Hearing — Restoring Independence: Rebuilding the Federal Offices of Inspectors General (April 20, 2021)
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This is a hearing before the Subcommittee on Government Operations of the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the House of Representatives, titled Restoring Independence: Rebuilding the Federal Offices of Inspectors General, on April 20, 2021, with Gerald E. Connolly presiding. The witnesses include Allison C. Lerner, Inspector General, National Science Foundation; Kathy A. Buller, Inspector General, Peace Corps; and Liz Hempowicz, Director of Public Policy, Project on Government Oversight. The index of documents lists a Project on Government Oversight report titled The Watchdogs After Forty Years, entered into the record by unanimous consent.
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- Chrg Chrg 117Hhrg44382 Chrg 117Hhrg44382
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“Hearing — Restoring Independence: Rebuilding the Federal Offices of Inspectors General (April 20, 2021).”
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RESTORING INDEPENDENCE:
REBUILDING THE FEDERAL OFFICES
OF INSPECTORS GENERAL
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND
REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
APRIL 20, 2021
Serial No. 117–15
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
(
Available at: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
44–382 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Ranking Minority
Columbia Member
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts JIM JORDAN, Ohio
JIM COOPER, Tennessee PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, Illinois JODY B. HICE, Georgia
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
RO KHANNA, California MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
KWEISI MFUME, Maryland BOB GIBBS, Ohio
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
KATIE PORTER, California PETE SESSIONS, Texas
CORI BUSH, Missouri FRED KELLER, Pennsylvania
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida ANDREW CLYDE, Georgia
PETER WELCH, Vermont NANCY MACE, South Carolina
HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland JAKE LATURNER, Kansas
JACKIE SPEIER, California PAT FALLON, Texas
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois YVETTE HERRELL, New Mexico
BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan BYRON DONALDS, Florida
MARK DESAULNIER, California
JIMMY GOMEZ, California
AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
DAVE RAPALLO, Staff Director
WENDY GINSBERG, Subcommittee Staff Director
AMY STRATTON, Deputy Chief Clerk
CONTACT NUMBER: 202-225-5051
MARK MARIN, Minority Staff Director
----
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia, Chairman
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JODY B. HICE, Georgia Ranking Minority
Columbia Member
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois FRED KELLER, Pennsylvania
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland ANDREW CLYDE, Georgia
BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachsetts NANCY MACE, South Carolina
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland JAKE LATURNER, Kansas
RO KHANNA, California YVETTE HERRELL, New Mexico
KATIE PORTER, California
(II)
C O N T E N T S
Page
Hearing held on April 20, 2021 .............................................................................. 1
WITNESSES
Allison C. Lerner, Inspector General, National Science Foundation Chair,
Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency
Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 6
Kathy A. Buller, Inspector General, Peace Corps; Executive Chair, Council
of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency Legislation Committee
Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 8
Mia M. Forgy, Deputy Inspector General, U.S. Election Assistance Commis-
sion
Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 10
Clark K. Ervin, Former Inspector General, Department of Homeland Security
and Department of State
Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 11
Liz Hempowicz, Director of Public Policy, Project on Government Oversight
Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 12
Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are available
on the U.S. House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
Documents entered into the record during this hearing by Unanimous Consent
(UC) and Questions for the Record (QFR’s) are listed below.
* UC - Project on Government Oversight report, ‘‘The Watchdogs After
Forty Years: Recommendations for Our Nation’s Federal Inspectors Gen-
eral;’’ submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* UC - Letter from former inspectors general regarding reforms to the
inspectors general system; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* UC - Statement for the record from former Department of Defense In-
spector General Gordon Heddell regarding inspector general independence;
submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* UC - Government Accountability Office report regarding inspector gen-
eral independence and reforms; submitted by Reps. Maloney and Porter.
* UC - Congressional Research Service report regarding Congress’s author-
ity to limit the removal of inspectors general; submitted by Rep. Maloney.
* UC - Statement by Michael Horowitz, Chair of the Council of the Inspec-
tors General on Integrity and Efficiency, regarding the removal of Inspector
General Michael Atkinson; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* QFR’s: to Ms. Kathy A. Buller; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* QFR’s: to Mr. Clark K. Ervin; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* QFR’s: to Ms. Allison Lerner; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.
(III)
RESTORING INDEPENDENCE:
REBUILDING THE FEDERAL OFFICES
OF INSPECTORS GENERAL
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, and via Zoom; Hon. Gerald
E. Connolly (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Connolly, Maloney, Norton, Davis, Sar-
banes, Lynch, Porter, Speier, Hice, Keller, Biggs, Herrell, and
Comer.
Mr. CONNOLLY. The committee will come order.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of
the committee at any time.
Without objection, Carolyn Maloney, the gentlewoman from New
York and Jackie Speier, the gentlewoman from California, shall be
permitted to join the subcommittee and be recognized for ques-
tioning the witnesses.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
For more than 40 years, Inspectors General have provided inde-
pendent and objective oversight of Federal Government and oper-
ations. Offices of the Inspector General conduct audits, inspections,
evaluations, and investigations in order to strengthen program in-
tegrity, promote operational economy and efficiency, and root out
fraud, waste, and abuse, as well as mismanagement, across the
Federal Government. IGs are accountable to the President, to their
agencies, to this Congress, and, as stewards of taxpayer dollars, to
the American people. IGs provide a lot of bang for the buck.
In Fiscal Year 2020, alone, the 75 Federal OIGs collectively iden-
tified $33.3 billion in potential savings from audit reports and
$19.7 billion in actual and anticipated recoveries from investiga-
tions. These potential savings from audits and investigations total
$53 billion, amounting to a return on investment of $17 for every
one dollar invested in the IG.
And IGs don’t just investigate fraud and recoup money. Their re-
turn on investment also includes improved cybersecurity, ethics
oversight of work force and contractors, and more recently, work
that oversees the health and safety of our Nation.
IGs do not make many friends when they speak truth to power;
in fact, sometimes they make enemies. During the last year in of-
(1)
2
fice, unfortunately, President Trump executed a rash of politically
motivated retaliatory personnel moves against IGs. He moved to
replace one acting IG whose office was engaged in a review of mis-
conduct or mismanagement by administration officials. The Presi-
dent publicly blocked a third well-respected acting IG from serving
as the head of the newly established pandemic oversight body. In
a more difficult and maybe sinister move, the President fired the
intelligence community IG, Michael Atkinson, who reported whis-
tleblower allegations to Congress that ultimately led to Mr.
Trump’s own impeachment. He also fired State Department IG,
Steve Linick, who was investigating allegations of misconduct by
Secretary Pompeo, allegations that have recently been confirmed
by that very office.
The political motives behind these personnel changes were hard-
ly veiled. Mr. Trump claimed only that he had lost confidence, a
very low standard for the removal of an IG. This flimsy excuse col-
lapsed under minimal scrutiny. The intent was clear: intimidation
and obfuscation and obstruction.
The firings signaled the President’s demand for loyalty to him
over service to the American public. In doing so, the former Presi-
dent set a dangerous precedent; that an IG can simply be removed
because they are doing their job.
We cannot allow that to happen. If a President needs to remove
an IG, if there is cause, the President should provide very specific
reasons for that cause to Congress, in writing. That is why I sup-
port Chairwoman Maloney’s re-introduction of the IG Independence
Act that includes provisions to require cause for removal of an IG.
In some cases, issues of protecting an effective IG from removal
were overshadowed by the absence of a permanent IG. During the
former President’s tenure, 14 OIGs were without a confirmed indi-
vidual; in fact, four of those agencies never had a permanent IG
for the entire duration of the administration.
While previous administrations also had IG vacancies, President
Trump was calculated in using the vacancies as a way to install
acting IGs, sometimes with conflicts of interest. At both the State
Department and the Department of Transportation, for example,
IGs were installed as acting, who served within the departments
they were meant to oversee.
Wearing dual hats, as we will hear from Ms. Lerner and Ms.
Buller, undermines IG independence. In the absence of an ap-
pointed IG, we must sustain the office’s independence by scoping
the selection of qualified acting officials to hold their place. My vice
chair, Ms. Porter, is championing the Accountability for Acting Of-
ficials Act that seeks to do just that.
I have also said before that IGs must be pure as the driven snow.
That is because if IGs are to hold agencies accountable and encour-
age whistleblowers to come forward, they must be above reproach
themselves.
Just this week, the Integrity Committee released a scathing in-
vestigation, not yet made public, that found one IG created a cul-
ture of witness intimidation at his/her agency. According to the in-
vestigation, the IG abused authority by ridiculing, belittling, and
bullying her staff. These findings come more than four years after
the allegations reached the Integrity Committee, the branch of the
3
Council of Inspectors General charged with overseeing the over-
seers.
This example is why I, and former ranking member Mark Mead-
ows, introduced the enhanced Whistleblower Engagement Act, to
ensure that OIG employees receive whistleblower training and di-
rect the IG Council to identify best practices to promote timely and
appropriate handling of alleged reprisals within an IG’s office.
Moreover, given the outlandish and inappropriate steps this par-
ticular IG took to evade Integrity Committee oversight, you can
trust we will be following up with legislation to make crystal clear
that IGs must make documents and personnel available to the In-
tegrity Committee in a manner commensurate to the access they
are provided to oversee their respective affiliated agencies.
The Integrity Committee, itself, has sometimes fallen short. To
ensure the accountability of our IG community, we will be reintro-
ducing legislation today to codify and enhance administrative re-
porting reforms and to allow Congress greater insight into the In-
tegrity Committee’s operations. Those who watch the watchdogs
must be held to great account.
Similar legislation passed this committee without opposition in
the last Congress, and I hope we can move quickly on a bipartisan
basis once again in this Congress.
Independent oversight by the IGs is essential to maintaining ac-
countability and transparency in government. That independence
was under constant attack in recent years. This hearing will exam-
ine some of the ways in which we can restore and bolster the
framework of independence within the IG community, which bene-
fits taxpayers and this Nation every day.
With that, I recognize the ranking member for his opening re-
marks.
Mr. HICE. Thank you, Chairman Connolly.
And I appreciate you calling this hearing today, as we examine
the roles and the resources available to our Inspectors General.
Rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct is certainly one of
the most important jobs that this committee and the Inspectors
General serve; themselves, really, on the front line, as we, as a
committee, try to serve on the front line, as far as Congress is con-
cerned.
But one of the big concerns that I have, in addition, is the fact
that according to the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity
and Efficiency records, of the 76 Inspector General Offices, 18 have
fewer than 10 employees, and as a result, some of these simply
don’t have the resources needed to do the job that we expect them
to do, as Congress. Some of these agencies include the National En-
dowment for Humanities, the Farm Credit Administration, the
Federal Trade Commission, and the Election Assistance Commis-
sion.
And all of these, in spite of not having proper resources, still pro-
vide hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to individuals, busi-
nesses, states, localities, and so forth, and yet, with minimal staff-
ing, they find themselves in a situation where it is really, they are
incapable of conducting the oversight and the responsibilities that
they have on their shoulders.
4
Here is just one example that, personally, I was involved with,
along with a few others. But when the retirement of Inspector Gen-
eral Patricia Layfield, after she retired, Ms. Mia Forgy, she is now
the only staff member of the Election Assistance Commission Office
of the Inspector General. I mean, that is pretty stunning, to think
we have an Inspector General Office with only one person there.
In 2020 alone, the Election Assistance Commission provided $825
million in grants. That was an increase of $445 million from 2019.
