[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSEEING THE OVERSEERS:
COUNCIL OF THE INSPECTORS GENERAL
ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY @ 10 YEARS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 18, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-61
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov
http://www.oversight.house.gov or
http://www.docs.house.gov
___________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-973 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York Jim Jordan, Ohio, Ranking Minority
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Member
Columbia Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Jamie Raskin, Maryland James Comer, Kentucky
Harley Rouda, California Michael Cloud, Texas
Katie Hill, California Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Ralph Norman, South Carolina
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Peter Welch, Vermont Chip Roy, Texas
Jackie Speier, California Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Mark DeSaulnier, California Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands Frank Keller, Pennsylvania
Ro Khanna, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
David Rapallo, Staff Director
Wendy Ginsberg, Subcommittee Staff Director
Joshua Zucker, Assistant Clerk
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on Government Operations
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia, Chairman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Mark Meadows, North Carolina,
Columbia, Ranking Minority Member
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Jackie Speier, California Jody Hice, Georgia
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands James Comer, Kentucky
Ro Khanna, California Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachsetts W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Jamie Raskin, Maryland
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 18, 2019............................... 1
Witnesses
Michael A. Horowitz, Inspector General, Department of Justice,
Chairman, Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and
Efficiency
Oral Statement................................................... 6
Kathy A. Buller, Inspector General, Peace Corps, Executive
Director, Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and
Efficiency Legislation Committee
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Scott Dahl, Inspector General, Department of Labor, Chairman,
Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency
Oral Statement................................................... 9
Written opening statements and witnesses' written statements are
available at the U.S. House of Representatives Repository:
https://docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
The documents listed below, and pending responses, will be
available at: https://docs.house.gov.
* Questions for the Record from Chairman Connolly to the
Honorable Scott Dahl, Inspector General at the U.S. Department
of Labor, and responses.
* Questions for the Record from Chairman Connolly to Ms. Kathy
A. Buller, Inspector General at the Peace Corps, and responses.
* Questions for the Record from Chairman Connolly, Ranking
Member Meadows, and Rep. Massie to the Honorable Michael E.
Horowitz, Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Justice.
OVERSEEING THE OVERSEERS:
COUNCIL OF THE INSPECTORS GENERAL
ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY @ 10 YEARS
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Subcommittee on Government Operations
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:01 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Gerrald Connolly,
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Connolly, Norton, Plaskett,
Khanna, Raskin, Meadows, Massie, Hice, Grothman, Norman,
Steube, and Jordan.
Mr. Connolly. Good morning. Thank you, and welcome to our
hearing on ``Overseeing the Overseers: The Council of
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.''
Among the most important and misunderstood jobs in our
Federal Government is that of Federal inspectors general. These
unique Federal employees straddle the executive and legislative
branches and serve as critical components of effective
oversight.
IGs, better known by the public as Federal watchdogs, help
Congress uncover waste, fraud, and abuse at Federal agencies
and they help agencies to find efficiencies that can improve
service to the American public.
IGs have served in this sometimes unpopular role for more
than 40 years. In Fiscal Year 2017 alone, the IGs identified
$32.7 billion in potential savings across the Federal
Government as documented in the nearly 4,000 reports released.
IGs have also recovered $21.9 billion from settlements and
civil judgments resulting from nearly 22,000 investigations.
For American taxpayers that means that for every dollar we
invest to fund these offices we can expect a $22 return.
And IGs do more than save the Federal Government money.
They improve agency safety, call balls and strikes on agencies
that fail to follow established and fair processes and
procedures, and they perform work that has the potential to
save lives like the Agency for International Development and
its work examining the lessons learned from the agency's Ebola
response efforts.
Today's hearing examines the role of the Council of
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, and the role it
plays in continuously improving the IG community.
This interagency IG council, known as CIGIE, serves as a
hub of oversight professionalization and information sharing
across the IG community.
Eleven years ago, Congress established CIGIE by merging a
council for the smaller IGs and one for the larger IGs, and
CIGIE began operations in 2009, making this CIGIE's 10-year
anniversary.
The progress CIGIE has made over the last decade is
commendable. CIGIE has tapped talented work forces to create
oversight.gov, a one-stop shop for all reports issued by any of
the 74 Offices of Inspector General.
This online tool allows the public and Congress to look
across agency boundaries and identify top management challenges
across the government.
This tool also allows for real-time identification of
issues that plague the Federal Government and give us, as
Congress, a chance to generate enterprise solutions.
We are here today to find ways to help CIGIE build on these
successes and examine ways to further explore efficient
community wide solutions that increase the independence of the
IG community.
After all, the community whose mission is to find
efficiencies across government should challenge itself to find
those same opportunities at home. I believe that CIGIE's
leadership can advance these goals.
Most importantly, this hearing will probe whether CIGIE is
effectively performing its most important function--watching
the watchdogs.
The unique nature of the IG position makes oversight of the
IGs complicated but essential. Currently, the Integrity
Committee, which operates within CIGIE, is charged with
investigating allegations of wrongdoing against IG officials.
The Integrity Committee has at times operated without
transparency, which is in contrast with the values of the IG
community itself, whose greatest strength is sunlight.
I often say that IGs, the overseers of agencies, need to be
as pure as driven snow because if they are not all of their
work is tainted, and that is critical.
The IG has to be respected by both sides of the aisle, by
both bodies here in Congress, and by, more importantly, the
public.
I have also got particularly concerns about Offices of
Inspectors General who share their IT service with agencies
that they oversee.
Congress deliberately created the IGs 40 years ago to be
independent from the agencies they oversee. While we trust
agencies would never inappropriately access investigative
materials created by their IGs, I am concerned that even the
appearance of potential impropriety is a risk to IG
independence.
I think CIGIE has been working in this area and could play
a pivotal role in finding a collaborative cross-community
solution to the problem.
I also believe that CIGIE needs to be more transparent. I
have had my own personal experience several years ago and was
left far from being satisfied.
When two members of the committee filed a complaint, we
witnessed the process firsthand and it was a dismissive
process. It was not a transparent process and it raised real
concerns.
And I know, Mr. Horowitz, you and I met about that at the
time and I know that you were not unsympathetic to the concerns
raised and I am eager to hear what progress we are making and
need to make as we proceed.
In celebrating 10 years of CIGIE, we should also examine
CIGIE's role in filling IG vacancies by helping the president,
agency heads, and Congress to find qualified candidates for
vacant IG positions.
Today, we will examine whether those responsibilities need
clarification or reinforcement. Too often administrations do
not understand the role of the inspector general and attempt to
infuse politics into the selection process for a new IG, or
worse, and again, that taints the process and compromises the
integrity of the IG.
Finally, this hearing will examine recent transparency
measures CIGIE and its Integrity Committee have adopted in its
periodic reporting and explore options for codifying these
reforms.
We seek to ensure that the watchdog's watchdog remains
above reproach by increasing the transparency and access to the
Integrity Committee operations.
And with that, I call upon the distinguished ranking member
for his opening statement.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you
for the work that you do.
When I came to Washington, DC, I wanted to make sure that
government was accountable not only to the constituents of mine
in North Carolina but to all of America, and it is the
hardworking American taxpayers' dollars that we have to make
sure that we protect and, certainly, the Offices of the
Inspectors General play a critical role in doing just that.
As I came to Congress, I didn't know what an inspector
general was and now I have come to learn that it is the
frontline defense on making sure that waste, fraud, and abuse
are not pervasive within our Federal Government.
Your independence is key and, certainly, our Councils of
Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency, also known as
CIGIE--we work in acronyms around here--are crucial to help
providing the IGs with their support for that mission.
And, Mr. Horowitz, let me just say that, you know, your
name probably gets invoked more by both sides of the aisle than
you would care and it is not normally in your CIGIE role that
it does that.
But I appreciate you being here and, certainly, all of you
in the role. Some of you, this is not your first rodeo on being
here. In fact, I don't think it is your first rodeo for any of
you here today.
And no matter how partisan this committee gets--no matter
how partisan it gets, I am confident that we can all agree that
your role in the roles of the inspectors generals' mission is
more important than ever.
We must make sure that the inspector generals have the
statutory authorities, the resources necessary to fully carry
out their investigations, their audits, their reviews,
allegations of misconduct.
And there are often times when at a subcommittee level or
the full committee level where I find that the chairman and I
are looking at those recommendations that the IGs make and
whether an administration, whether it is under the previous
administration--under the Obama Administration or under the
Trump administration, whether they are actually acting
appropriately.
And so you are critical in that role and so as we look at
this on this 10th anniversary of the creation of CIGIE I think
the CIGIE's mission transcends individual government agencies.
It is all about making sure that you have the tools. I, for
one, as a fiscal conservative hate to spend money on just about
anything that does not provide a return.
You don't have to say amen, and so but on this particular
thing, making sure that you are well funded and that you have
the tools, there is not a dime's worth of difference between
the chairman and I in terms of making sure that you are well
equipped.
It is crucial that we work together to examine the systems
that would actually provide real IG reform and just as recent,
I think, as yesterday the chairman and I were working together
on a piece of legislation that actually goes a little bit
further in making sure that that independence is truly there
and that we have objective oversight.
I want to thank all of our witnesses being here today. I
want to regress just a little bit. I need to make--mention
something that the chairman and I have talked about.
