House of the investigation of GSA.

In a long back-and-forth, Issa tried to narrow Roberton's responses to a specific date and person.

"I communicated to the appropriate people," Robertson initially answered, then acknowledged he spoke to the White House as part of his regular dealings.

Asked when he first told anyone at the White House about the investigation, Robertson eventually said it was within a few weeks after GSA officials were first notified by the inspector general of a problem in May 2011.

Issa then asked who he told, and Robertson twice said it was an unnamed person in the White House counsel's office before Issa insisted: "What's the name?"

Only then did Robertson answer the person was Kim Harris.

White House salary disclosures for 2011 list a Kimberley D. Harris as a deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president.

Previously, a senior administration official told CNN that the White House was notified by GSA about the final inspector general's report shortly before it was released last month, more than nine months after Robertson said he told Harris about the ongoing investigation.

Issa acknowledged that over-the-top GSA spending existed during the preceding Bush administration, though he disputes figures released by Obama officials that show a 102% increase from 2006 to 2008. However, information provided by his staff on Monday showed the increase from 2006 to 2008 approached that figure.

"Wasteful spending is a problem that transcends multiple administrations," he said, adding that it was up to the current administration to halt it now.