And more than half of that money, by the way, went out in just
45 days. So, you have got an enormous amount of money going out
and you only have one person involved in the whole office. I mean,
it is just amazing.
And due to the lack of staffing resources, the EAC Inspector Gen-
eral Office, they contract out the audits of the EAC grant pro-
grams, but they, themselves, don’t even have the personnel to re-
view the audits from the third party. So, how do you determine
whether or not it is even an accurate audit if you don’t even have
the ability to look into and audit the audit that a third party is
doing?
Furthermore, when we asked them to investigate substantiated
allegations of an improper contract awarded to a pro-Biden firm by
the California Secretary of State’s Office to contact voters, the
former Inspector General, Ms. Layfield, she informed us, the Re-
publicans on this committee, that their office did not have the abil-
ity to conduct the investigations and, instead, they would need to
hire a third-party contractor.
So, what is the purpose of the Inspectors General if they can’t
do their job, and why do we even have an office in the EAC if they
don’t have the ability to do their job?
And to make matters worse, the contract did not even pay out
at that time, so immediate action by the Inspector General could
have prevented, really, millions of dollars in taxpayer money from
being misspent, but they did not have the resources or the per-
sonnel to deal with the issue at hand. This is deeply concerning,
and it highlights a serious problem that many of the small Inspec-
tor General Offices are facing.
If an Inspector General’s office does not have the staffing, I will
say it again, if they don’t have the staffing to conduct investiga-
tions into substantial allegations of wrongdoing, then, quite frank-
ly, they don’t have the resources to function at all, if they can’t
even do investigations into substantiated allegations.
Inspector General Offices should not be a pass-through for third-
party contractors and they, themselves, still have no ability to over-
see those contractors. It just is nonsense.
So, I am hopeful that my Democrat colleagues can and will stop
the repeated attacks on the Trump administration and focus on en-
suring that our Inspectors General are able to conduct robust over-
sight or look for other solutions to ensure that all agencies have a
watchdog capable of overseeing agency operations and spending.
That is what it is all about.
And I am hopeful, Mr. Chairman, that we can come together and
work for those kinds of solutions to a broader problem, rather than
just use this hearing, and I hope it doesn’t turn into just an oppor-
tunity for continued attacks on the Trump administration. We have
5
serious issues that need to be addressed and resolved, and I hope
we will be able to move in the spirit of accomplishing that task be-
fore us.
So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back and I thank you.
Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the gentleman and assure him that hold-
ing the Trump administration is not a serious of gratuitous at-
tacks. It is, in fact, to highlight actions that were taken that seri-
ously threatened to undermine the integrity and the independence
of IGs.
Mr. HICE. And I would remind the chairman that President
Obama did similar actions. So, let’s just, in fairness, deal with the
problem, and not use it as an attack would be my request. Thank
you.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, I would certainly expect the ranking mem-
ber to show equal sensitivity to the Biden administration, because
I noticed he lobbed grenades at Biden in his remarks, while preach-
ing nonpartisanship for the rest of us.
With that, I see the distinguished chairwoman of the full com-
mittee, Mrs. Carolyn Maloney is on. I know she has an opening
statement.
Madam Chairwoman, you are recognized for your opening state-
ment.
Chairwoman MALONEY. Thank you, Chairman Connolly, for your
insightful comments.
And thank you, Member Hice, for calling this important hearing
on Inspectors General.
Inspectors General play a crucial role in our democracy by inde-
pendently and objectively working to expose waste, fraud, and
abuse in government. Supporting Inspectors General and the need
for adequate independence and access has long been a bipartisan
issue in this committee. The committee regularly relies on the work
of IGs to identify issues in need of reform, recommendations for
how that reform can be achieved. It is critical to have experienced,
competent, and independent Inspectors General at every agency.
Unfortunately, and based on fact, President Trump repeatedly
attacked the independence of IGs by removing or replacing IGs in
what appeared to be retaliation for investigating misconduct of his
own administration. That is why last year, I introduced the Inspec-
tor General Independence Act with House Majority Leader Hoyer,
Chairman Connolly, and Chairman Lynch.
The Inspector General Independence Act would protect IGs from
being fired as a result of political retaliation by only allowing an
IG to be removed for one of a set list of reasons. I want to build
on that proposal with an even bolder package of reforms.
Yesterday, I introduced the IG Independence and Empowerment
Act. This comprehensive package includes a number of proposals,
many of which have received broad, bipartisan support. Just a few
examples include the enhanced whistleblower engagement act, a
bill introduced by Chairman Connolly, to enhance whistleblower
training for IGs, and a bill introduced by Vice Chair Jimmy Gomez,
to give IGs the ability to compel testimony from contractors and
former Federal employees. We have important work to do to both
preserve and protect the independence and authority of Inspectors
General going forward.
6
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today and appre-
ciate their willingness to help us draw attention to the importance
of Inspectors General and the work they do.
Thank you, again, for holding this important hearing, and I yield
back.
Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the distinguished chairwoman and thank
her for her leadership on this subject. I look forward to working
with her, hopefully on a bipartisan basis, as we move forward on
the legislative agenda.
I would now like to introduce our witnesses. We are grateful to
have their expertise. Our first witness will be Allison Lerner, who
is the Inspector General for the National Science Foundation and
the chair of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Effi-
ciency, known as CIGIE.
We will then hear from Kathy Buller, Inspector General of the
Peace Corps and executive chair of CIGIE.
Third, we will hear from Mia Forgy, the Deputy Inspector Gen-
eral for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Fourth, we will hear from Clark Ervin, former Inspector General
for the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State.
And last, but certainly not least, we will hear from Liz
Hempowicz, director of public policy at the Project of Government
Oversight, I think also known as POGO.
If the witnesses would unmute themselves, and if our two in-per-
son witnesses would rise, and if all of you would raise your right
hand, it is the tradition of our committee and subcommittee to
swear in witnesses.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. CONNOLLY. Let the record show that all of our witnesses
have, in fact, replied in the affirmative.
I want to thank you all. Without objection, your written state-
ments will be made part of the record.
And with that, Ms. Lerner, you are now recognized for a five
minute summation of your testimony. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF ALLISON C. LERNER, INSPECTOR GENERAL,
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, CHAIR, COUNCIL OF THE
INSPECTORS GENERAL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY
Ms. LERNER. Thank you, Chairman Connolly.
Chairman Connolly, Ranking Member Hice, and distinguished
members of the subcommittee, I appreciate you inviting me to ap-
pear before you today in my role as chair of the Council of the In-
spectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.
Since January 1 of this year, I have had the honor of serving as
CIGIE’s chair, and for six years prior to that, I served as its vice
chair. My testimony today will focus on actions to strength IGs’
independence and ensure they have the tools necessary to do their
work, to protect whistleblowers, and to hold IGs and their senior
leaders accountable.
CIGIE has several legislative priorities, focused on strengthening
IG independence. I’d also like to highlight the work of CIGIE’s IG
candidate recommendations panel, which is grappling with one of
the greatest challenges currently facing the IG community: the fact
7
that 15 out of the 75 IG positions are vacant, including 13 Presi-
dentially appointed positions.
The panel has worked with Presidential administrations and
agency heads since 2009 to identify strong, independent candidates
for IG positions. It has interviewed candidates and provided dozens
of recommendations to both the Trump and Biden administrations
for vacant Presidentially appointed IG positions, and it has sup-
ported agency heads working to fill IG positions through competi-
tive hiring actions. CIGIE supports codifying some of the actions
taken by the panel to ensure they continue across future adminis-
trations.
A strong message from agency leadership supporting cooperation
with the Office of Inspector General can be an invaluable tool for
OIGs. To help OIGs, whose agencies have not made such state-
ments, CIGIE is preparing a white paper on these communications
and then a template that IGs can use to work with their agency
heads to promulgate such statements. We look forward to briefing
the committee on the results of this project and to sharing the
white paper and template with OMB, as it works to craft and mes-
sage to agency heads in support of the value of IG oversight.
Inspector General Buller’s testimony details legislative opportu-
nities to provide IGs with essential oversight tools, including testi-
monial subpoena authority. I’d also like to highlight legislation that
cures a longstanding problem with the Department of Justice OIG’s
jurisdiction. Unlike all other OIGs, the DOJ OIG does not have ju-
risdiction to review misconduct allegations against all Department
employees. Misconduct by DOJ lawyers is investigated by DOJ’s
Office of Professional Responsibility, which is not independent, like
the OIG.
Last Congress, the House passed the bipartisan, Inspector Gen-
eral Access Act, without objection. Senators Richard Durbin, Mike
Lee, and a bipartisan group of co-sponsors, have introduced iden-
tical legislation in the Senate, and we encourage Congress to quick-
ly pass this important legislation.
Our work as IGs would have far less impact without whistle-
blowers, whose actions have saved U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars
and made government programs more efficient and effective. CIGIE
has taken many actions to ensure whistleblowers are aware of
their right to disclose evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse, and are
also protected for doing so. As CIGIE chair, I’ll encourage all OIGs
to prioritize internal whistleblower education for OIG employees.
I also support the Securing Inspector General Independence Act
of 2021, which, among other things, would require whistleblower
protection coordinators to inform OIG employees of their whistle-
blower rights and protections, including the process for filing a
complaint with CIGIE’s Integrity Committee.
Finally, just as Inspectors General oversee our agencies, we’re
committed to upholding accountability within our own community.
Since the IG Empowerment Act transferred full responsibility for
CIGIE’s Integrity Committee, the entity that oversees IGs and
their senior officials, from the FBI to CIGIE, the IC’s work has be-
come more transparent and rigorous. Its workload has also in-
creased steadily, along with the amount of staff, time, and other re-
sources required to fulfill the IC’s essential mission.
8
We are exploring ways to provide additional support, such as
adding a senior investigative attorney to the team. The IC is also
working to enhance the transparency of its operations, while still
protecting the whistleblowers who contact it, who are often ex-
tremely concerned about being retaliated against as a result of
their decision to come forward.
Thank you, again, for your strong bipartisan support for our com-
munity. I look forward to working closely with this subcommittee
to ensure that Inspectors General continue to be empowered to pro-
vide the independent, objective oversight for which they’re known,
and which the taxpayers deserve.
This concludes my prepared remarks, and I’d be pleased to an-
swer any questions you might have.
Mr. CONNOLLY. You are a pro. Sixteen seconds left. Thank you.
Ms. Buller, you are recognized for your five minute summation
of your testimony.
STATEMENT OF KATHY A. BULLER, INSPECTOR GENERAL,
PEACE CORPS, LEGISLATION COMMITTEE CHAIR, COUNCIL
OF THE INSPECTORS GENERAL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFI-
CIENCY LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Ms. BULLER. Chairman Connolly, Ranking Member Hice, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting
me to appear before you today. I am the Inspector General of the
Peace Corps and the chair of the Legislation Committee for the
Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, or
CIGIE.
Each IG has its own relationship with Congress; however, on
issues impacting multiple IGs, we are more effective in providing
technical assistance to Congress through a collective effort. I am
testifying in my capacity as a Legislation Committee chair.
Today, Inspectors General are operating amid a worldwide pan-
demic, overseeing some of the most extensive government spending
bills in history. Despite the 15 vacant Inspector General positions
at some of the largest and most consequential agencies within gov-
ernment, Inspectors General and their staff are working diligently
to provide accountability and ensure integrity of Government proc-
esses.
While administration and agency leadership change, the IG com-
munity has a proven track record with integrity and functioning
fairly and objectively.