It has been a longstanding committee policy that we allow
minority witnesses and, in fact, the House rules provide for
those. And, Mr. Chairman, we asked for the inspector general
for WMATA, of which we have had a number of hearings, to be
here.
And for that particular inspector general, who is not a
member of CIGIE but also is something that we need to examine
in terms of the tools that they have to do what truly is
important because WMATA--we have had a number of hearings where
deaths and injuries have been reported where it has been
critical to this committee and for us to not be in a position
to have that inspector general here is certainly something that
we don't agree with.
We would encourage us working in a bipartisan manner as we
go forward to, hopefully, highlight that important testimony
that needs to come forward.
And I yield back.
Mr. Connolly. I thank my friend and I thank him for how he
has approached that issue.
Let me just assure my friend--and, apparently, there was
some miscommunication--I would never knowingly deny my friend
or anyone on this side of the aisle their right to have a
minority witness.
That happened to us and I know how it felt. So I would
never knowingly do that. I, honestly--I honestly felt that this
hearing was about Federal IGs. The Metro IG is not a Federal
official, and this was about CIGIE, and by not being a member--
a Federal official neither is he a member of CIGIE.
And I--so I saw this as sort of a good government, fairly
narrow in scope kind of hearing. Important, but narrow in
scope.
And as my friend knows, we have the Metro IG scheduled as a
witness on a hearing dedicated to Metro on October 22 and I
felt that, plus the request of the IG of Metro to look into the
matter of Mr. Evans and the ethical questions that have been
raised by documents made available both to the minority and the
majority that we had--we had met the concerns you raised.
And so as we move forward, I hope you and I can make sure
that our lines of communication are what they need to be so
that we don't have a misunderstanding.
But I want to assure my friend there was no intent by this
chairman or by our side of the aisle to deny the minority its
rights and I absolutely am committed to those rights because I
remember another former chairman, Mr. Issa, being denied those
rights, in effect, and it didn't feel good and I would never
inflict it on my friend or members of the minority.
So with that assurance, we will move forward and do better.
The distinguished ranking member of the full committee is
with us. Mr. Jordan, did you have anything you wanted to say?
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just associate myself with the remarks from the ranking
member and the remarks from--opening statement from the
chairman and I appreciate the chairman's statement relative to
the witness issue that was raised.
But mostly I want to thank the witnesses who are here today
for the good work they do and for taking the time to appear
before us today and I look forward to asking questions a little
later.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Jordan.
And now let me introduce our three witnesses. We are joined
by Michael Horowitz, who is the inspector general of the
Department of Justice.
He has appeared before this committee in the past and is a
great example, I think, of why integrity and transparency are
so important because he has had some very difficult assignments
and has been well received by both sides of the aisle despite
the politically charged nature of some of those assignments,
and that is because you were trusted on both sides and I think
that trust is just critical for the effectiveness of your job.
And he also serves as the chairman of the Council of
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, relevant to
today's topic.
Kathy Buller is the inspector general of the Peace Corps
and we are delighted to have you. She is also the executive
chair of the Council of CIGIE Legislative Committee. Welcome.
And Scott Dahl is the inspector general of the Department
of Labor. He is chairman of the CIGIE Integrity Committee, an
important committee for CIGIE.
If all three of you would rise and raise your right hands.
It is our tradition to swear in our witnesses.
[Witnesses were sworn.]
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Let the record show the witnesses
have answered in the affirmative, and as we begin, without
objection I want to assure you that your full written statement
will be made part of the full record and we would ask you to
summarize your testimony in a five-minute timeframe.
And we will begin with you, Mr. Horowitz. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HOROWITZ, INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE, ON BEHALF OF CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL OF THE INSPECTORS
GENERAL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY
Mr. Horowitz. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman Connolly, Ranking Member Meadows,
members of the subcommittee. Appreciate the invitation to
testify today.
Inspectors general play a critical role in keeping the
public informed about how their government operates and in
ensuring that taxpayer money is used effectively and
efficiently.
The chair recognized the tens of millions of dollars--tens
of billions of dollars in potential savings that IGs identify
each year and the strong return on investment we provide to the
taxpayers.
As you noted, we call balls and strikes and the facts as
they are, whether popular or unpopular. I can tell you it is
mostly unpopular.
But as I like to say as a graduate of Brandeis University,
quoting former Justice Brandeis, ``Sunlight is the best
disinfectant,'' and we find that, as inspectors general.
The Council of Inspectors General, or CIGIE, which I chair
and which Congress created 10 years ago, has played an
important role in assisting IGs in these oversight efforts.
CIGIE has fulfilled its mission by vigorously advocating
for IG independence, which is a perpetual challenge for us in
the IG community, developing top tier training academies,
creating quality standards for our work, performing regular
peer reviews, conducing cross-cutting reviews on issues that
affect multiple Federal agencies, and implementing a system of
effective oversight of alleged misconduct within the IG
community since we assumed responsibility for it from the FBI
in 2017.
I know we have talked before, as you noted, Mr. Chairman,
about this issue and we are certainly committed to continuing
to work with you and the ranking member on the legislation you
have introduced to figure and think about how we can further
transparency efforts.
In addition, as you noted, in October 2017, we launched
oversight.gov where the public can go to see all of our work in
one place. They can also follow us and follow oversight.gov on
Twitter at #oversight.gov.
By signing up they will learn when new reports are issued
across the IG community. We are proud that over 20,000
followers now on that--on oversight.gov and CIGIE, which is
more than all but three of the 70 Federal IGs, in just two
years. So it has proven to be very popular, way to get our
information out to the public.
And thanks to the funding provided by Congress we have
several initiatives underway to try and enhance oversight.gov
including an open recommendations data base and a website
service for IGs to try and help them gain greater independence
from their organizations.
We also, earlier this summer, launched a first-ever
whistleblower website as part of oversight.gov in furtherance
of that effort.
We have done all of this at CIGIE with all of 23 employees,
including detailees. That is the total work force at CIGIE to
deal with training, to deal with all of the other related work
that we are statutorily told to do including Integrity
Committee operations.
We have done this, but we need a better funding mechanism
because right now the way CIGIE is funded is through the
voluntary contributions of 73 member organizations, which means
we don't know what money and funding we are getting until all
73 of them go through the congressional appropriations process
for those that are appropriate through Congress, which, as you
know, is a tedious laborious process that isn't necessarily
resolved by October 1 of each fiscal year.
That is a challenge for us and something we look forward to
talking about with this committee and thinking about how we can
improve our future operations in that regard.
We also have concerns about the impact on IG oversight when
shutdowns occur. During shutdowns, OIG auditors are generally
furloughed.
But what happens with already ordered grants and contracts,
that work continues and so you have situations where tens or
hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal funding is out
there, continuing to be used but with no OIG oversight during a
shutdown period.
We also have IG vacancy issues. There are currently 12 of
the 73 IG positions vacant. As you noted, those need to be
filled and we need those nominations that need to occur to
happen promptly.
We have several legislative priorities that my colleague,
IG Buller, will talk about, one of them being testimonial
subpoena authority.
A challenge we have regularly faced is getting witnesses
who are no longer at the Justice Department to speak to us
including in whistleblower retaliation and sexual misconduct
cases.
Finally, I just want to thank this committee for passing
legislation that would allow my office to investigate alleged
misconduct by department attorneys when they act as lawyers in
that capacity.
Earlier this year, thanks to this committee's efforts, the
House passed the Inspector General Access Act, co-sponsored by
Chairman Cummings, Congressman Richmond, Congressman Hice, and
Congressman Lynch, and hopefully, that will be given swift
consideration in the Senate.
That--I thank you again for your support for our work and
look forward to answering your questions.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Horowitz.
Ms. Buller?
STATEMENT OF KATHY BULLER, INSPECTOR GENERAL, PEACE CORPS, ON
BEHALF OF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COUNCIL OF THE INSPECTORS GENERAL
ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Ms. Buller. Chairman Connolly, Ranking Member Meadows, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to appear before you today to discuss the work that
CIGIE and inspectors general do to promote integrity and
efficiency.
As both the inspector general for the Peace Corps and the
chair of the CIGIE legislation committee, my testimony
underscores how our community has provided effective oversight
of the Federal Government not only through our work as
individual IGs but also through our shared efforts at CIGIE.
For more than 40 years, IGs have held Federal agencies
accountable and helped Congress make informed decisions. In my
33 years in the IG community, we have transformed from a loose
grouping of IGs into an oversight community that coordinates
work, shares resources and guidance, and collectively provides
better oversight.
I was appointed as IG just months before CIGIE was
established. As a new IG, I benefited from having CIGIE as a
resource. In turn, as Legislation Committee chair, I am proud
to further CIGIE's capacity to support the IG community.
Since 2009, the Legislation Committee has typified one of
CIGIE's roles in the community. Each IG has its own
relationship with Congress.
However, on community wide issues, we are more effective
when we speak with one voice and better achieve one of CIGIE's
core missions to address integrity, economy, and effectiveness
issues that transcend individual government agencies.
For example, the IG community came together to help
Congress pass the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016.
The Act restored inspector general access to all agency
records, addressing the most significant threat IGs faced to
our ability to provide independent oversight.
The Legislation Committee continues to advise Congress on
future reforms that would benefit government oversight or
address common challenges facing IGs.