Last year, with the support from the leadership of this com-
mittee, legislation was introduced to bolster and protect the inde-
pendence and integrity of the IG community. While not all of it
passed, CIGIE was pleased to see additional whistleblower protec-
tions enacted. The protections initially introduced in the House by
Chairman Connolly, were bolstered by bipartisan support. These
new whistleblower protections will make it easier for whistle-
blowers to come forward without fear of reprisal.
While these reforms and other key legislation, such as the In-
spector General Empowerment Act of 2016, improved the ability
and capacity of IGs to perform independent oversight, serious chal-
lenges remain. Each Congress, the CIGIE Legislation Committee
presents the committee’s top reform proposals to strengthen gov-
9
ernment oversight or to resolve challenges that IGs face under cur-
rent law.
While I have outlined all of our legislative priorities in my writ-
ten remarks, there are three I would like to highlight.
First, it’s imperative that Congress take steps to protect the
independence of the Inspectors General. CIGIE surges Congress to
amend Federal Vacancies Reform Act to change who is eligible to
serve as acting IG, include the first assistant to the Inspector Gen-
eral, and allow for senior OIG officials from different agencies to
serve in that capacity.
Last year, two Presidential appointees were directed to serve as
acting IGs for the agencies they served, one of whom, in an agency,
continued in an agency management position while serving as act-
ing IG.
The fact is that administrations from both parties have selected
acting Inspectors General from senior management and political
positions within the agencies to be overseen, creating actual and
perceived conflicts of interest, and undermining independence.
This legislation, with an additional provision, requiring notifica-
tion to Congress when an IG is placed on non-duty status, includ-
ing the reasons why the action was taken, will greatly improve IG
independence.
Second, to address lingering access issues, prohibit the use of ap-
propriated funds to deny IG access to information. Existing appro-
priations prohibitions apply only to agencies funded under par-
ticular subcommittee appropriations acts. CIGIE recommends a
governmentwide prohibition to further emphasize IGs’ authority to
access agency information.
Third, provide the IG community with testimonial subpoena au-
thority. This tool can be used to get critical information from gov-
ernment contractors, subcontractors, volunteers, grantees, sub-
grantees, and former employees.
We are committed to providing technical assistance, as appro-
priate, to help ensure the effectiveness of testimonial subpoenas as
an oversight tool. CIGIE recommends that testimonial subpoena
authority for IGs mirror CIGIE’s documentary subpoena authority,
similar to the authority recently granted to the Pandemic Response
Accountability Committee of CIGIE.
While there are differences between CIGIE’s proposal and the
legislation, we wanted to express our appreciation to the chairman,
Committee Chairwoman Maloney, and Congressman Gomez for in-
troducing H.R. 2089. As Chairman Connolly stated, when intro-
ducing the legislation, testimonial subpoena authority for IGs is a
necessary tool to hold former officials accountable for their actions
and consequences of their policy decisions.
In closing, I would like to thank all members and staff of this
subcommittee and the full committee, for your efforts on initiatives
affecting CIGIE and our legislative priorities. The Legislation Com-
mittee looks forward to continuing to be an important resource for
you as you pursue additional oversight and legislative work.
That ends my prepared remarks and I’m here to take any ques-
tions.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much, Ms. Buller.
10
Ms. Forgy, and Ms. Forgy, am I pronouncing your name cor-
rectly?
Ms. FORGY. It’s Forgy.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Of course it is.
Ms. Forgy, forgive me, please. I took a stab and I got it wrong.
Ms. FORGY. No problem.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Welcome, Ms. Forgy.
Ms. FORGY. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MIA M. FORGY, DEPUTY INSPECTOR
GENERAL, U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
Ms. FORGY. Good morning, Chairman Connolly, Ranking Member
Hice, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you
for the invitation to discuss with you the operations and activities
of the Election Assistance Commission, Office of Inspector General.
The EAC is a bipartisan commission, created and authorized by
the Help America Vote Act, known as HAVA. The OIG is an inde-
pendent division of EAC that’s required by HAVA and the Inspec-
tor General Act of 1978. The OIG is comprised of an Inspector Gen-
eral and a Deputy Inspector General. Due to the planned retire-
ment of the former Inspector General on March 31, 2021, the OIG
is currently operating with one full-time employee.
For additional resources, the OIG procures audit support services
from independent public accounting firms and legal and investiga-
tive services from other Federal agencies. HAVA gives EAC the au-
thority to conduct regular audits of grants and payments distrib-
uted by the EAC and the OIG conducts those audits on behalf of
the EAC.
To fulfill that mission, the OIG has established a risk-assessment
process for selecting and auditing the administration of the $1.2
billion in payments distributed by EAC to its grant recipients, col-
lectively, in 2018 and 2020, and the unexpended payments distrib-
uted prior to 2011 that the EAC has reissued as new grant awards
in Fiscal Year 2020.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 included an appro-
priation of $380 million in HAVA election security grants. The OIG
procured audit support services in September 2019 to conduct au-
dits of the 2018 election security grants for six states: New Mexico,
Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Florida.
Due to the impacts of COVID–19 and the states’ limited avail-
ability during the 2020 primary and Presidential elections, the six
audits were performed between December 2020 and March 2021.
The six audits reviewed a total of $32.4 million in expended Fed-
eral funds and identified $4.4 million of questioned costs and
$82,466 in funds that could be put to better use.
In general, the six audits of the 2018 election security grants
found that the states are spending HAVA funds on allowable pro-
gram activities. In December 2019, the EAC received an additional
$425 million in HAVA election security grants, and in March 2020,
the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, known as
CARES Act, provided supplemental appropriations of $4 million as
support for the states in conducting the 2020 Federal elections.
OIG is currently in the procurement process to obtain audit serv-
ices for Fiscal Year 2021 to continue auditing states’ expenditures
11
of the 2018 election security grants and to include audits of the
2020 election security grants, 2020 CARES Act payments, and EAC
grant awards being issued to the states in Fiscal Year 2020.
In addition to grant audits, the OIG is responsible for conducting
internal audits, inspections and evaluations, and other reviews of
EAC’s programs, policies, procedures, and reporting on those re-
sults.
There have been considerable changes recently in the OIG’s
audit environment, including a substantial increase in the EAC’s
grant funding, as well as operational changes in EAC’s grant man-
agement. The OIG, however, is working to ensure effective over-
sight of the $1.2 billion of grants issued to the states while con-
tinuing to conduct OIG statutory audits, audits and assessments of
EAC’s internal business processes, and to comply with all OIG
mandates issued by governmentwide policy, and government-audit-
ing standards.
The OIG is currently operating with one full-time employee and
a Fiscal Year 2021 budget of $1 million for contracted audits and
legal and investigative services. As a result of the EAC’s recent
budget increase, the OIG will have the ability to hire an additional
FTE anticipated for Fiscal Year 2021. Additionally, the EAC is ac-
tively recruiting to fill the vacant Inspector General position.
In closing, election systems have been designated by the Depart-
ment of Homeland Security as part of the Nation’s critical infra-
structure and the EAC plays a critical role in funding and assisting
states to improve election processes. It is the OIG’s role to offer
guidance and information through its audits, that will help the
EAC build and run programs that promote other competence by
preventing and detecting fraud, waste, and abuse.
To adequately perform this role, the OIG is required to regularly
conduct grant audits, as described within HAVA, perform our OIG
statutory requirements, and showing that assessments, reviews,
and audits of EAC’s high-risk areas are performed, and readily re-
spond to congressional requests.
The OIG will continue to work with the EAC and Congress to
help promote efficient and effective government.
I appreciate the opportunity to provide this testimony regarding
the activities of the OIG. If you have any questions, I will be happy
to address them. Thank you.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Ms. Forgy, and you got 17 seconds
to go. Great job.
Mr. Ervin, you have your five-minute summation of your testi-
mony. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF CLARK ERVIN, FORMER INSPECTOR GEN-
ERAL, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND DE-
PARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. ERVIN. Good morning, Chairman Connolly, Ranking Member
Hice, and other members of the subcommittee, and thank you very
much for the opportunity to testify before you today on this very
important topic.
The assault on the IG community in the last few years highlights
the urgent need to further amend the statute to further empower
Inspectors General to do the job that Congress intended for them
12
to do and to further protect Inspectors General from reprisals for
doing so.
Let me touch briefly on a few such reforms. First, I support a for-
cause removal provision, with cause being defined as permanent in-
capacity or serious misconduct, as specified in H.R. 6984. And the
stated cause should be documented so that its accuracy can be
scrutinized by Congress and further tested in the court of public
opinion.
Additionally, I support setting a fixed, but renewable term for
IGs, say seven years. A fixed term would underscore that IGs are
not typical political appointees who serve only at the pleasure of
the President, and, therefore, serve the President’s political pur-
poses and advance his policy agenda.
In my judgment, the combination of these measures would fur-
ther empower Inspectors General to exercise their oversight re-
sponsibilities vigorously. They would have the assurance of know-
ing that doing their jobs will not cost them their jobs.
Second, given the number and length of IG vacancies, we must
do something to encourage presidents to fill them as soon as pos-
sible. One thought would be to require presidents, after a reason-
able period of time, to nominate someone, or at least to give Con-
gress a notional date by when a nomination can be expected.
In the meantime, vacancies should be filled only by the Deputy
Inspector General, the general counsel to the Inspector General, or
someone else senior in the Office of Inspector General.
The occupant of the IG position, whether on a permanent or a
temporary basis, should be someone who has the qualifications
specified in the statute and someone outside the agency chain of
command, so that his or her independence is not compromised, ei-
ther as a matter of fact or appearance. And IGs should not be dou-
ble-headed, because done right, being an IG is a full-time job and
then some.
Third, IGs should be given testimonial subpoena power with re-
spect to former employees and agency contractors and grantees.
Any good investigator will tell you that a thorough investigation re-
quires reviewing documents and witness testimony, and then cross-
checking them against each other.
I mentioned a couple other items in my written testimony, and
I can think of, still others, as I sit here today, but in the interests
of time, I’ll leave it at that for now, and, again, thank you very
much for inviting me, and I look forward to answering your ques-
tions.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much, Mr. Ervin. Very thoughtful.
Ms. Hempowicz, you are recognized for your five-minute summa-
tion of your testimony. Welcome.
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF LIZ HEMPOWICZ, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC
POLICY, PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Chairman Connolly, Ranking Member Hice, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify
today about Inspectors General.
Congress enacted the Inspector General Act in 1978 to create a
system of overseers who work within, but independent of, Federal
13
agencies. When agencies, themselves, were charged with this work,
Congress found that agency personnel clearly failed to make suffi-
cient and effective efforts to prevent and detect fraud, abuse,
waste, and mismanagement in Federal programs and expenditures,
in large part because of a lack of independence and the natural
tendency to not call attention to your own shortcomings.
The IG system we have today was Congress’ answer to that prob-
lem, and in large part, that system has been a success. The work
of the IGs has continually resulted in substantial financial savings
for the Federal Government, as we have heard.
That is not to say that the system has reached its full potential,
however, especially coming off of the sixth year in a row in which
polling shows that the public is gravely concerned about Govern-
ment corruption. It is critical that these watchdogs have the re-
sources, independence, and accountability they need to root out all
forms of corruption in our Government.
That is why I strongly urge Congress to pass legislation to ad-
dress IG resources and authorities by granting all IGs subpoena
power to compel testimony when the subjects of their investigations
have left government service or were contractors and reduce the
statutorily required reporting elements of Inspector General semi-
annual reports, to preserve their independence by protecting In-
spectors General against unwarranted removal and limiting who
can serve as a temporary acting Inspector General in the event of
a vacancy, and to hold IGs accountable by ensuring the Integrity
Committee of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity
and Efficiency, has the resources and policies in place to ade-
quately and consistently oversee the overseers.