Each Congress we issue legislative priorities, our top
reform proposals to strengthen government oversight or resolve
challenges that IGs face under current law.
While I have outlined our legislative priorities in my
written remarks, the three priorities I would like to highlight
are testimonial subpoena authority, reforming the Program Fraud
Civil Remedies Act, or PFCRA, and protecting IG security
vulnerability information.
First, the inability to compel the testimony of critical
witnesses can significantly hamper oversight. For example, if a
Federal employee under investigation for misconduct or
whistleblower retaliation resigns, most IGs would lack any
authority to require the now former Federal employee to
cooperate with the investigation.
Testimonial subpoena authority would help IGs answer
critical questions that would otherwise go unanswered and hold
bad actors accountable.
The House unanimously supported testimonial subpoena
authority for IGs during the last two Congresses and the
initiative has received bipartisan support in the Senate.
We look forward to further engaging on this issue and hope
for continued bipartisan support.
Second, PFCRA's well-studied flaws have prevented agencies
from holding small-dollar fraudsters accountable. Known as the
Many False Claims Act, PFCRA has been underused for more than
30 years.
Its cumbersome ambiguous requirements place unnecessary
hurdles on agencies trying to recover from small-dollar fraud
or false claims.
For example, the dollar threshold set in 1986 should be
increased and agencies should be allowed to retain the
defrauded funds they lost.
Several straightforward changes to PFCRA would make it the
viable tool it was intended to be.
Third, we need to strengthen protection over IT
vulnerability information under FOIA. Agencies and IGs study
Federal IT systems and produce detailed reports identifying
exploitable weaknesses.
Malicious entities could use that information to infiltrate
and harm government IT systems. While FOIA protects classified
and law enforcement information, no single exemption covers all
IT security vulnerability information.
A focused narrowly tailored exemption would protect
information that hackers could use to harm Federal IT systems.
Finally, I would like to thank the members and staff of
this subcommittee and the full committee for supporting the IG
community.
In particular, two of our priorities were recently
addressed in legislation that would protect employees of
subgrantees from whistleblower retaliation and to ensure IG
independence by requiring congressional notification when an IG
is placed on non-duty status.
We look forward to continuing to be an important resource
to you as you pursue your oversight and legislative work. I
would be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dahl?
STATEMENT OF SCOTT DAHL, INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF
LABOR, ON BEHALF OF CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL OF THE INSPECTORS GENERAL
ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY
Mr. Dahl. Quis custodiet ipsos custodies, a Latin phrase
that, roughly, translates to ``Who will watch the watchers,''
or as the chairman framed it, ``Who will watch the watchdogs.''
This timeless question was answered for the inspectors
general as government watchdogs decades ago with the creation
of the Integrity Committee, which investigates IGs for
wrongdoing.
I want to thank the subcommittee for calling this hearing
and, in particular, the chairman for his abiding interest in
protecting this central value of integrity in our community.
Indeed, integrity is in CIGIE's name. The Integrity
Committee under CIGIE has worked to improve transparency in our
processes and accountability in the IG community.
But we recognize that more needs to be done. We know that
we must vigilantly attend to these important issues to maintain
the credibility with our stakeholders, as the chairman noted.
The purpose of the Integrity Committee is to serve as an
independent and objective body to evaluate and investigate
allegations of wrongdoing by IGs, designated senior OIG
officials, and top officials of the Office of Special Council.
The Empowerment Act of 2016 transferred IC's leadership and
program responsibilities from the FBI to CIGIE. As the elected
committee chair, I have had the responsibility with the
committee of managing this transition, including, for example,
enacting new procedures directed at improving accountability
and timeliness and transparency.
We have worked to increase transparency by scheduling
meetings with Members of Congress and their staff to go over
our work and providing greater detail in our 30-day status
letters and annual reports to Congress.
We have also improved transparency with other stakeholders,
including the public, through a more interactive and
informative website that makes it easier for the public to
submit complaints about IGs.
And we have also conducted multiple training sessions with
IGs on our--on our policies and procedures. But even with these
improvements, the committee acknowledges that additional
progress needs to be made on transparency.
At the same time, we must assiduously adhere to our
statutory obligation to protect the identity of confidential
complainants, witnesses, and whistleblowers.
We and Congress rely on these individuals for vital
information and we do not want to discourage them from bringing
their allegations forward.
Beyond the Integrity Committee, individual IGs--we have the
responsibility of promoting accountability and transparency in
our larger departments and I want to briefly highlight an
effort that we have recently made in my office to further
accountability at the Department of Labor.
In July, we launched the OIG recommendation dashboard on
our website to highlight the recommendations that have not been
implemented by the department, some dating back several years.
We followed the lead of the Department of Transportation
OIG and others in developing this dashboard. DOL leadership has
embraced this new tool and the dashboard has substantially
improved accountability.
Indeed, since alerting DOL leadership about the dashboard,
DOL agencies have reduced the number of unimplemented
recommendations by 44 percent.
Mr. Chairman, stakeholders look to the Integrity Committee
to provide fair, timely, and impartial disposition of the
allegations against senior OIG officials.
We will continue to work with this subcommittee and other
committees in Congress to strengthen the integrity of the IG
community and to improve our processes to be more timely and
transparent.
I want to publicly thank my fellow committee members for
their dedicated service and for the substantial time they
devote to this--these important work, and I thank you for the
opportunity to testify.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Dahl, and we thank you all for
your testimony.
I am going to call on the gentleman from California, Mr.
Khanna. I know you have got another commitment so why don't you
go first with your five-minute question?
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
convening this hearing.
Mr. Horowitz, as you know, the Whistleblower Protection Act
does not cover whistleblowers in the intelligence community.
There is a separate law, the Intelligence Community
Whistleblower Protection Act, that allows whistleblowers to
disclose information to the inspector general for the
intelligence community. Is that correct?
Mr. Horowitz. Yes.
Mr. Khanna. And this law is critical because it provides a
protected channel for whistleblowers in the intelligence
community to expose unlawful behavior, waste, fraud, or abuse
even if it involves classified information.
Is that correct?
Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
Mr. Khanna. And in the past, administrations have always
complied with sending this information of the complaint over to
Congress. Some of them have not made a determination to send
over classified information.
But is it correct that in the past every administration
has, within seven days, transferred the complaint itself to
Congress?
Mr. Horowitz. I couldn't speak to every single instance. We
have had one and in that instance it went forward per the
statutory requirements.
Mr. Khanna. Is it true that you could forward the complaint
to Congress without disclosing classified information per the
statute?
Mr. Horowitz. Depending on the facts you could. It depends
on the situation.
Mr. Khanna. You could redact anything--you certainly could
redact anything that was classified and put the----
Mr. Horowitz. In theory, yes.
Mr. Khanna [continuing]. complaint forward. And is it your
understanding that the law requires the Director of National
Intelligence to forward this information to Congress within
seven days?
Mr. Horowitz. It is my understanding that the leader that
gets the report--in my case, it would be the attorney general
is required to send it. In the DNI circumstance, it would be
the DNI.
Mr. Khanna. And do you understand the word ``shall'' in the
statute going back to Marbury v. Madison as requiring--meaning,
``shall'' means ``must?'' Is that correct?
Mr. Horowitz. As a general rule, when I look at a statute
if I see ``shall'' I understand that to be ``must.''
Mr. Khanna. Why is it important that inspector generals
have the ability to make independent decisions about
whistleblower complaints and have that authority?
Mr. Horowitz. Well, there are a slew of reasons. But that
is one of the reasons why we have created this website for
whistleblowers.
They provide us with critical information and in the
intelligence world they need to go through proper channels
because of the classified information and the statute provides
that proper channel.
Mr. Khanna. And why is it important in the intelligence
community whistleblowers that they have a protected process to
disclose information to both the inspector general and
Congress?
Mr. Horowitz. Precisely because it is classified
information and my understanding of this statute is it was
created in response to other disclosures that didn't occur in
the orderly way and this Congress passed the law to make sure
whistleblowers had a way that they could legally send
information and provide information to Congress about matters
they thought were improper.
Mr. Khanna. So if there is a whistleblower who has sent
something to the inspector general and the inspector general
has sent it to the Director of National Intelligence saying
that it should be transmitted to Congress, do you see any
reason for the Director of National Intelligence not to
transmit the complaint itself to the Congress?
Mr. Horowitz. I will speak to it in my understanding, since
I have not dealt directly with the DNI--the Director of
National Intelligence.
We would expect the attorney general to follow through on a
similar matter that we would provide to him in this case if it
had been him and to follow through on the statute.
Mr. Khanna. What would you say if the attorney general
didn't? Just said, I don't believe we need to follow the law
and I am not going to transmit this to Congress? What would you
tell the attorney general?
Mr. Horowitz. In that situation, I would probably figure
out a way pursuant to the Inspector General Act following the
law to notify Congress about my concerns of a failure to follow
the law.
Mr. Khanna. What do you think should be the consequence for
an executive branch official who just fails to follow the law?
Just says, I don't need to follow the law?
Mr. Horowitz. Well, I spent several years up here on access
issues that I was having, advocating for a change in the law
and for some mechanism to move forward and we succeeded
ultimately in that.
Obviously, what we are supposed to do as IGs is follow the
law and get you and our leaderships the information the law
requires us to get them and then it should be the system that
works through and follows the law from there forward.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr.