While my written testimony goes into detail about all of these
recommendations, I’d like to focus today on the issue of independ-
ence. Doing the job of an Inspector General well, will eventually
put most IGs at odds with political leadership; indeed, this tension
is exactly why Congress established independent structures for
Federal IGs in the first place.
While that independence built into the IG Act is a good start,
there are two critical gaps that leave internal watchdogs vulner-
able to politically driven interference. First, a president has unfet-
tered ability to remove an Inspector General even for improper rea-
sons. Second, after such a removal, a president can replace them
immediately with an individual who doesn’t meet the standards
laid out in the IG Act or one whose conflicts of interest could nega-
tively affect the Office’s work. Both gaps pose serious risks to the
effectiveness of Inspectors General, and both must be addressed by
Congress.
Though the Congress didn’t place any limits on the President’s
authority to remove Inspectors General in 1978, they did require
Presidents to notify Congress about the reasons for such a removal.
They expected this requirement would act as a sufficient deterrent
to keep presidents from removing aggressive watchdogs, because
they were doing their job well; however, it has become abundantly
clear that this notification to Congress is not serving as such a de-
terrent.
The public and Congress depend on IGs to ensure our Federal
agencies are functioning effectively, and to do this job, IGs must be
14
confident that the law will protect them from retaliation. Right
now, IGs do not have that confidence.
Last year, after President Trump removed four Inspectors Gen-
eral in quick succession, POGO immediately began hearing from
those in the IG community. What we heard was that they were
afraid that doing their jobs and going after the facts, wherever they
may lead, without regard for how it would reflect on the President
or others in political leadership, would cost, would be the end of
their careers.
This is not an environment conducive to rigorous and effective
oversight. That is why I strongly urge Congress to enact legislation
that would require the President to have just cause to fire an In-
spector General and to communicate the specific causes underlying
that impending removal to Congress.
Granting Inspectors General for-cause removal protections will
make it less dangerous to exercise the independence required of
them to fulfill their missions.
I understand that the executive branch has asserted that such
protections would be unconstitutional, but I would caution Con-
gress against accepting that position outright. The Supreme Court
recently had a chance to expansively strike down for-cause removal
protections for executive branch officials, and it declined to do so;
in fact, they went out of their way to highlight that in some cases,
these protections are appropriate.
Our analysis is that IGs are one such office where these protec-
tions would be appropriate and constitutional, and the nonpartisan
congressional Research Service agrees.
I also urge Congress to limit who the President can choose as an
acting IG in the event of a vacancy to preempt issues of conflicting
priorities by preventing agency employees from overseeing the
agency they work for, and to encourage the President to make a
formal nomination where she could exercise her full appointment
power.
Thank you, again, for holding this important hearing and for
your demonstrated commitment to the Inspector General System
and community. I look forward to answering your questions.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Wow. Within three seconds. That is a pro. Thank
you.
I would just observe, I was saying this to the distinguished rank-
ing member before the hearing began, if we are going to bolster the
powers and independence of IGs, including subpoena power, which
I would support, personally, I do think, however, we have to reas-
sure ourselves that, as I said in my opening statement, that the
IGs, themselves, are purer than driven snow.
And that means CIGIE has to be more transparent, rigorous, and
accountable for investigating any IG who may be, in fact, guilty of
something that is untoward and that taints his or her office. And
I just plant that idea, because while we may not agree on the
record of the previous administration, I do believe that we can find
common ground, though, in making sure that we strengthen the in-
frastructure of accountability for IGs, themselves. Otherwise, con-
fidence gets eroded.
So, I just want to plant that idea in everyone’s mind, because I
think there is some common ground to be had here, but it is going
15
to require a more robust infrastructure at CIGIE, frankly, and bet-
ter communication and accountability to Congress in terms of their
oversight and investigations.
Sorry for that advertisement for a bill I would like to reintro-
duce.
The chair now recognizes for her five minutes of questions, our
distinguished chairwoman, Chairwoman Maloney.
Chairwoman Maloney, I think you need to unmute.
Chairwoman MALONEY. Thank you, all of the panelists, for a
very insightful testimony.
And, Mr. Chairman, thank you, again, for having this very im-
portant hearing.
Ms. Lerner, in the last year in office, President Trump removed
or replaced five Inspectors General in what appeared to be retalia-
tion for investigating misconduct of his own administration. In
June 2020, the Government Accountability Office issued a report
addressing the impact of political retaliation on IGs, and that re-
port said, and I quote, ensuring the independence of IGs is critical
to the Office of IG’s credibility and effectiveness, end quote.
If there is the appearance of political interference with an IG’s
Office, how might that impact the mission and effectiveness of that
office, Ms. Lerner?
Ms. LERNER. Thank you for the question, Madam Chairwoman.
And to answer it, any action that would make the work of an In-
spector General appear to be politically motivated, goes to the
heart of what an OIG is there for. IGs are meant to be appointed,
without regard to political affiliation, and to conduct their work
independently and in a nonpartisan fashion. And it is entirely in
opposition to everything that we hold dear, to inject politics into
the leadership decisions of the office.
Ms. Hempowicz, yesterday, I introduced, along with Mr. Connolly
and Mr. Lynch, the IG Independence and Empowerment Act, and
this legislative package includes a provision that would only allow
Inspectors General to be removed for one of a few specific set of
causes.
How would requiring cause for an IG to be removed, promote the
independence of Inspectors General?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Thank you so much for your question, Chair-
woman, and also for that legislation, which POGO has endorsed.
How would requiring cause help to insulate Inspectors General?
I think, you know, there are two parts to this. One, there needs to
be cause, and then, two, that cause needs to be communicated to
the Congress. And so, I think, you know, both parts are important.
First, to require cause, it requires the President to show why
they’re removing that Inspector General, which would remove some
of those questions about whether or not this is politically moti-
vated. But so does that communication to Congress, by giving Con-
gress those documented reasons for removing the Inspector Gen-
eral. It helps remove politics out of the equation and allows the
President, really, to exercise their authority in a way that is com-
pletely above board and not subject to abuse of power.
Chairwoman MALONEY. Thank you.
Also, the Government Accountability Office noted in a June 2020
report that in order to safeguard the independence of Inspectors
16
General, that Congress could consider a for-cause removal require-
ment. And last week, the congressional Research Service released
an analysis of congressional authority to limit the removal of In-
spectors General and concluded that for-cause removal restrictions,
quote, appear to be a constitutionally permissible means of encour-
aging independence for most IGs.
Do you believe that legislation to only allow IGs to be removed
for cause is consistent with Supreme Court precedent?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes, Congresswoman, I believe it is completely
consistent with Supreme Court precedent.
Chairwoman MALONEY. I just want to end by saying that it is
vital that Inspectors General are empowered to perform their jobs
and investigate waste, fraud, and abuse, without fear of political,
interference, or retaliation. Our legislation establishing for-cause
removal, and other protections, will prevent these abuses and
strengthen the independence of Inspectors General so that they are
better able to do their jobs.
Again, I thank everyone in attendance and I yield back.
Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the Chairwoman.
And, without objection, the report she’s referring to, the June 8,
2020, report to Congress from the GAO, it is a 10-page report, and
without objection, I will enter it into the record.
Mr. CONNOLLY. With that——
Chairwoman MALONEY. And also, Mr. Chairman, could you also,
I request, in addition, to have in the record, the congressional Re-
search Services report——
Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes.
Chairwoman MALONEY.—From April 16, 2021, and——
Mr. CONNOLLY. Without objection——
Chairwoman MALONEY.—And also, the GAO’s report from June
2020 on IGs.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Yep. I have a whole list I was going to do at the
end, but absolutely——
Chairwoman MALONEY. OK. All right.
Mr. CONNOLLY [continuing]. Without objection.
Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chairwoman.
Chairwoman MALONEY. OK. Great. Thank you.
Thank you for a great hearing.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much and thank you for your lead-
ership.
The distinguished ranking member, Mr. Hice, is recognized for
his five minutes.
Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I would just say that there are very good explanations and
reasons for each of the Inspectors General that were removed, and
we can’t get into that.
But I would like to go to Ms. Forgy, if I can, to begin with you.
A major political firm for President Biden’s Presidential campaign
was SKDKnickerbocker, and you are familiar with them.
What steps has your, the EAC IG Office taken to look into this
thirty-five-million-dollar contract that was awarded to the Sec-
retary of State of California?
Ms. FORGY. I stated in my opening statement, we are in the proc-
ess of procuring audit support services to start the audit to include
17
a review of that particular contract that was brought to our atten-
tion by the ranking members.
Mr. HICE. It has taken an awfully long time to look into that, in
spite of the fact that last year, in a conversation that many of us,
the committee Republicans, well, first we wrote to you back in Oc-
tober, I believe, it was of last year, then had a conversation where
IG Layfield literally said that the allegations were credible.
Why has it taken so long?
Ms. FORGY. So, we received the letter in October from the rank-
ing members. EAC management had already reached out and had
correspondence with California and California responding that they
had not spent Federal funds inappropriately.
In order for our office to respond to that, we would be conducting
an audit, however, unfortunately, when we received the letter in
October, the office was under continuing resolution, and we were
under continuing resolution from October to December. So, not hav-
ing the appropriations for the early part of Fiscal Year 2021 de-
layed the process of the procurement of support services.
Mr. HICE. So, how many investigations, investigative reports and
audits does your office conduct each year versus the number that
you contract out?
Ms. FORGY. So, for our audits, OIG statutory audits, as well as
the grant audits, they are all procured by independent public ac-
counting firms. We have the statutory audits that we do every
year, the financial statement audit, and FISMA audit. This year in-
cludes the data [inaudible] audit.
The Fiscal Year 2020 audits that we did, we did six grant audits
which were all, as well, procured with independent public account-
ing firms.
Mr. HICE. So all of them go out of office, and yet, in your own
report dated April 7 of this year, your office stated that the office’s
audit of the third-party audit was not sufficient to support an opin-
ion on the audit results; in other words, you could not come to a
conclusion, correct?
Ms. FORGY. The statement means that we did not audit in order
to support or to have a test to the opinion.
What we do is make sure that the independent public account-
ants are following government auditing standards and they are
complying with those standards when they are doing the audit to
come across, to come to their conclusions and findings.
Mr. HICE. OK. I understand that, but from our perspective, what
we are interested in is, is it an accurate audit?
And you are not able to come, your office could not come to a con-
clusion with that, and that is very concerning. What is the point
of having a third party do the audit if you cannot conclude whether
or not the audit, itself, is accurate?
That is what we are concerned about. We want to know, is it ac-
curate?
Ms. FORGY. Our office does a review of the independent public
accountings, in accordance with government auditing standards.
So, we make sure that they have sufficient evidence for the find-
ings that they provide within their audit report. I would review
those details to make sure that all those standards, in accordance
18
with the IG Act, that those standards are followed throughout the
process of the entire audit.
Mr. HICE. All right. Well, if I can, I have only got 45 seconds.
But the point is, if your office, by your own words, you said you
couldn’t come to sufficiently verify that it was a good audit, so if
you cannot verify the audit results on contractors, then why even
use contractors?
Ms. FORGY. So, that statement doesn’t mean that we couldn’t
come to a conclusion. It means that we relied on the independent
public accounting firms’ responses, and the findings for their au-
dits, as they follow government auditing standards.