Massie, for five minutes.
Mr. Massie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for the work you do. Mr. Horowitz, you said
you call balls and strikes whether it is popular or unpopular,
and more than not often it is unpopular.
I might say that should be a measurement of how well that
inspector general is doing is how unpopular the information is
inside of Washington, DC.
But the information you provide is crucial outside of
Washington, DC. and it is appreciated there.
It is the tenth year of the Council of the Inspectors
General but it is also the eighteenth year of the war in
Afghanistan. So I want to highlight some of the work that one
of the inspectors general has done overseeing the spending
there for Afghan reconstruction.
A serious metric of the work of an inspector general might
be the amount of money that you save the taxpayer and there is
one program in Afghanistan where we provided UH-60's--these are
Blackhawk helicopters--and it was a boondoggle, and we have
already saved $200 million over there because the inspector
general highlighted that program.
Another thing I learned from that inspector general that we
have not been able to fix yet is we have spent $8 billion
eradicating drugs in Afghanistan--$8 billion on that program
alone--and they have doubled poppy production.
These are things that I wouldn't know about. We wouldn't
have been able to save money here in Congress if it weren't for
the inspector general there.
So I want to say whether you think we should still be in
Afghanistan or not be in Afghanistan, hopefully, we can all
agree here today that the last person to leave Afghanistan
shouldn't be a soldier.
It should be the inspector general if we are spending
billions of dollars over there. I mean, until we turn the
lights off over there, we should--do you agree, Mr. Horowitz?
Mr. Horowitz. I am not sure that the IG for Afghan
reconstruction would appreciate me saying he should be the last
person left in Afghanistan.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Massie. Okay. An IG. Maybe not Mr. Sopko.
Mr. Horowitz. But to my point on shutdowns, we should be
integrated into spending to make sure--because I agree with you
completely--that that spending is done wisely. The taxpayers
expect that.
Mr. Massie. And one of the things--whether this was in
Congress's wisdom or they just didn't think about this is they
gave that IG a sort of whole of government, you know, mandate
where any branch of the government that spends money he can
investigate if it is being spent on--money there in
Afghanistan.
I think that is what has led to some of these good results
and I hope we do more of that not by accident but by intention.
But there is a troubling trend that I think we are running
up against in Afghanistan and that is--you know, this meeting
is about transparency.
We are running into a problem with transparency for
Afghanistan. They no longer report for the Afghan soldiers the
desertion rates, the amount of territory controlled, the
population that is under control, the Taliban, the casualties
of Afghan soldiers, the capabilities of the Afghan military.
Some of that is just not collected and some of it is now
classified. So even the IG can't provide it or get it and I
think that is a troubling trend that I hope your council will
look into for us over there.
So switching gears a little bit, I have got a more specific
question about the DOJ and this is--this is timely, I think,
because Congress is discussing background checks.
The last year that there was a report of DOJ prosecutions
for people who failed a background check was 2010, and I think
this is information that we need to know and I will tell you
why I think we need to know it.
In 2010, the last year we had this information from the
DOJ, over 72,000 applications were denied. Yet, there were only
62 charges brought.
Out of--over 72,000 denials there were only 62 charges
brought by Federal prosecutors on those denials, and that would
be falsified information when buying a firearm, possession of
firearm by a convicted felon. By the way, there were only 11 of
those out of 72,000.
So I would like to see this report done again. It was done
for five years from 2006 to 2010. I think one of the reasons
they quit doing the report is it actually shows that a lot of
these denials were false denials and/or we are not prosecuting
the criminals.
So I would love to see that report done again. I know you
can't guarantee that here but do you have any thoughts on that?
Mr. Horowitz. Let me go back. I believe we have touched on
this issue in one of our reports on some more recent data. So
let me check and we can get back in touch with you on what that
is.
We have identified in our reports some of the concerns on
the NICS system as it is managed by the FBI in both regards,
both false positives and false negatives.
Mr. Massie. Any employer who had this many false positives
when doing a background check on employees would be sued out of
existence and so that is one of the reasons I think we need to
look into the background check system.
And I would appreciate maybe the IGs could do that. But
appreciate your work and I yield. And do you have any comments
and----
Mr. Horowitz. No. I was just going to say let me followup
and see what the work is that we have done on that and get that
to you.
Mr. Massie. Thank you all for showing up today and for the
work you do.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman and I associate myself
with his remarks. I think--especially what has happened in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and that was a great example where
special inspectors general have done a great job in trying to
highlight an enormous amount of money with very little payoff,
and in some cases negative payoff, apparently.
The chair now recognizes the gentlelady--Mr. Jordan, did
you have an intervention? No. Okay.
The gentlelady from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton?
Five minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Chairman Connolly.
I want to thank you for this hearing. It may not seem the
most scintillating of hearings. It may be among our most
important because of the importance of the IG and CIGIE itself.
I want to congratulate Mr.--Chairman Horowitz on the
whistleblower website. I think that will, perhaps more than
anything else, educate the public on what is possible.
I am interested in what appears to be a flaw or a vacuum in
oversight. But let me begin, Chairman Horowitz, Chairman
Buller, Chairman Dahl, by thanking you for this important work
that is so important to all the work we do.
Everybody knows that if there is a IG report, particularly
considering the polarization in Congress, that is where people
look to to see what the real facts and real circumstances are.
So your work becomes more and more important the more the
body of the Congress itself is and, of course, Congress relies
very heavily on you--both sides. No matter where we are from,
we all bow to IG when it comes to reports you submit.
Now, the gap that we may have discovered is in assuring
accountability of an IG who may be accused of wrongdoing. Under
current law, the special counsel may refer a whistleblower to
an agency head to investigate it.
That is the way it is always done, and if there is
substantial likelihood that there may be a violation of law or
waste, fraud, or abuse, safety--public safety or health
endangered, the agency must then conduct an investigation of
the disclosure and then submit that report--I hate to sound
bureaucratic here but this is how it works--to the--to the
special counsel who then investigates it to see if the findings
are reasonable. That is the process.
Now, given that process, let me cite to you a real-life
example. The special counsel attempted to refer to CIGIE a
disclosure of wrongdoing by the Department of Defense IG a few
years ago--a couple of years ago, actually--and withholding
information from the secretary of defense--sorry, that the
secretary of defense had leaked classified information with
respect to something called the ``Zero Dark Thirty'' movie.
The special counsel referred the disclosure to CIGIE to
avoid a potential conflict of interest in having the DOD IG
investigate the matter.
As I understand it, CIGIE refused to investigate it,
claiming that the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016
stripped the Office of Special Counsel of any authority over
CIGIE itself.
Now, it looks like there is nobody to investigate or that
some kind of loophole or vacuum is created if that is the case.
So let me ask you, all of you, perhaps.
If the special counsel--if the special counsel has the
authority to refer disclosures to agencies and require them to
investigate, is there any reason why we cannot impose the same
requirement on IGs and, if not, who is to watch the government
watchdogs if any of them is accused of wrongdoing?
Mr. Horowitz. So let me take that first and then Mr. Dahl
can jump in.
Mr. Connolly. You may answer the question but the
gentlelady's time is about to expire.
Mr. Horowitz. The issue becomes a challenging one because
the Office of Special Counsel, I just want to clarify for those
watching, it is not the special counsel that people may
generally be familiar with Mr. Mueller.
We are talking right now about the Office of Special
Counsel that exists to deal with whistleblower complaints.
Their statute currently--as currently written requires reports,
as you mention, to go to agency heads and even if it involves
an IG or an employee of the IG we have worked through this
issue with the current head of the Office of Special Counsel to
try and arrange a process by which allegations against IGs are
investigated by either the Integrity Committee in appropriate
cases or inspectors general as the IG Act provides.
So we are, in fact, trying to deal with that situation and
understand the concern. There can't be a gap in who
investigates alleged wrongdoing, whether it is----
Ms. Norton. Could I just ask, do you need more legislation?
Would legislation help in this regard?
Mr. Horowitz. It might. But so far, we have been able to
work through these issues.
Mr. Dahl, myself, have worked with the special counsel, Mr.
Kerner, and our staffs to put in place or to try and reach an
MOU so that we can work through the statutory I will call it
potential tension between the whistleblower statute and the IG
Act.
We think we can work it out. We think there is a process.
We think, frankly, the IG Empowerment Act transferring
jurisdiction to CIGIE has helped that process so that we can
manage it as opposed to working through the FBI on that issue.
And then Mr. Dahl?
Mr. Connolly. So the gentlelady's time has expired. But I
assure you there will be legislation in your future. Mr.
Meadows and I introduced a bill yesterday and our hope is it
will be marked up in an expeditious fashion, Ms. Norton, and we
will double check to make sure the issue you have raised has
been addressed.
The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice, is recognized for his
five minutes.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being
here.
Mr. Horowitz, I know there is probably limited conversation
you can have on this regarding the FISA report, and I am not
going to try to go too deeply but just some questions for
understanding.
I know this is something the president wants as much as
possible to be known to the public and I think the American
people deserve to know how all this debacle began.
But I also know that a lot of it was classified. Can you--
can you just generally say percentage wise about how much of
that report is classified?
Mr. Horowitz. I am not going to get into percentages of
reports at this point. I will just say as we wrote to our
oversight committees, including this committee and Ranking
Member Jordan, we have provided a draft of our report for
classification marking purposes.
So what the percentage is precisely will depend on what the
attorney general and the department and the FBI decide after
they evaluate it and that is the process it is in right now.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Are you working with the Department of
Justice to have some of that declassified?
Mr. Horowitz. Right now what we have done is meet with the
folks at the Justice Department and the FBI to tell them what
we have done so far. They have the draft of the factual
information that we have developed.
We have talked through the classification issues with them.
But it is ultimately up to them to decide what is going to be
marked and how it is going to be marked or how it is not going
to be marked.
That is normal process. That is how it would occur. We may
weigh in once we see it back as to what our views are----
Mr. Hice. Okay.
Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. as to any disagreements that
might----
Mr. Hice. So there could be a point that you would weigh in
and----
Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
Mr. Hice. Okay.
Mr. Horowitz. That is the usual process. These are--these
rarely go in a one straight line process.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Gotcha. Regarding attorney John Durham, are
you all in any discussions about what he is finding and what
you have found?
Mr. Horowitz. I am going to defer to him and the attorney
general on that issue as to what they are doing. I have had
communications with him but it is really a very separate entity
that is----
Mr. Hice. Okay.
Mr. Horowitz. He is working under the direction of the
attorney general. I am, obviously, independent.
Mr. Hice. Do you know if he has found any of the same
concerns that you were concerned about?
Mr. Horowitz. You would have to ask him on what he has
found. I am not in a position to speak for him.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Well, let us go over to the Comey report
that did come out, if we can. You had mentioned that--I mean,
obviously, he failed in some of his responsibilities to protect
some sensitive information and you referred to his actions at
one point as a dangerous example.
Can you elaborate a little bit of what you meant by that
term that he set a dangerous example?
Mr. Horowitz. We were particularly focused on the providing
of information in the memo that was really a recording of his
meeting--investigative meeting to a journalist to put in the
newspaper.
That was not classified information. That particular memo
didn't have classified information. Our concern there and why
we referred to it that way is we have instances in the--my
office.
I have had those examples of Federal prosecutors in
corruption cases previously where the law enforcement agents
you are working with or who have worked on a matter may think a
decision was not made for the right reasons and our concern was
empowering FBI directors or, frankly, any FBI employee or other
law enforcement official with the authority to decide that they
are not going to follow established norms and procedures
because, in their view, they have made a judgment that the
individuals they are dealing with can't be trusted.
Mr. Hice. So the fact that he was in the highest position
of the FBI would add to your level of concern?
Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
Mr. Hice. Now, you actually referred criminal prosecution
to the Department of Justice for Comey, correct?
Mr. Horowitz. We are required by the IG Act to send
information that we have identified that could plausibly be
criminal to the department and we----
Mr. Hice. That is pretty monumental. Do you know of any FBI
director who in the past has ever had a criminal prosecution
referral?
Mr. Horowitz. I wouldn't know as I sit here today.
Mr. Hice. Or any other head of any Federal agency?
Mr. Horowitz. I do, actually.
Mr. Hice. Okay.
Mr. Horowitz. So I--but I will keep that----
Mr. Hice. All right. And the same type referral applied to
McCabe as well, right?
Mr. Horowitz. Same issue. Right. The IG Act requires me to
expeditiously report to the attorney general when I see
evidence that could be considered criminal and we follow the
law.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, is recognized for
his five minutes.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Inspector General Horowitz, the committee is investigating
efforts by the Department of Education to interfere with the
integrity of its inspector general office and its operations.
On December 17 last year, Education Committee Chairman
Bobby Scott requested that the IG examine education--at the
Department of Education examine the department's decision to
restore recognition of the accreditor for several failed for-
profit universities and the Education Department was apparently
unhappy with the IG's subsequent decision to conduct this
investigation.
The leadership was apparently so perturbed and threatened
by the IG investigation that they tried to shut it down.
On January 3 of 2019, Deputy Secretary of Education
Mitchell Zais wrote a letter to the Acting Inspector General,
Sandra Bruce, asking her to drop the investigation and if she
refused, demanding that she change its scope by having it take
a deeper historical dive into the Obama Administration.
When Ms. Bruce responded to the department's request,
naturally, by asserting her institutional independence as the
inspector general, the deputy secretary ordered her to step
down from the position.
The department apparently planned to replace her as
independent IG with an agency insider, the deputy general
counsel currently at the department.
Were these actions by the Department of Education
appropriate?
Mr. Horowitz. No, we were--I was very concerned about it
when I heard about it from Acting IG Bruce and I worked with
her to address the issue and which successfully occurred.
Mr. Raskin. Have we seen similar kinds of assaults on the
independence and integrity of inspector generals in other
departments?
Mr. Horowitz. Frankly, over time there have been. As I
mention in my opening, it is a perpetual challenge for us.
Agencies always--aren't always enamored with our oversight
efforts.
Mr. Raskin. Was there anything wrong with or is there
anything wrong with committees in Congress or Members of
Congress writing to inspectors generals urging them to
investigate this or that alleged misconduct?
Mr. Horowitz. Not at all. I get those pretty frequently.
Mr. Raskin. After this committee urged the White House to
reverse course in firing Ms. Bruce, the department reinstated
her as the acting inspector general.
But the department is refusing to make individuals
available for interviews about how and why the decision was
made to fire her in the first place.
Ms. Bruce has been serving as the acting IG for over nine
months. President Trump has still not appointed an individual
to fill this position on a permanent basis.
Mr. Horowitz, when you testified before this committee last
November there were 14 vacant IG positions and 12 of those were
Presidentially appointed Senate-confirmed positions.
As you stated in your testimony, there are still 12
vacancies. Why is this a problem for the government?
Mr. Horowitz. Frankly, and again, this has been a perpetual
challenge for us, IGs are not a priority--don't seem to be a
priority, I should say--when considering vacancies in the
government and that is true, frankly, when nominations--in
terms of nominating people and also, frankly, getting them
confirmed promptly.
Mr. Raskin. And what is the impact of all of these
vacancies on public policy?
Mr. Horowitz. It is a significant problem. Acting IGs like
Acting IG Bruce do an outstanding job. There was a 15-month
vacancy at the DOJ between Mr. Fine leaving and me getting the
position, and the acting IG, who was the deputy, did a fine
job.
But you don't have the ability to push back when that
independence issue comes up in quite the same way. I am Senate
confirmed. Ms. Bruce's predecessor was Senate confirmed.
There is a certain authority that comes with that when you
come before Congress or when you deal with Congress and when
you deal with your leadership because they know you are there.
They know they can't remove you. It has to be and it can
only be the president. The attorney general has no authority of
me. The secretary of education had no authority over Ms.
Bruce's predecessor. That is a big difference.
Mr. Raskin. The president hasn't even nominated a candidate
for nine of these positions including the Departments of
Education, Defense, Treasury, HHS, and the EPA.
The Department of Defense with a budget of more than $700
billion has not had a permanent IG since January 2016. What can
be done to put this on the radar?
Mr. Horowitz. Well, one of the things that was done is last
week on the Senate side the Homeland Security Committee there,
which handles IG nominations, wrote a bipartisan letter of the
entire committee--I think it was the entire committee--it was a
bipartisan letter to the president saying, you need to nominate
people and we in the Senate need to do a better job moving
those nominations.
Both of those problems have existed and they have been
existing, frankly, for many years. It has been something in
four years as chair of this committee--as chair of CIGIE. I
have talked about it with the president personally in the prior
administration, in this administration. We just got an Interior
IG confirmed finally after almost eight years of vacancies.
Mr. Raskin. Well, I agree with your sense of urgency about
the importance of this issue and I think we stand ready in this
committee to help however----
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman, and I certainly agree
we need to move these confirmations in the Senate. In fact,
maybe if we spent more time confirming IGs instead of Federal
judges we would all be better off.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Meadows. If the gentleman would----
Mr. Connolly. Of course.
Mr. Meadows. Perhaps, since it is independent, maybe we
work on a bipartisan piece of legislation to make it where it
is not Senate confirmed. I mean, actually, those appointments--
if we could truly make it where it is not Senate confirmed move
it through where you have the IG community. Let us at least see
if we can work on it.
Mr. Connolly. Fair enough.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Steube, is recognized for
his five minutes.
Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Horowitz, I am going to kind of pick up where Mr.
Hice left off. He was asking you about the fact that Comey had
been referred criminally by your report, and that is correct?
Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
Mr. Steube. You also referred Andy McCabe for Federal
prosecution. Is that correct?
Mr. Horowitz. I was--we made the same referral pursuant to
the IG Act as with Mr. Comey as we do whenever that provision
applies.
Mr. Steube. And that is a criminal referral?
Mr. Horowitz. That is as the IG Act requires us to do, yes.
Mr. Steube. And so was McCabe the acting director when you
referred him?
Mr. Horowitz. I am not going to get into the precise
timing, actually, of it. But the answer would be no--actually,
I can say that he--by the time the issue came to be was after
August 1, which is I think the August 1 of 2017, which is I
think the date of Director Wray's installation.
Mr. Steube. Okay. And why did you refer him for criminal
prosecution--McCabe? Why was he referred?