Mr. HICE. Well, from our conversation, it was clear that you are
ill-funded and, quite frankly, disorganized in multiple ways to get
things done.
I see my time is expired, so I will call it quits from there, but
huge, huge question marks arise from sending out audits to third-
party contractors and then not having the ability to determine
whether or not it is a good audit is very alarming.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the ranking member.
I think he raises a valid point, and I will certainly commit to
working with him to explore that aspect of the smaller IG offices
that don’t have the resources to do the job.
Mr. HICE. Thank you.
Mr. CONNOLLY. I think it is a very valid point.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Davis
for his five minutes of questioning.
OK. Mr. Davis is not there.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sar-
banes, for his five minutes.
Mr. SARBANES. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
Can you hear me OK?
Mr. CONNOLLY. We can hear you loud and clear, John.
Mr. SARBANES. Excellent. Well, thanks for the hearing. I appre-
ciate it very much.
And, you know, this committee has historically shared bipartisan
concern about Inspector General vacancies. I wanted to speak to
that a little bit.
There are currently 13, as I understand it, 13 vacant Inspector
General positions that are Presidentially appointed and Senate
confirmed, which is more than a third of the total number of all
Presidentially appointed Inspectors General.
And I am going to want to hear from each of you briefly, what
effect does it have on the Office of Inspector General when there
is no confirmed Inspector General. Maybe you can give me a brief
sense of that very quickly, just what does that impact look like.
Why don’t we start with Ms. Lerner.
Ms. LERNER. I’ll be happy to start.
I think GAO did a study a few years back and surveyed the IG
community and what they found was that most IGs believed that
acting IGs are capable, do act independently, but many believe that
there could be a perception by external stakeholders that the acting
IGs don’t have the same independence that the confirmed IGs do.
19
And that perception is not helpful to the organization and its abil-
ity to accomplish its mission through its work.
Mr. SARBANES. Ms. Lerner, I am going to keep moving around.
Ms. LERNER. What I have been able to see, I’ve worked with
some very—sure.
Mr. SARBANES. Yes, let me move to Ms. Buller, quickly.
Ms. BULLER. I agree with everything that Ms. Lerner said. In ad-
dition, I think that it negatively impacts the ability of the office for
planning purposes; for example, if you have a number of vacant
senior executive service positions, that would really be something
that an IG, a confirmed IG would want to fill, an acting IG is more
reluctant to go ahead and fill positions, I think, that need to be
filled in those types of situations.
Mr. SARBANES. All right. Let me move to another issue.
The list of Inspector General vacancies includes four positions
that have been vacant for more than five years, five years, includ-
ing the Department of Defense Inspector General, as I understand
it. In January, the House passed the Inspector General Protection
Act, which you know is a bipartisan bill sponsored by Ranking
Member Hice and Congressman Lieu, which would require the
President to report to Congress if an Inspector General has not
been nominated for 210 days after a position becomes vacant.
Ms. Hempowicz, how would requiring the President to report to
Congress help to incentivize filling the vacant Inspector General
positions?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
Quite simply, a five-year vacancy at the Department of Defense
Inspector General is unconscionable, and so, asking a President to
explain to Congress why they haven’t been able to find an indi-
vidual to lead such a critical office, I think would, itself, serve as
incentive for the President to go out there and find somebody who
can fill this job and do this job well.
But I think it also could tell Congress if there are problems with
the pipeline for Inspectors General. I understand that CIGIE keeps
a list of qualified individuals, but, you know, and so I think there
is a talent pool to pull from, but if that is not sufficient, you know,
the President can tell Congress that and we can all work together
to figure out what is the best way to ensure that there are individ-
uals who are qualified and independent in these important offices.
Mr. SARBANES. Thank you very much.
These positions have to be filled, obviously, by qualified individ-
uals. The law, as you know, requires Inspectors General be ap-
pointed, quote, without regard to political affiliation and solely on
the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability in accounting, audit-
ing, financial analysis, law and management analysis, public ad-
ministration, or investigations.
Ms. Lerner, can you just touch on, quickly, why are these quali-
fications so important for Inspectors General?
Ms. LERNER. Well, looking at [inaudible] and starting with the
nonpartisan nature of the role, as I mentioned earlier in response
to your first question, you know, that’s the heart and soul of what
we do. It has to be done in a nonpartisan fashion, and that makes
us, especially our politically appointed IGs, different.
20
Integrity is another watch word that is critical for our commu-
nity and ensuring that we have people who embody that word in
their lives and in their work enables us to retain the trust of the
public in the work that we do.
And the disciplinary expertise helps, because within an OIG,
there are many different [inaudible] types of work that we do, and
having knowledge or expertise in one of those sets the Inspector
General up for success, as well.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. The gentleman’s time is expired.
Mr. SARBANES. Thanks very much. I yield back.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Sarbanes.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Keller, is recognized for
his five minutes.
Mr. KELLER. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you to all our
panelists here today. Based on reports from the Council of Inspec-
tors General for Integrity and Efficiency, 18 of the 76 offices of In-
spectors General have fewer than 10 employees, and 31 have fewer
than 40 employees.
Further, IG vacancies have proved to be a reoccurring problem
under both, Democrat and Republican administrations. According
to a report issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office
last year, between 2007 and 2016, 53 of the 64 IGs covered by the
IG Act experienced at least one period of vacancy. Alarmingly, the
longest IG vacancy spans six years.
The agencies overseen by the IGs are responsible for doling out
hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and grants annually. With
minimal staffing resources and many vacancies to point toward, it
is no wonder these offices too frequently tell Congress they do not
have the resources necessary to conduct investigations into waste,
fraud, and abuse.
Deputy Secretary Forgy, thank you for your testimony. As the
only person working in the Election Assistance Commission’s, or
the EAC’s, Office of Inspector General, do you believe that you
have the adequate resources to investigate allegations of waste,
fraud, and abuse?
Ms. FORGY. So, our office, with the size of our office, we utilize
the services of other Federal agencies or investigative services. So,
at any event where we have an audit that comes up or we’re look-
ing into something where there is a need for an investigation, we
have the resources to reach out to another Federal agency to obtain
those investigative services.
Mr. KELLER. So you do the investigative services through other
agencies?
Ms. FORGY. From another Federal agency, yes.
Mr. KELLER. Other agencies. So, it is not, necessarily, the Inspec-
tor General’s Office that is doing it, it is actually an agency that
is doing it?
Ms. FORGY. So, we would contract or have an interagency agree-
ment with another Federal agency OIG’s Office.
Mr. KELLER. OK. Why isn’t there currently an acting Inspector
General, and have you experienced any delay to existing investiga-
tions and annual audit responsibilities in the Election Assistance
Commission as a result of the vacancy?
21
Ms. FORGY. The former Inspector General had a planned retire-
ment date of March 31, 2021, so she retired that day. The EAC,
I will say, is actively recruiting to fill that IG position.
Since the IG position has been vacant, I have not currently had
any issues with resources and, soliciting or obtaining services or
carrying out our work; again, we use independent public accounting
firms to do our audits, our grant audits, specifically, and that goes
through a procurement process. And once we, we are in the process
of doing that now, and getting that started is heavily based on hav-
ing the appropriations given to the EAC or the OIG in order for
us to have the budget to actually do the procurement process.
Mr. KELLER. So the audits that you are conducting, you are say-
ing are going to take place by private firms and you have somebody
in your office that oversees those contracts with the private firms?
Ms. FORGY. Correct.
Mr. KELLER. OK. Thank you for that.
The Office of the Inspectors General play an important role in
overseeing Federal agencies and holding bad actors accountable. As
the body tasked in truth with their oversight, Congress should en-
sure IGs have the resources necessary to carry out their work in
holding government agencies accountable to the American tax-
payers.
I look forward to continuing this committee’s efforts to improve
the IGs’ ability to do their important work. I thank you and yield
back.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Keller.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Davis,
for his five minutes.
Mr. Davis, you need to unmute. Mr. Davis? I can see you.
Well, while we are waiting for——
Mr. DAVIS. How about now?
Mr. CONNOLLY. There you are. OK. Great.
You are recognized. You are recognized——
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mister——
Mr. CONNOLLY [continuing]. Loud and clear.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I also want to thank all of the witnesses for their clear testi-
mony.
The area I want to pursue is that of whistleblower protection. We
all know that whistleblowers often provide key information about
waste, fraud, abuse in agencies or in government contractors. This
seems particularly critical for the work that Inspectors General are
doing to identify fraud in the billions of Federal dollars that have
been spent in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Ms. Lerner, let me ask you, what role are whistleblowers playing
or could they play in identifying wasteful or fraudulent spending
under the CARES Act or other pandemic-response laws?
Ms. LERNER. As they do in all programs, in which, you know,
people work, whistleblowers are folks who have insights into ac-
tions that are being taken that may be inefficient, that may con-
stitute waste, fraud, or abuse, and they are uniquely positioned to
share that information with folks, with oversight professionals, like
my office.
22
In the context of CARES Act funding, you know, for example, you
could have individuals within the Department of Labor who are
aware that people who are supposed to be conducting identity
checks to ensure that people are receiving unemployment insurance
payments are qualified for them are not conducting those checks.
That would be the sort of information that they could provide to
OIGs that would be, you know, very useful to us in conducting
oversight and holding people accountable and protecting the funds
involved in those programs.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. We also know that whistleblowers who
provide information to Inspectors General or to Congress do so at
great personal risk of retaliation. One method of retaliation, some-
times used by an agency or agency management is to open an in-
vestigation into the whistleblower or to request that the Inspector
General investigate that individual.
How can Inspectors General protect against being used as con-
duits for retaliatory investigations, while maintaining the ability to
investigate legitimate allegations of wrongdoing?
Ms. LERNER. That’s a very good question, sir.
And Inspectors General are required to have processes in place
to assess all allegations that come to them for merit to determine
if there’s a potential violation of law, rule, or regulation that would
require an investigation, and ensuring that those processes play
out for every allegation that comes in, will go a long way toward
ensuring that an IG does not open an inappropriate investigation.
I think the bigger concern here would be the actions of program
peoples who may have been aware of a wrongdoing by an employee
and failed to act on that until the moment when that person blew
the whistle, then they make a referral to Inspector General. And
as an IG, I would want to be aware of a situation like that, when
it appears that there has been a retaliatory referral to my office,
and that would be a matter that we would work with the Office of
Special Counsel on, to determine the best course of action to re-
spond to that inappropriate behavior.
Mr. DAVIS. Are there any further protections that an individual,
I mean, we often hear from individuals that, you know, if I come
forth with what I know, something is going to happen to me. I am
going to bear the brunt of something, myself.
How do we assure employees that they can be protected and that
they are protected when they decide to reveal information?
Ms. LERNER. I think we do that by making sure that employees
understand that the Inspector General Act requires us to protect
the identity of people who come to us with information like this,
to the maximum extent practicable, and every IG I know takes that
responsibility extremely seriously. Because we recognize that if
people are afraid to come to us, then we will lose out on important
leads that could help us do our work and [inaudible] in the strong-
est possible fashion.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs, for
his five minutes.
23
Mr. BIGGS. I thank the chairman and the ranking member.
Ms. Forgy, like many of my fellow members on this sub-
committee, I am profoundly disturbed that Presidential candidate
Joe Biden’s main election advisory firm, SKDKnickerbocker, re-
ceived $35 million in HAVA funds from then-California Secretary
of State, Alex Padilla, in apparent violation of Federal law. This
committee has been trying to examine that contract since at least
September of last year, which is before my time serving on this
body.