Mr. Horowitz. We made a--as the public report--I will still
to what is public. The public report--we found a lack of
candor, which means we didn't find that he provided us truthful
information and when we made a determination under Section 4 of
the IG Act that we thought that had occurred we were required
by the law to report it expeditiously to the attorney general.
Mr. Steube. So, in other words, he lied. I mean, you say
lack of candor.
Mr. Horowitz. We make a lack of candor finding. I am going
to defer to the prosecutors. In a report last year we
criticized the FBI director for usurping the authority of the
attorney general to make prosecutorial decisions. I am not
going to do that today.
Mr. Steube. Okay. And you also found that McCabe failed to
safeguard FBI information. Is that correct?
Mr. Horowitz. Well, what we found was, just to be clear,
that he had provided information to or authorized a employee to
provide information to a reporter that was FBI information.
Mr. Steube. So we have two heads of the FBI--one director,
one acting director--we think close around to the timeline both
referred for criminal prosecution. Is that--I am saying that
correctly?
Mr. Horowitz. Pursuant to the IG Act, we made referrals in
both instances.
Mr. Steube. So I want to point out how profound that is for
those sitting at home and for the American people that we have
two back to back heads of the FBI both referred for criminal
prosecution.
Both of these heads of the FBI failed to safeguard
sensitive FBI information. Is that correct?
Mr. Horowitz. In both instances, they disclosed to
reporters information that was protected FBI information--
sensitive law enforcement.
Mr. Steube. And I want to move quickly to the latest report
on Comey and I am going to just read from Page 52.
``In this analysis section, we address whether Comey's
actions violated department and FBI policies or the terms of
Comey's FBI employment agreement. We determined that several of
his actions did. We conclude that the memos were official FBI
records rather than Comey's personal documents.
Accordingly, after his removal as director Comey violated
applicable policies and his employment agreement by failing to
either surrender his copies of Memos 2, 4, 6, and 7 to the FBI
or seek authorization to retain them.
By releasing official FBI information records to third
parties without authorization and by failing to immediately
alert the FBI about his disclosures to his personal attorneys
once he became aware in June 2017 that Memo 2 contained words
that were classified at the confidential level.''
Did I read that accurately?
Mr. Horowitz. I don't have it in front of me but it
certainly sounds like that is accurate.
Mr. Steube. So you previously faulted the FBI director in
your report of last year. In your report on Comey's memos, you
wrote, ``We have previously faulted Comey for acting
unilaterally and inconsistent with department policy.'' That
was the Clinton email IG report?
Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
Mr. Steube. In your report on the FBI's investigation of
the Clinton emails you wrote, in quote, ``We found that it was
extraordinary and insubordinate for Comey to conceal his
intentions from his superiors, the acting--the attorney general
and deputy attorney general for the admitted purpose of
preventing them from telling him not to make the statement and
to instruct his subordinates in the FBI to do the same.'' Is
that correct?
Mr. Horowitz. Yes, I don't have the language in front of me
but----
Mr. Steube. It is Page----
Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. certainly--I certainly recall
that generally.
Mr. Steube. It is Clinton Email IG Report Page 241.
You used the words extraordinary and insubordinate. You are
not exactly someone who would make such bold characterizations.
In that--in that case, you found his misconduct merited
these conclusions?
Mr. Horowitz. Yes.
Mr. Steube. You found Comey's conduct this year just as
troubling, correct?
Mr. Horowitz. We found it troubling. I am not going to make
a relative judgment as to which was more troubling.
Mr. Steube. Well, you wrote, and I quote, ``Comey's
unauthorized disclosure of sensitive law enforcement
information about the Flynn investigation merits similar
criticism,'' Page 61, Comey memo report.
Mr. Horowitz. Correct. Merits similar criticism. Agreed.
Mr. Steube. I want to thank you for your time here today
and I just think it is beholden to the American people that
they get to read this information and it becomes public.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman, and perfect timing.
Congratulations.
Mr. Steube. I tried to wrap it up there right at the end.
Mr. Connolly. You did it perfectly.
Mr. Jordan, did you wish to be recognized?
Mr. Jordan. Unless the ranking member wanted to go----
Mr. Connolly. He is deferring to you.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horowitz, let me pick up right where the gentleman from
Florida was.
I appreciate the letter you sent to the chairman and
ranking member last Friday on the upcoming FISA report that is
now with the attorney general.
But let me--let me go first to what Mr. Steube just talked
about. Have you been asked to testify by the chairman--by
Chairman Cummings or Chairman Nadler about the Comey IG report
you released three weeks ago?
Mr. Horowitz. No, I have not.
Mr. Jordan. Have you been approached at all by the chairman
of those respective committees?
Mr. Horowitz. Personally, I have not. I can check with
anybody else in my organization. But I am not aware of any.
Mr. Jordan. Have they even asked you about it?
Mr. Horowitz. Oh, I am sure they have asked about it. I am
sorry--talking about scheduling about a hearing.
Mr. Jordan. But, I mean, asked about you--asked about you
testifying and answering questions about that specific report.
Mr. Horowitz. About a hearing I don't believe there have
been discussions.
Mr. Jordan. No hearing?
Have you had any discussions with Chairman Cummings or
Chairman Nadler about the upcoming FISA report, particularly
subsequent to this letter or even before this letter, about the
FISA report when you might testify in front of either
committee?
Mr. Horowitz. We haven't had, to my knowledge, discussions
about testimony or a hearing.
Mr. Jordan. But you would----
Mr. Horowitz. We had a discussion generally about the
report and timing but not about----
Mr. Jordan. I think in your--in your letter you pointed out
you talked to over a hundred interviews, over a million records
your team examined.
You spent a lot of time on this report. This is pretty
significant. You would anticipate testifying in front of both
the House Oversight Committee, which has jurisdiction over the
inspector generals, and the House Judiciary Committee. Is that
right?
Mr. Horowitz. I guess I am--I would say as to any of my
reports I always am available and willing to testify. I am not
sure I would want to advocate for being in four hearings--two
here and two on the Senate side. So----
Mr. Jordan. Well, we combined them last year--a year and a
half ago on one.
Mr. Horowitz. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. We did that. So all I know is I think, as Mr.
Steube said, this is important information and, frankly, the
American people would like to see it.
Let me go, if I could, to the recent IG report about Mr.
Comey's leaked memos and I want to--I want to read from it. I
am talking about on Page 17 of your report, January 7, 2017,
Memo Number 1, when you say Comey first--Comey's first one-on-
one meeting with President Trump occurred on January 6, 2017.
Is that right?
Mr. Horowitz. That is right.
Mr. Jordan. And before briefing President--I am reading
from your report--``Before briefing President-Elect Trump, Mr.
Comey met with senior leaders at the FBI--Jim Rybicki, Andy
McCabe, Jim Baker, and supervisors of the FBI's
investigation.'' Is that right?
Mr. Horowitz. Again, I don't have it in front of me but
that is my recollection.
Mr. Jordan. Yes. So he has a pre-meeting. They are going to
go up to brief President-Elect Trump----
Mr. Horowitz. Right.
Mr. Jordan [continuing]. January 6, 2017. So it is
President-Elect Trump at the time. They have a pre-meeting to
figure out how this is going to go and, actually, even more of
a pre-meeting they have with Mr. Clapper and Mr. Brennan to
figure out how exactly the briefing for the president-elect is
going to happen. Is that right?
Mr. Horowitz. And who is going to do it and----
Mr. Jordan. And who is going to do what. Right. And they
break it into two parts. All of them brief the president-elect
on general assessment, intelligence assessment, the ICA. And
then they all leave and Mr. Comey sits down with the president.
Is that right?
Mr. Horowitz. That is my recollection, yes.
Mr. Jordan. So Mr. Comey sits down with President-Elect
Trump and talks to him about what?
Mr. Horowitz. Again, I don't have the report in front of
me. But my recollection is what we were told is it is about
the--what has come to be known as the salacious and unverified
reporting about certain events in Moscow.
Mr. Jordan. Witnesses interviewed by the OIG also said they
discussed Trump's potential responses to being told about the
salacious information in the dossier, including that President
Trump might make statements about or provide information of
value to a pending Russia interference investigation. Is that
right?
Mr. Horowitz. That is my recollection.
Mr. Jordan. Yes. So Comey stuck around and briefed him on
the dossier----
Mr. Horowitz. Well, on that--on that one piece is my
recollection.
Mr. Jordan. Understand. Understand.
So what I am interested in is, is we always thought that
this meeting was to give the president the intelligence
assessment and fill him in and give him a briefing. He is
president-elect.
But it now looks like, based on what you wrote at the
bottom of Page 17, that they included trying to get information
on the pending Russia interference.
So it wasn't just information going one way. They were
actually trying to get information from the president as well.
Is that right?
Mr. Horowitz. That is what we have reported.
Mr. Jordan. That is different. That is different. That is
something I don't think we knew before. Multiple FBI witnesses
recall agreeing ahead of time that Comey should memorialize
this event after it happens, right?
Mr. Horowitz. Right.
Mr. Jordan. So he gets in the car on the way home and he
immediately starts memorializing what took place. It is
interesting.
One of the things that he said, the reason they did this
was because they thought the president-elect might misrepresent
what happened in the encounter. Remember that from the report?
Mr. Horowitz. Vaguely.