Your predecessor, former Election Assistance Commission Inspec-
tor General Patricia Layfield, frequently indicated her need to rely
on third-party contractors to investigate the SKDKnickerbocker
transaction.
Ms. Layfield left the EAC earlier this month and we still don’t
know the story behind the thirty-five-million-dollar transaction,
now, seven months after this committee’s initial inquiry; mean-
while, Joe Biden is in the White House and Mr. Padilla is in the
U.S. Senate.
My colleagues, Mr. Comer, Mr. Hice from this committee, as well
as Mr. Davis from the House Administration Committee, pointed
out in a March 18, 2021, letter to your boss, EAC Commissioner
Donald Palmer, the troubling fact that the EAC OIG cannot over-
see a single contract worth $35 million, but it is still disbursing
nearly $1 billion in taxpayer funds.
Ms. Forgy, I know you are now the sole person working in the
EAC IG Office, and very simply, what do you need to ensure the
SKDKnickerbocker contract is more expeditiously investigated?
Ms. FORGY. So, I previously stated we are in the process of doing
the procurement process to obtain the services that we need from
independent public accountants to review that contract. That con-
tract process is underway, and once we have a legal contract in
place, we will start the process of looking into that contract in
order to address the concerns that were expressed by the ranking
members to our office.
Mr. BIGGS. So, Ms. Forgy, if I understand you correctly, you basi-
cally let out bids for a contract, is that correct, and you haven’t re-
ceived those bids back and you are going to be reviewing those?
Ms. FORGY. The process is still—the contracting officer is doing
their internal review at this moment. Once that’s completed, we
will do a solicitation through a blanket purchase agreement that
we have. Those contractors that are on that blanket purchase
agreement are experienced with doing grant audits and with the
EAC.
And so, once we have those proposals back, we will review those.
Once we have that process completed, we will have a complete con-
tract and we will be able to start the process of looking into the
SKD contract and addressing the concerns that were expressed by
the ranking members.
Mr. BIGGS. Ms. Forgy, can you give us kind of a rough timeline
on when that will be completed, that process?
Ms. FORGY. Based on prior experience, the procurement process
and internal review takes about 21/2 to 3 weeks. So, we are hoping
to have a solid contract, official contract in place by early to mid-
June.
24
Mr. BIGGS. OK. Thank you.
Now, under the HAVA and the CARES Act, the EAC received a
huge infusion of cash for staff and gave out about $1 billion in
grants across the country.
What plans did the EAC put in place to oversee the increase in
grant money that the EAC was awarded this year?
Ms. FORGY. I am not able to speak on the matter, as that’s a pro-
grammatic matter under the Grants Management Office, for their
oversight, but I would be happy to write that question down and
take that back to the Grants Management Office and provide you
with further information after the hearing.
Mr. BIGGS. I would appreciate that. Thank you, Ms. Forgy.
And, are also, is the IG Office, then, reviewing allegations of
waste, fraud, and abuse of any of these funds?
Ms. FORGY. Yes. That will be included as the oversight of our re-
view of grant audits when we go out with the IPAs. That is a part
of that review of all the states that we review for grant audits.
Mr. BIGGS. So, when Inspector General Patricia Layfield retired
on April 9, leaving you as the only employee in the EAC OIG’s Of-
fice, the EAC has not yet designated you as an acting OIG, and
this raises questions about whether your agency is hamstringing
your ability to conduct robust oversight of its actions and make in-
vestigative decisions.
Can you elaborate on the impacts of not having an acting EAC
IG while your office should be reviewing, you know, the billion dol-
lars in grants from 2020.
Ms. FORGY. So, currently, as my role as Deputy IG and carrying
out, specifically, that role of overseeing the grants, the grant au-
dits, I’m able to do the procurement process under my role and get
that process started for the contract that we anticipate for June.
So, that process had not currently been hindered.
The EAC, again, as I mentioned in my earlier statement, they
are actively in the process of hiring the—filling the Inspector Gen-
eral position.
Mr. BIGGS. Thank you. My time has expired.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the gentlemen.
The gentlemen from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, is recognized for
his five minutes.
Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Can you hear me?
Mr. CONNOLLY. We can hear you loud and clear.
Mr. LYNCH. Very good.
First of all, I want to say thank you to you. You have been noth-
ing short of relentless on this issue, trying to get the process and
the protections for our Inspectors General. I know you have been
working on this for several years and putting a lot of energy and
effort into this, and I just want to, you have been like a dog on a
bone, and I mean that as a compliment. You have been really re-
lentless on this, and it is so important, right.
We rely so heavily, especially on the Oversight Committee, it is
a real partnership that we have with our Inspectors General, and
I appreciate Inspector General Horowitz’s efforts and, you know,
several of the people on this call and the work they have done.
25
In our Subcommittee on National Security, as you know, Mr.
Chairman, we rely so heavily on, first of all, Stuart Bowen, during,
you know, he was the Special Inspector General for Iraq recon-
struction, and then Inspector General Sopko, who has been doing
Afghanistan.
We would have been totally in the blind, really, without the re-
ports that they offered to us to assist. And this was across Repub-
lican and Democratic administrations, right; they identified waste
and fraud in the contracting process in both, you know, in both
Democratic and Republican administrations and gave Congress the
information that we needed to take appropriate action. So, I am
grateful for that process.
I do want to point out a difference of approach, though, however,
between what President Trump did versus what President Biden is
doing. In the case with President Trump, I mean, let’s be honest,
every time an Inspector General came up with an opinion or infor-
mation that was contrary to the wishes of the President, he got rid
of them. They were gone. And then, he would put them on adminis-
trative leave, before they could contest their removal, so they were
completely out of the picture. So, you know, to my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle, you have got to be kidding me, you know,
just a clear abuse of power in removing Inspectors General for
doing their jobs.
And I will give you an example for President Biden, here is his
response. So, we recently had Inspector General Sopko before my
subcommittee and he testified in a way that was not helpful at all
to President Biden’s eventual decision to remove U.S. troops from
Afghanistan in September.
Mr. Sopko testified that it would be, you know, a disaster or, you
know, that there might be a collapse. But President Biden did not
attack that Inspector General. He did not attack that Inspector
General. He accepted the information but weighed other informa-
tion that he thought was even more compelling about the 20 years
that we have spent in Afghanistan.
And he made a decision that was contrary to the evidence pro-
vided by Inspector General Sopko. But he showed due respect for
the work that Inspector General Sopko undertook. He just came up
with a difference of opinion than the recommendations of the IG,
and he made a decision that was contrary to the recommendations
of the Inspector General.
That is a lot different than what President Trump did. If it were
President Trump, he would have removed that Inspector General.
He would have fired him for coming up with information that was
not harmonious with the President’s wishes.
So, look, I am a co-sponsor of a lot of your legislation that is
going to protect Inspectors General. We have had some very helpful
commentary and advice from all the witnesses here.
I do want to ask, you know, with respect to the information we
got on Afghanistan and Iraq, Ms. Hempowicz, from POGO, how
helpful and how important is that information, because I know you
are doing God’s work, as well, in terms of trying to keep us on the
right side of things, but how helpful was that information to
POGO?
26
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Those Inspectors General reports have been in-
valuable to our work, conducting oversight over the Department of
Defense.
Mr. LYNCH. OK. I got it.
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Just completely invaluable. Yes, it’s hard to
state it in another way, it’s just, you know, it’s irreplaceable.
Mr. LYNCH. Yes. I am with you. OK.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Mr. CONNOLLY. And thank you for your gracious comments, Mr.
Lynch. I very much appreciate it.
The gentlewoman from New Mexico, Ms. Herrell, is recognized
for her five minutes.
Ms. Herrell?
Ms. HERRELL. Yes. Sorry, I had to unmute.
Mr. CONNOLLY. No problem.
Ms. HERRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
I just want to make a statement and then I have a question for
Allison Lerner. It seems she’s asked Congress to enable all Inspec-
tors General to issue testimonial subpoenas for former employees,
contractors, and grant recipients. And we have heard from some
IGs that they would use that subpoena power to call former execu-
tive branch officials to discuss the policy and political consider-
ations behind a policy decision.
Is it appropriate for an IG to investigate the political consider-
ations behind a policy decision?
And let me just keep going. I am concerned about the likelihood
that the subpoena power could be used for entirely political pur-
poses, including calling former administration officials to testify on
subjects unrelated to waste, fraud, and abuse.
What protections are there in CIGIE’s proposals or existing legis-
lation to ensure that this tool is not abused for political purposes?
Ms. LERNER. I believe that the legislation that was dropped yes-
terday by this committee, focuses the testimonial subpoena author-
ity on, you know, the areas within the jurisdiction of the IG, which
is preventing and detecting waste, fraud, and abuse in the pro-
grams and operations of the agencies they oversee. So, IGs could
use this testimonial subpoena authority to conduct reviews into
matters appropriately within their jurisdiction.
And being able to do this would ensure that, you know, unfortu-
nately, sometimes today we have people who retire in order to
avoid participating in a compelled interview, which they would
have to do if they remained a Federal employee, and that under-
mines the ability of an Inspector General to completely review into
an issue that they have independently determined warrants re-
view.
So, enabling IGs to have access to those people, whether or not
they remain employed with the agency, is crucial to our ability to
complete the work that we think is necessary for the American tax-
payer.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Would my colleague yield, without prejudice? We
will freeze her time.
Ms. Herrell, would you yield?
Ms. HERRELL. Yes, sir. What did——
27
Mr. CONNOLLY. I just want to underscore a point you are mak-
ing. You are right, subpoena power could be abused, as can any
power of an IG, and that is why CIGIE has to be thorough, robust,
and expeditious, as well as transparent in insisting on account-
ability, so those kinds of abuses are caught and dealt with. And so,
I thank you for bringing that up.
Thank you for yielding, and your time is now resumed.
Ms. HERRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just one followup to that. So, would we be guaranteed that this
tool would not be used as a preliminary tool by the IGs, in your
opinion, Ms. Lerner?
Ms. LERNER. I’m not quite sure what you mean by preliminary,
but what I can say is that the IGs have a long history of utilizing
documentary subpoenas and utilizing them well. They have review
processes in place to ensure that what they’re seeking isn’t
overbroad and that it’s not burdensome. And we would ensure that
appropriate procedures are in place, too, for testimonial subpoenas
to ensure that, you know, the same considerations are addressed
and that those are not abused, as well.
Ms. HERRELL. Great.
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Congresswoman, can I add something?
I just want to add——
Ms. HERRELL. Sure. Of course.
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes, I just want to add that the Department of
Defense Inspector General does have testimonial subpoena power
currently, and so does the Pandemic Response Accountability Com-
mittee, and I would say in those, in neither instance have we seen
that authority be abused. I completely take your question, I think
there is the threat and so, it is critical that there is accountability
for Inspectors General. But just from what we’ve seen so far, that
authority has not been abused.
Ms. HERRELL. Great.
Ms. LERNER. And I would just note.
Ms. HERRELL. Thank you—go ahead.
Ms. LERNER. I would just note, as well, that frequently having
the authority means that you don’t have to use it. In situations,
you know, voluntary cooperation follows, instead of the need to
compel cooperation. So, I think we would see that, in addition, and
I imagine that the instances in which people would actually use
testimonial subpoena authority would be limited, as it has been in
the IGs that have it currently.
Ms. HERRELL. Great. Thank you both.
And thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much, Ms. Herrell.
The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Speier, is recognized for
her five minutes. Welcome.
Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me first say how grateful I am to you that you are having
this hearing. I had a similar hearing last week on the Department
of Defense Inspector General and the Service Inspectors General,
and what are called component Inspectors General, and I am deep-
ly concerned that we have a serious problem on our hands.