Mr. Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Horowitz. Again, I would have to----
Mr. Jordan. It says it on Page 18. I think that is--that is
amazing to me because the irony was the only one
misrepresenting anything, it seems to me, was Mr. Comey because
all the while he is trying to get information from the
president about the pending investigation he has been telling
the president he is not even under investigation.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman.
If, Mr. Horowitz, do you want to respond?
Mr. Horowitz. No, I have no--nothing further to say. I
would stand by our report.
Mr. Jordan. Could I ask one question, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Horowitz, was President Trump under
investigation at the time that this all happened on January 6?
Mr. Horowitz. I don't know that I am in a position to say
one way or another. I have read what the memos say and what Mr.
Comey in the memos reported he represented to the president
that the president was not or the president-elect at the time
had not----
Mr. Jordan. He had, in fact, been told by the very guy who
had to memorialize this conversation and was trying to get
information from the president that he wasn't in fact under
investigation by that very individual.
Mr. Connolly. I thank----
Mr. Horowitz. And all I can speak to is what is in the
memo.
Mr. Jordan. What he said. I understand.
Mr. Horowitz. I don't know what was said. I don't know
independently what was going on in the investigation at that
time.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. I thank the gentleman.
The distinguished ranking member is recognized for his five
minutes.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horowitz, I am going to followup a little bit on where
Mr. Jordan just said. But before I do that, I want to say this.
The chairman and I were talking about we appreciate your
professionalism. The fact that he can't influence you and the
fact that I can't influence you may frustrate both of us. But
we both appreciate the fact that we can't actually affect your
independence, and here is--if your IG community at DOJ shared
information with the media the way that you found in your
inspections would that undermine your overall objective in
terms of sharing information with the media?
Mr. Horowitz. If anyone on my staff did that----
Mr. Meadows. Yes.
Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. there would be serious
consequences because it would have a significant effect on our
work.
Mr. Meadows. And so wouldn't you draw the same conclusion
that sharing information under ongoing investigations within
the DOJ and FBI is not a practice that we should actually
embrace?
Mr. Horowitz. Absolutely.
Mr. Meadows. Did you find that in some of your inspector
generals' report on what has already been published with
relationship to Director James Comey?
Mr. Horowitz. We did.
Mr. Meadows. Multiple times?
Mr. Horowitz. Well, we have in that report, the one
instance where it occurred through Mr. Richman to the press.
Mr. Meadows. All right. Do you--once you have a report that
is out and once we have read the report, do you go back and
look at congressional testimony to correlate between what you
were told under oath by witnesses versus testimony that has
been given to Congress to make sure that those two come
together?
Mr. Horowitz. If we are aware of it and it relates directly
to it, yes. But, obviously, we are not up to date on all the
different testimoneys that occurred. So usually we rely on the
referrals coming in from Congress.
Mr. Meadows. Right. And so that is where I am kind of going
to this because we have taken now your report and we have put
it side by side congressional testimony that James Comey made
before the joint Oversight and Judiciary hearing, and I am
finding just a number of irregularities.
So would it be appropriate if Chairman--I mean, Ranking
Member Jordan and I were to refer those inconsistencies to the
IG and if we did that would the IG look at those
inconsistencies?
Mr. Horowitz. It is certainly appropriate for us to get a
referral about a then employee of the department, which is, I
think, the hearing you are probably referencing, and then we
would assess it and, as you indicated before, we would make an
independent assessment of whether it is appropriate for----
Mr. Meadows. Well, I will give you one example. Mr. Gowdy
was asking, said, did you initiate an obstruction of justice
investigation based on what the president said. It was a very
clear question. Mr. Comey said, I don't think so. I don't
recall doing that so I don't think so.
However, on Page 13 of your IG's report it said that Comey
purposely leaked the memo so that they could have a special
counsel appointed to investigate obstruction of justice. So two
of those cannot be true. They are at opposite dynamics in terms
of what they are constructing. And we have dozens of examples
where that has happened. Is that something that would be
important for the American people to know and for you to look
into?
Mr. Horowitz. I guess I would say as in any situation we
would want to get the referral, the testimony, and so we could
make----
Mr. Meadows. So we will be referring those inconsistencies
to you today, Mr. Horowitz, and I think that it is important
that the American people get to look at this.
My understanding is from reports that--and from your letter
that you have officially given the FISA abuse work that you
have done over to be reviewed by the appropriate parties at
DOJ.
Is that correct?
Mr. Horowitz. So we have given our factual findings to the
department for their marking. What we then do once we get it
back, whether we have to go back and forth on the markings is
one issue.
Mr. Meadows. Right.
Mr. Horowitz. Once those are final we then take that and
try and write our public report from that.
Mr. Meadows. Right.
Mr. Horowitz. Because we want to make as much of this
public, sometimes we will have to either redact information or
write around it. But that would be the next stage after this.
So we are not quite final yet.
Mr. Meadows. So--right. So at this point, can you rule out
the fact that there will be any criminal referrals as it
relates to this new FISA abuse report that is coming out? Can
you rule that out?
Mr. Horowitz. I am not going to speak to that issue one way
or the other.
Mr. Meadows. All right. I yield back.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, is recognized
for five minutes.
Mr. Grothman. Yes. For Mr. Horowitz, I want to direct your
attention to conclusions involving Comey failing to safeguard
the FBI's Flynn investigation, which is going on at the time.
You wrote Comey's senior--closest senior FBI advisors were
shocked when they learned the former FBI director instructed
the release of his memo containing information about the
ongoing FBI investigation, right?
Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
Mr. Grothman. What specifically did they say to your
office?
Mr. Horowitz. I don't have the report in front of me but I
remember them saying words like shocked, surprised--those kinds
of words--when they learned that he had released the
information through Mr. Richman to a reporter.
Mr. Grothman. And they were unsolicited reactions?
Mr. Horowitz. Yes. They were during testimony under oath
that were recorded.
Mr. Grothman. Why do you think they were shocked or
stunned?
Mr. Horowitz. Well, it was completely inconsistent, as we
wrote in the report, with department policy and how we expect
and I think they expect FBI employees to handle law enforcement
information.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. One advisor used the term disappointed
to describe Comey's misconduct. Can you explain why they would
be disappointed in the FBI director?
Mr. Horowitz. Well, I am not going to speak to what was in
their mind when they said the words. But I can say, again, I
think there is a general understanding in the department and
within the FBI that when you have law enforcement information
you don't disclose it to the press when there is an ongoing
criminal investigation, which there was at the time.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Comey discussed or showed contents of
the memos with people outside the FBI, correct?
Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Then Acting DEA Administrator Chuck
Rosenberg saw the Comey memo, right?
Mr. Horowitz. I don't have the report in front of me. I
think that is correct. I think they either talked about it or
he showed it to him.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. I will tell you what I am going to do.
I right now have a vote in another committee so I am going to
yield the rest of my time to Congressman Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. I thank--I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Connolly. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Horowitz, I want to go back to Page 17,
where we were a few minutes ago.
Before briefing President-Elect Trump, Comey met with
senior leaders of the FBI including Chief of Staff Jim Rybicki,
then FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe, then FBI General Counsel
Jim Baker, and the supervisors of the FBI's investigation of
the Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election.
So he meets with his key players, key team--the people
heading the investigation--and the top people at the FBI. Goes
up to Trump Tower, has the meeting--his one-on-one meeting with
the president where he briefs him on the dossier.
That meeting is done. He immediately comes back out and
starts recording what took place, memorializing the
conversation with the president-elect, right?
Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
Mr. Jordan. Multiple FBI witnesses recalled agreeing ahead
of time that Comey should memorialize this meeting. So the same
people that he met with in the pre-meeting said, hey, when you
go talk with the president-elect, soon as you come out we are
going to have a secure laptop. You write it all down.
Mr. Horowitz. Right.
Mr. Jordan. And you need to write it all down because we
think the president-elect might misrepresent something later
on, right?
Mr. Horowitz. If I recall correctly, that was one of the
reasons.
Mr. Jordan. One of the reasons. All right.
Even though the very guy who was in there giving the
briefing is misrepresenting a fundamental fact to the president
of the United States, telling him he is not under investigation
when they are actually trying to set the president up, in my
opinion--get information from the president.
So he goes back out, he memorializes this, and then you say
in the next paragraph down, he memorialized Memo 1 and he had
it that way until he arrived at FBI's New York field office
where Comey gave a quick download of his conversation with the
very same people who he had the pre-meeting with--Mr. Rybicki,
Mr. McCabe, Mr. Baker, and supervisors of the FBI ``Crossfire
Hurricane'' investigation.
Is that all accurate?
Mr. Horowitz. That is my recollection.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. So you used three names twice--Rybicki,
McCabe, and Baker--and then instead of saying other names you
say supervisors. Are those supervisors the people who I suspect
they are, the people who ran the ``Crossfire Hurricane''? Are
those supervisors Peter Strzok and Lisa Page?
Mr. Horowitz. I don't recall as I sit here. I would have to
go back and look at it, and if we can--with all of these issues
we have to look at the Privacy Act and other laws to see what
we can do.
But I will go back and check. I am not sure that is the
case. So let me go back and check.
Mr. Jordan. Could it be a bigger number than those two? If
it is not those two it could be other two? It could be----
Mr. Horowitz. Or it could be others.
Mr. Jordan. It could be others as well or could be----
Mr. Horowitz. Yes.
Mr. Jordan [continuing]. those two plus others?
Mr. Horowitz. I don't know, as I sit here, who were those
individuals.
Mr. Jordan. Is it likely that Peter Strzok is one and
knowing that he was the guy who led the ``Crossfire Hurricane''
investigation?
Mr. Horowitz. I actually have no idea if that is likely or
not because I am not sure that is entirely accurate that--your
reference to what his role was at various times.
Mr. Jordan. Okay.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman. Thank you for your
responsiveness, Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Horowitz.
Mr. Connolly. The chair now recognizes himself for his five
minutes and I am going to ask questions quickly and ask you to
answer quickly so I can fit them all in.
I am going to start with you, Ms. Buller, for a change.
Have you had difficulty at EPA--I mean, at Peace Corps with
your agency in terms of access to information and a
responsiveness to requests made?
Ms. Buller. Access--we have had a couple of little issues
but they have been worked through. We have had other issues,
however, in dealing with general counsel interpretations of our
policy that tried to limit the people who can come to us to
report things and also try to limit the way that we conduct our
criminal investigations relating to volunteer drug use.
Mr. Connolly. And what is your redress? When that happens
what can you do?
Ms. Buller. We have so far been working with the agency and
to try to resolve the issue and, hopefully, we can do that. But
as with the access issue, we do understand that we can come to
Congress if we--if we----
Mr. Connolly. Please do.
Ms. Buller. Thank you.
Mr. Connolly. Because I think on a bipartisan basis we are
committed to making sure you can do your job.
Mr. Horowitz, one of the things that has come to our
attention is, you know, allegations of wrongdoing and sexual
harassment within the Federal judiciary.
And what we discovered was, however, the Administrative
Office of the Courts does not have an IG. Does--as chairman of
CIGIE, do you all have an opinion about whether we ought to
establish an IG for the Administrative Office of the Federal
Courts of the United States?
Mr. Horowitz. I am not going to weigh in on what should
happen with another branch of government because, obviously, it
raises various kinds of----
Mr. Connolly. How very careful.
Mr. Horowitz. But I will say that, speaking of our own work
in the department, we have played a very important role in
addressing sexual harassment, sexual misconduct in the Justice
Department and I am not confident that would have occurred in
the absence of an inspector general.
Mr. Connolly. Right. And so, therefore, inferentially one
would conclude from that statement that we all benefit from
having IGs and presumably another branch of government might
benefit, too?
Mr. Horowitz. I think there is a value in having
independent oversight in whatever form it takes and it has been
my concern----
Mr. Connolly. Right.
Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. and why I appreciate the issues
of prosecutorial----
Mr. Connolly. I would just say to my friend, the
distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee, I think this
is an issue we want to look into because I think the
legislative branch could benefit just like the--I mean, the
judicial branch could benefit just like both the executive and
legislative branches have benefited.
Mr. Dahl, transparency--my own experience and that of a
former colleague of this committee was not felicitous with
respect to transparency and communication when we presented to
CIGIE an issue of professional behavior and ethical behavior.
And putting aside who and the merits, I am focused on
process. What has happened--I mean, you indicated in your
testimony you want to protect whistleblowers and people who
come forward and so forth, and we agree.
But on the other hand, we also want to make sure that a
legitimate complaint or allegation brought to you is also
respectfully managed and adjudicated as opposed to we found no
merit--thanks for calling us.
Can you address that a little bit in terms of what has
happened in the last four or five years to improve how we
handle legitimate concerns brought to your attention? Because
this is a delicate matter, investigating a colleague, and you
are a small community.
We understand that. We have that problem up here, trying to
look at the ethics of a colleague. Very difficult and very
painful.
But if you don't do it, who will? And so I am interested in
not how you proceed in the investigation but once it is
completed or judgment is made, how do you dispose of it with
respect to the complainant?
Mr. Dahl. We share your--that this is a legitimate interest
for the complainant, and the transparency has to be there, as
the chairman noted, for us to have that credibility with the
public and with Congress.
And so we have endeavored in our policies and procedures to
build into those a communication mechanism both to Congress--
certainly, it is in the Empowerment Act now--that we would
inform Congress and at Congress's request we can provide that
kind of level of detail to the complainants.
We look carefully at those and identify what information we
can relate to the--to the complainant at the same time
protecting, as I said before, the confidentiality of the
whistleblower.
Mr. Connolly. And if I may interrupt, the other thing you
are trying to protect--and I understand that and I think we are
totally on board with you--is protecting someone's innocent
reputation.
Anyone can make a complaint about anything at any time.
That doesn't mean it is legit and it certainly means we need to
be careful with that kind of thing because raw data about
complaints does not tell you anything and there may not be any
merit to it. We want to respect that.
But on the other hand, as I said, where a legitimate
complaint about behavior by an IG comes to your attention we
have got to have confidence that it has been carefully vetted
and adjudicated and a rational explanation that is more than,
we looked at it and there is nothing there, certainly, when it
comes to Congress.
But even somebody within an agency or the public, as you
pointed out, I think is entitled to more than that kind of
dismissive answer.
Mr. Horowitz--and then my time is up--did you want to
comment?
Mr. Horowitz. Yes, just briefly. As I said, this was one of
the first issues we talked about. In January 2015 when I became
chair of CIGIE----
Mr. Connolly. That is right.
Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. the issue had already been
pending and I was, as we talked about, surprised at the
response you got or the lack of response you got.
I think there is a significant--there has been a
significant change since then with two intervening events, one,
Congress passing the IG Empowerment Act and the second being
the change in chairmanship of the committee so that CIGIE owns
the process now.
Not that the FBI didn't care about the process or be part
of it. They did. The problem is the FBI has 35,000 employees
and a lot of significant issues on their plate and IG oversight
probably isn't the highest priority on their----
Mr. Connolly. And there was also sort of a built-in bias,
wasn't there? Not a negative thing to say. They are a law
enforcement agency. So they are looking at illegal behavior,
criminal behavior. Well, we are looking at broader than that.
Mr. Horowitz. Right. Agreed.
Mr. Connolly. We are looking at be purer than driven snow.
Mr. Horowitz. Right. Yes, I had this discussion with them
when I came on board also. I get it. I worked with FBI agents.
They have no authority to handle noncriminal administrative
matters as part of their day jobs.
Mr. Connolly. That is right.
Mr. Horowitz. This was a collateral duty for them. We,
obviously, understand the significance of it for all the
reasons you have articulated and how to do them.
And so I think there has been an important change with both
the shift in management of it but also the policies and
procedures put in. We very much look forward to continuing with
the dialog with you.
We couldn't agree more that the public, Members of
Congress, all of our stakeholders have to be confident in what
we do.
It is one of the reasons on the whistleblower side we have
put so much effort into reaching out to the community, the
stakeholders there, set up the webpage, done that work, because
they need to know they can trust us and come to us. Same here.
We want--if there is real misconduct, actual misconduct, we
also want to hear about it. We want to be the ones to find it.
We want to be the ones to investigate it.
We have--and I appreciate your comment about the numbers
because if anyone looks at just the incoming complaints versus
the actual numbers, they might wonder how do you get from a
thousand or more to 10 or 20 or five.
But we have a similar issue at our DOJ IG. I get 10,000-
plus complaints a year. That--a lot of those shouldn't belong
with us and don't belong with us.
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Mr. Horowitz. And here we have the added situation of it
being easy to make a retaliatory complaint against an IG for
doing their jobs and then complaining that somehow we were
corrupt in what we did.
Mr. Connolly. Or biased. Yes.
Mr. Horowitz. Or biased. Now, that is not an unfair matter
to come to us. To be clear, I am not saying those--that never
could be the case. But the risk is it is coming to us solely
because we did our jobs.
Mr. Connolly. I thank you so much.
We are going to be submitting additional questions for the
record and if you could, you know, expeditiously but
thoughtfully try to answer those, and anybody who wants to
submit additional questions please feel free to send them to
the chair and we will forward them.
And before I adjourn the hearing, I want to thank all three
of you for being here. I want to call on the ranking member for
any additional comments he may have.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership
on this and, again, thank you. You know, the great thing about
the inspectors generals is that whether there is a Democrat in
the chair or a Republican in the chair, the value remains the
same.
And so I just want to thank all of you for your work. I
would say this. The chairman has just introduced a piece of
legislation that is very meaningful and I think it would be
important for us to get it to markup as quickly as possible,
get that through the markup process and to the floor for a
vote.
Additionally, you all have now hit on an area that is
critically important. We can sit back and we look at IGs and we
give them a thumbs up or a thumbs down or, you know, equivocate
kind of mark based on a set of criteria that is very ambiguous.
You know, whether it is you, Mr. Dahl, or you, Ms. Buller,
or you, Mr. Horowitz, I mean, when we look at all of this we
judge you based on a standard that may not be fair. And so to
the extent that we can work with you where we can say this is
what true independence is about.
This is what true integrity is about. This is what happens
when you don't get the information or you don't act upon it.
I think the chairman and I are willing to work in a
bipartisan way to make sure that you have all the tools that
you need and the financial resources as well.
Mr. Connolly. Well said, and I thank my friend for his
continuing leadership and interest in these issues.
As Ms. Norton said, they may not be headline issues but
they are about building a stronger government and more
integrity within that government that better serves the
American people and I thank my friend for his collaboration.
With that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]