First of all, we now have an Inspector General for the Depart-
ment of Defense who is also the Inspector General for the Environ-
28
mental Protection Agency, the Department of Defense has a budg-
et, as we know, of $740 billion, and yet we don’t have an Inspector
General that is designated specifically for that Department. So,
hopefully, we are going to see that that is going to change.
But I actually think that the system is broken, and I am curious
whether or not we should go back to the drawing board. And I ap-
preciate the chairman’s commitment to this issue, and as Congress-
man Lynch said, you are a dog with a bone.
So, here is my concern. First of all, it could be used for political
purposes by either administration, depending on their concern for
being criticized. So, would we not be better served to have a term,
and I think one of our witnesses, Mr. Ervin, has suggested that,
have a term of office for, let’s say, eight years, that we give the
President the opportunity to make an appointment? If it is not
done within, you know, 90 days of a vacancy that another entity,
maybe it is CIGIE, would make the appointment. That we require
specific qualifications to become an Inspector General.
So, I guess I would like to start off by asking Ms. Hempowicz
what she thinks of that idea.
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes. So, to your first question, thank you, Con-
gresswoman, in that hearing, I watched every minute of it. It was
incredible last week. Thank you so much for holding that hearing.
You know, I think, one, the Project on Government Oversight has
made a recommendation, ourselves, that if there is a longstanding
vacancy in an IG Office, that Congress designate an entity within
CIGIE to make a temporary appointment. I think that would sure-
ly incentivize a President to exercise their full appointment author-
ity and choose the individual who would sit in that seat.
And to your question about term limits, I think there is some
wisdom there. I think my, one, I think that would need to be ac-
companied by improvements to the Integrity Committee to ensure
that those individuals aren’t, you know, kind of lawless during that
eight years, not to suggest that they would be, but I also—and one
concern would be by the end of their term, they might be looking
kind of for their next job, and so I think that would be my one hesi-
tancy there.
I think, really, how to increase independence of these offices is
to give them for-cause removal protections and to address who can
serve as a temporary Inspector General when there is a vacancy.
But we certainly don’t object to term limits.
Ms. SPEIER. All right. Thank you.
Ms. Lerner, what are your thoughts on that?
Ms. LERNER. Having served in this community for almost 30
years, you know, I’ve seen that there’s kind of natural turnover
that comes. Some IGs come and stay for a couple of three years.
Some last, like I have, I’m 12 years in my role, and some are even
longer.
I’m concerned that if we have term limits, first, it would make,
it would increase our difficulty in recruiting people. Some folks
might not want to have a limit on the time that they can serve,
and anything that makes it harder to find people to take, qualified
people to take these jobs, would be of concern to me.
29
But I am also concerned that we would still have leaving, people
leaving even before the end of their term. So, it wouldn’t get us out
of the constant need to fill IG vacancies.
Certainly, if we did have terms, I think that putting them more
along the lines of the controller general, which I believe is 10 years,
would make sense. Because for an IG to—you know, we’re agents
of positive change and making change takes time, and you want to
ensure that people have sufficient time to really have an impact on
an organization.
But I agree with Ms. Hempowicz that some of the other matters
that are the focus of this conversation, the ensuring that we have
protections for people who will act when vacancies are long term,
are areas that I would focus on more than putting term limits in
place.
Ms. SPEIER. So, tell me about the training that an Inspector Gen-
eral goes through. In the Department of Defense, these component
IGs have three weeks of training and they have the position for two
years, and they are servicemembers, so, I mean, I am very curious
as to how they can do their jobs, but could you tell me a little bit
about that.
Mr. Chairman, I can’t see what my time limit is, so you will have
to cut me off when it is appropriate.
Mr. CONNOLLY. The witness may answer the question, although,
the gentlelady’s time has expired.
Ms. SPEIER. Thank you.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you.
Ms. LERNER. There aren’t, isn’t specific training required of In-
spectors General, but what CIGIE does is for all Inspectors General
who come on, they’re offered what we call IG 101, which is courses
that CIGIE provides to new Inspectors General to ensure that they
understand their responsibilities, their broad responsibilities, how
to, you know, their budgetary responsibilities, that they under-
stand what the Integrity Committee is.
We also work to introduce new Inspectors General to their peers
so that they can find mentors and folks that they can call when
they have questions, which inevitably, you get moments that you
think no one else has ever encountered, but other people have. We
try to forge those relationships.
And we invite new Inspectors General to come to a meeting of
CIGIE’s executive council so they can see the depth and breadth
of the committees that CIGIE has and get involved in the work
that the organization does.
Ms. SPEIER. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much, and thank you for your kind
comments, Ms. Speier.
The Congresswoman from the District of Columbia is recognized,
Ms. Norton, for her five minutes. Welcome.
Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. I just came from a Rules
Committee meeting, Mr. Chairman, but I wanted very much to be
here to ask a question in this important hearing, because these IGs
are so important to us when we are investigating waste, fraud, or
abuse, you know, the usual problems.
But over the last four years, I looked at the record and I was
amazed to see the attacks on Federal IGs from the Trump adminis-
30
tration. He fired multiple Inspectors General because apparently a
fear of what they might uncover.
And if I could indicate what I mean, he fired Michael Atkinson,
the IG of the Intelligence Committee, who first alerted Congress to
the whistleblower report over the notorious Ukraine phone call, be-
cause the IG followed the law, so he fired him.
He nominated an IG to replace Christy Grimm, acting IG for the
Department of Health and Human Services, after she released a re-
port that there were, quote, severe shortages at hospitals combat-
ting the coronavirus.
Then he fired Steve Linick from his role as IG of the State De-
partment, at the request of then-Secretary Mike Pompeo, because
Mr. Linick was investigating Pompeo for misuse of government re-
sources. And we have just seen that he has been found to have,
they learned just this morning that it was true that he and his wife
misused government resources.
Mr. Trump didn’t fire IGs who were investigating the things his
administration was doing wrong. He left gaping holes in the IG
community for years to come. While vacancies have plagued pre-
vious administrations, they were particularly widespread on this
one. He left 13 agency IG positions vacant, 5 of which were vacant
for his entire presidency, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Hempowicz, what problem do vacancies in IG roles present
to the American taxpayer?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Thank you so much for the question, Congress-
woman.
I think it presents three distinct problems. The first, I think is,
the first is that it sends a signal that oversight is not important
to the administration, which is not a great signal to send to tax-
payers. Second, is that there is a reduced independence when you
have vacancies in these offices, whether they’re longstanding or
short vacancies.
In many, in a couple of instances that POGO has seen over the
years, there are acting Inspectors General that are auditioning for
the permanent role, and as part of that auditioning process, they
would like the buy-in and they would like the positive rec-
ommendation of the agency head.
We know from Congress’ legislative history in creating the IG
Act and the IG system, that when the agency has buy-in into the
Inspector General’s work, that that office is less likely to call out
problems that may be, that may reflect poorly on the agency.
And the third problem is that vacancies in these offices really re-
duce their ability to do long-term planning. And I think, you know,
you see offices focusing a little bit more on, you know, numbers of
audits and small things that they can use to kind of show Congress
this is what we’re doing, but not necessarily focusing on those big-
picture issues of constitutional concern, those issues that are of
concern to people across the country.
And so, I think, really, you know, it’s those three issues are the
main ones that present themselves.
Ms. NORTON. Ms. Hempowicz, that is very enlightening.
I am wondering if you could tell us about the people that Presi-
dent Trump did nominate to fill vacancies——
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes.
31
Ms. NORTON [continuing]. were they experienced investigators
and accomplished members of the IG community?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. When we’re talking about those who were nomi-
nated to fill the position permanently, I think it was a mixed bag.
Some of the nominations, you know, were, made total sense; indi-
viduals who understand the IG community, who come from inves-
tigative backgrounds, who have strong leadership, who dem-
onstrated strong leadership throughout their careers.
But then there were also a couple of nominees who appeared to
not really have any experience with the Inspector General realm;
in particular, one nominated to lead the Department of Defense In-
spector General had very little management experience at all. And
considering the size of that office and also the breadth of their mis-
sion, not only overseeing the Department of Defense, but also over-
seeing all the component IGs underneath them that don’t have that
same structural independence, I think it raises serious questions
about the quality of those nominees.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you.
Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much, my colleague from the Dis-
trict of Columbia.
The vice chairwoman of our subcommittee, the gentlelady from
California, where I know it is still early there, Ms. Porter, is recog-
nized for her five minutes.
Ms. PORTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Hempowicz, Inspectors General, as you have testified, are in-
dividuals appointed to serve in an oversight role for Federal agen-
cies. Can we break that role down a little bit? What is the Inspec-
tors General mission?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. So, the Inspectors General mission is to oversee
their office, and their offices’ mission is to investigate waste, fraud,
abuse, and mismanagement within the agency they serve.
Ms. PORTER. This would include things like audits, looking at
things for efficiency, effectiveness, trying to make sure tax dollars
are spent wisely, that Congress’ purpose is being carried out?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes, ma’am, absolutely.
Ms. PORTER. So, because of this need for independence, Inspec-
tors General are typically never selected from within the agency
that they are assigned to oversee; is that right?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes, ma’am.
Ms. PORTER. But last year, that happened. A political appointee
from within an agency was appointed to be the acting Inspector
General, overseeing that agency. And, in fact, my understanding is
that this happened not once, but twice.
I guess, would that and did that put the very purpose of the In-
spector General role at risk? Does this potentially create serious
conflicts of interest?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Absolutely. And I would argue that it puts all
whistleblowers that come to that, that came to that Inspector Gen-
eral Office, at risk of being exposed to the agency leadership that
they may have been blowing the whistle on.
Ms. PORTER. So, this issue, let’s call it wearing dual hats, work-
ing within the agency and being the acting Inspector General for
the agency at the same time. This could effectively put the Inspec-
32
tor General’s role at risk. It could open the door for waste, fraud,
or abuse, it wouldn’t protect whistleblowers, necessarily.
A GAO report issued last summer noted that when the same per-
son is an agency official and an acting Inspector General, that situ-
ation raises concerns. So, I want to submit that GAO report for the
record, which is very consistent with your testimony.
Ms. Lerner, I want to turn to you. You are the chair of the Coun-
cil of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, or CIGIE. Did
you or any member of CIGIE express to any Trump administration
officials opposition to this dual-hat conflict of interest that we have
just been discussing?
Ms. LERNER. Yes.
Ms. PORTER. Who did you speak to?
Ms. LERNER. I can’t go into the specifics, with whom I had the
conversations, but, you know, I have, through, in the prior adminis-
tration and in the current administration, engaged with the White
House to ensure what, you know, the qualities of a strong acting
Inspector General would be and the importance that those people
be independent in mind and appearance.
Ms. PORTER. With that dual-hat person coming from within the
agency to be Inspector General, did you raise, would you charac-
terize the concerns you raised as strong?
Ms. LERNER. Well, they are strong concerns. I mean, being able
to be not just act independently but be viewed independently is es-
sential to the credibility of an Inspector General and the work of
his or her office.
Ms. PORTER. And I know you feel like you can’t say who you
spoke to, and I respect that. Could you share the office in which
the individual spoke, that you spoke to?
Ms. LERNER. I would have to leave it broad, but I can assure you
that, you know, the concerns were raised.
And Mr. Horowitz and I also met with the acting Inspectors Gen-
eral who were, and to ensure that they understood their respon-
sibilities to act independently and the impact that it could have on
their ability to meet with, and especially, government, generally ac-
cepted government auditing standards and the actions that they’d
need to——
Ms. PORTER. Well, Ms. Lerner, first, I want to hope that you had
more luck with accountability than I just did with my teenager,
who desperately, apparently needs to fill his water bottle in the
middle of this questioning.
[Laughter.]
Ms. PORTER. I want to state that I think it is so important, what
you just said, that we prevent this from happening again, because
you did raise strong concerns, others raised concerns, and this hap-
pened again, not just once, but twice.
And that is why I introduced the Accountability for Acting Offi-
cials Act, which would preventive these dual-hat conflicts of inter-
est. The bill would require an acting Inspector General to be the
next-in-line official from the same office, generally the deputy or
principal deputy or a senior official from the broader Inspector
General community, if the deputy position is vacant.
Ms. Buller, does CIGIE support these, do you support these pro-
visions to prevent this type of dual-hat conflict of interest?
33
Ms. BULLER. Absolutely.
Mr. CONNOLLY. The gentlelady’s time has expired, but the wit-
ness may respond.
Ms. BULLER. Absolutely. And as a matter of fact, it is one of
CIGIE’s priorities that we submitted to Congress.
And I would like to thank the Congresswoman for her support
in this priority.
Ms. PORTER. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much, and don’t be too hard on
your son. In a pandemic we are seeing all kinds of things, right.
The last questioner is the chair, and I want to thank everyone
for participating in this hearing.
So, Mr. Ervin, you are a former IG; is that correct?
If you would turn on your mic.
Mr. ERVIN. That’s right, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CONNOLLY. And would you favor adding a former IG, given
all the experience that person might have to CIGIE?
Mr. ERVIN. I would, sir. And I see at least a couple of advantages
to that. One is, arguably, and in my judgment, this would be the
case, adding a former Inspector General would add additional heft
to CIGIE in its oversight role with regard to the Inspector General
community.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Right.
Mr. ERVIN. Two, and if that person were a former IG who had
served for a considerable period of time, and there are many, that
person, over time, would have developed some perspective, would
have seen it all, as it were, and, therefore, could give some advice
to his counterparts about what is a credible allegation, what is not
a credible allegation, what actions should be taken with regard to
allegations, et cetera. So, I think I would——
Mr. CONNOLLY. And, presumably, several steps removed, there is
a certain disinterest. You are not judging peers.
Mr. ERVIN. Exactly.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. Ms. Lerner, would you be open to that idea?
Ms. LERNER. I would, sir.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much.
So, Ms. Hempowicz, we have got a lot of vacancies that are prob-
ably close to a historic high; is that fair?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes, I would say so.
Mr. CONNOLLY. We have people with dual roles, where even if
the intent is not conflictual, the possibility of conflict is there, the
dispassionate, disinterested, you know, investigative motivation or
impulse could be compromised and, certainly, perception-wise is a
problem, fair enough?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes, sir. Absolutely.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Having people as acting, when you have, say, 39
of these positions required by law, law passed by Congress, requir-
ing confirmation, which is clearly the intent of Congress, that there
be accountability and advice and consent, and that these positions
are elevated in a certain way, that I think is a pretty strong state-
ment, even if the intent isn’t circumvention of the law, de facto, it
is circumventing the law.
Would that be fair?
34
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Absolutely. I would say, absolutely, it is circum-
venting the law.
Mr. CONNOLLY. So, we have got some work to do—oh, here is an-
other one.
What is your view about a standard of removal for an IG that,
I am just not comfortable with that person?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. That I’ve lost confidence in this individual?
Mr. CONNOLLY. Or I’ve lost confidence.
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes. That is what we see from the White House,
White Houses of both political parties. I don’t think that’s a reason
for removal.
Why did you lose confidence in the individual is what——
Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. So, at the very least, if you are going to
make that assertion, Democrat or Republican, you are going to
have to back it up——
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes, and you should have to——
Mr. CONNOLLY [continuing]. With actual evidence for why your
confidence has gone away.
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Absolutely. You should have to do so in that, so,
before that 30-day window that Congress has put into the law, be-
fore that individual is removed from this office.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Do you believe that having a fixed term that
maybe could be renewable, might add to the independence and the
ability of an IG to function?
Mr. Ervin, I see you shaking your head yes.
Mr. ERVIN. I do, sir, for a couple reasons. One, I think it would
further underscore that Inspectors General are not typical ap-
pointees, that they are supposed to be apolitical, and if the term
were sufficiently long, seven years, renewable, 14 years, et cetera,
that would mean that over time, an Inspector General would serve
in both, Republican administrations and Democratic administra-
tions.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you.
And I saw you also shaking your head, Ms. Hempowicz. You
agree?
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. Yes. I think it certainly would. But I would,
again, say, you know, I think the No. 1 way to increase and ensure
independence is to give these Inspectors General protections from
removal.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Now, the final thing I want to ask about, because
we have covered a lot of territory here today, and I don’t wish to
abuse time, but I have been focused for a number of years on
strengthening the role of CIGIE, because my view is, if on both
sides of the aisle, we are going to accept an IG’s report as prima
facie evidence of X, unquestioned the integrity behind it, then the
integrity behind it has to be unquestionable.
And if there is any reason to believe that integrity is subject to
question, we have to have faith, the American public has to have
faith, that there is an accountable body that will swiftly, robustly,
thoroughly, and expeditiously, investigate whatever the issue may
be and either clear somebody or hold them to account.
Do you believe that the current structure of CIGIE provides that,
Ms. Hempowicz?
35
Ms. HEMPOWICZ. No, sir, I don’t. I think, you know, if you just
look at the annual report from this last year, the vast majority of
allegations of wrongdoing against Inspectors General that came to
CIGIE were allegations of abuse of power.
But what we’ve seen, at least in the annual report, is then what
gets reported back to Congress, is that, you know, the majority of
those investigations were closed, either because they didn’t meet
the investigative threshold standard, which is one thing, or because
the allegations, themselves, didn’t provide enough information.
The fact that those are reported together does not give us enough
information to know, and I would just highlight, again, I would
also highlight that the investigative threshold standard that CIGIE
has, the Integrity Committee has put out, which is great, we cer-
tainly appreciate that transparency, is not an objective standard.
There is a lot of room for, there’s a lot of wiggle room there.
And so, I think that is one area where the Integrity Committee
can have a clearer standard and then the reporting to Congress
that would be required under your legislation, I think also answers
another piece of that puzzle, where it would be required to report
to Congress why they didn’t continue investigations.
Mr. CONNOLLY. And I am going to invite you, Mr. Ervin, to com-
ment on it, as well, but I just have to tell you I have had my own
direct experience, where several members of this committee a num-
ber of years ago filed a complaint against an IG, a complaint that
I continue to believe is profoundly valid. And CIGIE, to members
of this committee, basically said, we looked at it. There is nothing
to look at. Thank you very much.
Now, we detailed something like an 8-or a 10-page complaint,
and they didn’t even have the courtesy to at least go down the
charges we made or the concerns we expressed and show it the re-
spect of a response. We looked at it, and here is what we found.
And I can tell you that it really shook us in terms of our con-
fidence in CIGIE’s functioning. And it can’t be pro forma. It actu-
ally has to be pretty robust.
And, by the way, I don’t mean in any way to reflect on the cur-
rent leadership of CIGIE. This was a number of years ago, and it
raised institutional, structural questions, not the willingness of in-
dividuals to look at it.
Mr. Ervin, would you like to comment on that?
Mr. ERVIN. Yes, I’d just say two things about that, Mr. Chair-
man.
One, I could not agree with you more on your larger point, and
that is, we have to hold Inspectors General to account for their own
behavior. We have to watch the watchdogs. It reflects directly on
the credibility of Inspectors General work if they, themselves, are
not thoroughly investigated when credible allegations are made.
That’s the first thing I would say.
And the particular instance that you cite, I’m not aware of, but
if there was bipartisan consensus that a given Inspector General
needed to be investigated, and if that is the response that you got
back, that is very troubling and suggests that reform should be
made to process.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes, I can’t confess that it was bipartisan con-
sensus, because part of the complaint was that this particular IG,
36
flat-out, had engaged in partisan activity, with respect to circum-
scribing an investigation that had, you know, real impact, and it
was hugely prejudicial.
Now, that was our view.
Mr. ERVIN. Right.
Mr. CONNOLLY. We wanted CIGIE to look at it to confirm or ex-
onerate that person. We would have certainly respected a thorough
investigation, but we didn’t get one.
But aside from that personal experience, as a member of this
committee, it raised questions about CIGIE. And I have talked to
other IGs about that and the need to strengthen it.
Ms. Lerner, you chair CIGIE. I am going to give you the final
word, but would you like to comment on how, maybe, you think we
could help you in your job to strengthen the role of CIGIE and the
transparency of your proceedings.
Ms. LERNER. Thank you for the opportunity.
Certainly, I think we’ve made a lot of progress in CIGIE’s taking
over running the Integrity Committee from the FBI with the pas-
sage of the Inspector General Empowerment Act, where our, we
have more investigations. They are looking into more complex mat-
ters.
But that gets us to the issue of resources, and I think the most
important thing that we could do for the Integrity Committee to
help it do its job better is to get additional resources for it. Right
now, we have a very small staff and the chair of the committee,
who is an Inspector General himself, has to be involved in over-
seeing, I think we have nine ongoing investigations right now, on
top of his full-time day job. It is an untenable situation.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes.
Ms. LERNER. And if we had, if CIGIE had an appropriation, if we
had dedicated resources for the committee, that would enable us to
hire a senior investigative attorney to oversee the work and have
a cadre of investigators available to do these investigations, instead
of having to beg, borrow, and steal from our colleagues across the
Inspector General community. I think we would be in a much bet-
ter position to do these cases, handle them well, and handle them
in a more timely fashion.
Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, I think those are very fair points, Ms.
Lerner, and I am sympathetic, because I want to do everything, we
can to make sure that CIGIE is, you know, so above reproach and
so respected for its ability to quickly look at the situations and look
at them thoroughly, and, by the way, clear names.
Anyone can file a complaint. That doesn’t mean you have done
anything wrong, and we don’t want to besmirch reputations, but on
the other hand, we have got to make sure that there is account-
ability.
Mr. Hice, I promised you equal time if there is anything that you
wish to add.
Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank my friend from Georgia, and I hope we
can cooperate on, at least the CIGIE legislation, which I see as just
an improvement and a good government measure.
With that, I want to insert in the record: a report from the
Project on Government Oversight, titled, ‘‘The Watchdogs After
Forty Years: Recommendations for Our Nation’s Federal Inspectors
37
General’’; a letter, also from the Project on Government Oversight,
titled, ‘‘Former Inspectors General Call on Congress to Pass Over-
due Reforms to the IG System’’; a statement from former IG for the
Department of Defense, Gordon Heddell; and a report from the con-
gressional Research Service, previously referred to by the chair-
woman, titled, ‘‘Congress’ authority to limit the removal of Inspec-
tors General.’’
And I would ask, without objection, all that material be entered
into the record, as well as the GAO letter I referenced earlier.
Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. CONNOLLY. And also without objection, all members will
have five legislative days, within which to submit additional writ-
ten questions for the witnesses through the chair, which will be for-
warded to the witnesses for their expeditious response, we hope.
I would ask the witnesses to please respond as promptly as you
are able.
I want to thank all of our colleagues. We had great participation
today. We have a legislative program to follow through on this
hearing, and I thank our witnesses for their very thoughtful con-
tribution to this discussion.
With that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:38 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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