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INSPECTORS GENERAL: INDEPENDENCE, ACCESS 

AND AUTHORITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 3, 2015 

Serial No. 114–4 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Iowa 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DeSAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Staff Director 

JENNIFER HEMINGWAY, Government Operations Subcommittee Staff Director 

SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on February 3, 2015 ......................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Hon. Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 5 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Hon. Arthur A. Elkins, Jr., Inspector General, U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 14 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16 

Ms. Kathy A. Buller, Inspector General, U.S. Peace Corps 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 22 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 24 

APPENDIX 

Letter for the record submitted by Mr. Chaffetz-August 5, 2014 letter to 

the committee from 47 Inspectors General ........................................................ 76 

Letter for the record submitted by Mr. Chaffetz-February 3, 2015 letter 

to the House Appropriations Committee from Michael E. Horowitz, DOJ 

IG ........................................................................................................................... 84 

Letter for the record submitted by Mr. Chaffetz-January 30, 2015 letter 

to Chairman Chaffetz from Ranking Member Cummings requesting a meeting .......................................................................................................................... 88 

Table 2–FY 2014 General Provisions not continued in F ..................................... 89 

Letter for the record submitted by Mr. Meadows-January 21, 2015 letter 

to Tim Delaney, CIGIE, from committee members ........................................... 90 

(1) 

INSPECTORS GENERAL: INDEPENDENCE, 

ACCESS AND AUTHORITY 

Tuesday, February 3, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:17 a.m. in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Jordan, Walberg, 

Amash, Gosar, DesJarlais, Gowdy, Farenthold, Lummis, Massie, 

Meadows, DeSantis, Mulvaney, Buck, Walker, Hice, Russell, 

Carter, Grothman, Hurd, Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, 

Clay, Lynch, Cooper, Connolly, Cartwright, Kelly, Lawrence, Lieu, 

Watson Coleman, Plaskett, DeSaulnier, and Boyle. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Good morning. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. 

Inspectors General serve the American taxpayers as the first line 

of defense against waste, fraud and abuse by government agencies, 

and to that end, Congress has given them unfettered access to 

agency records. The Inspector General Act in Section 6(a) says 

clearly, ‘‘is authorized to have access to all records, reports, audits, 

reviews, documents, papers, recommendations, or other material.’’ 

The Act directs all records be made and be given to the IGs. 

We appreciate you being here. Thank you very much. 

I’d like to yield part of my time here to the gentleman from 

North Carolina, Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank each of you 

for being here. Obviously every day, some 13,000 employees that 

work with each one of you go to work to protect the American taxpayer. Really they’re the first line of defense when American taxpayers feel like they are not getting treated fairly, and that’s what 

this is about, being treated fairly; the IGs and the 13,000 people 

that work with them are there. The chairman said it well. This is 

about all records and making sure that all records are available to 

you to do the work that is so important to the American taxpayer. 

Yet we find that, I guess, last August that 47 Inspectors General 

signed saying that they’re not getting all the documents to do the 

work that you need to do. 

We had a hearing, and again today we have another hearing, because we have not had the progress that we should have seen. And 

so I look forward to hearing from each one of you how we can make 

it any more clear that the Inspectors General need to be able to 
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do their job, it needs to be done without relationship to—whether 

it is Democrat, Republican or unaffiliated, it needs to be done on 

behalf of the American taxpayer. And I thank the chairman for 

making this our first official hearing. And I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I want to thank the men and women who serve in these various 

offices and agencies. There’s more than 13,000 people who go to 

work every day. They’re supposed to be able to access all the documents without exception. There aren’t exceptions. The law is crystal clear. They serve as watchdogs, they serve as impartial people 

who go and look at these documents to figure out what is truly 

happening and look under the hood. They’re essentially the internal auditors. We count on them and rely on them. If the Inspectors 

General can’t do their job, we can’t do our job, and this is why it 

is imperative and this is why I’m proud to have this as my first 

hearing as chairman of this committee. 

Nothing is supposed to be off limits. The committee needs to send 

a strong message we support these hardworking men and women 

to access the information they need to fulfill their mission of holding government accountable. 

Now, before I end, I want to address a letter that Ranking Member Cummings sent to me this past Friday. I appreciate him sending it to me. It was done in the right spirit. I’m going to work with 

him and cooperate with him, and I appreciate that. The letter that 

Mr. Cummings sent to me says that we—and requests that we sit 

down with the EPA, the EPA inspector general and the FBI to 

broker a resolution in a dispute between the three entities. 

Again, I appreciate that invitation, I’m happy to be part of that 

meeting. But the letter that was given to me really drives home the 

point. The EPA inspector general should not have to lean on a 

Member of Congress to broker a deal to try to negotiate what kind 

of documents we need to get. The Act is crystal clear. We are going 

to go over that today. 

And as I conclude here, I’d like to enter into the record—I’d ask 

unanimous consent to enter into the record August 5th, August 5th 

of 2014, 47 of the 72 Inspectors General sent a letter, and this 

issue has not been resolved. I ask that this be inserted into the 

record, as well as a letter that was brought today by Mr. Horowitz. 

it is dated February 3rd, 2015. Mr. Horowitz, as you give your 

opening Statement, and we’ll give you a little extra latitude, if you 

could perhaps describe in your own words this letter that you delivered to us here in Congress today. And I’d also ask unanimous consent that the letter of January 30th, 2015, from Mr. Cummings to 

myself also be entered into the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. With that, I yield back my time and recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I 

want to thank you for holding this hearing today. I want to thank 

all of our Inspector Generals and I want to thank the people that 

work with you for what you do every day. 

Our Inspector Generals do a phenomenal job on behalf of the 

American people, they make our government work more effectively 

and efficiently, and they save billions of taxpayer dollars. So I’m 
3 

glad we are kicking off our committee’s first hearing of the 114th 

Congress on this very critical issue. 

I welcome all the IGs who are here today, including those in the 

audience and those testifying. Inspector general Buller from the 

Peace Corps, inspector general Elkins from the Environmental Protection Agency, and inspector general Horowitz from the Department of Justice. 

Mr. Horowitz, I also want to congratulate you on your new post 

as the chairman of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. It is an honor to have all of you here today. 

You have no greater supporter in the Congress than me. The 

work you do is very critical, not only to Federal agencies, but to 

this committee. We rely on you for your investigations, your audits, 

and recommendations and advice. Your work can be very, very 

challenging. You are agency employees, but your job is to root out 

waste, fraud and abuse in these agencies. You stand apart. And in 

order to fulfill your obligations under the Inspector General Act, 

you need to be independent and you need access to information. 

So I understand your frustration when you are not getting the 

documents you request. I empathize with you when agencies cite 

various other Federal statutes with competing interests and the 

system seems to slow to a crawl. You are just trying simply to do 

your jobs, and without information, it is extremely difficult to do 

so. 

I do not want to downplay the interests of the agencies either; 

very, very important. They are sometimes put in very difficult positions. Congress orders them to protect information from unauthorized disclosure, and we are not always clear about whether that includes IGs too. For example, after reports of Peace Corps volunteers being sexually assaulted, Congress passed the Kate Puzey Act 

to protect whistleblowers and help these victims. Based on the law, 

the Peace Corps withheld the names of victims as well as specific 

details about their sexual attacks, while the IG wanted access to 

this information under the IG Act. Working together, they developed a MOU that fulfills both goals. It allows the agency to protect 

the information, and it establishes a process for the IG to gain access to this information in certain cases. The MOU is not ideal and 

it is frustrating that the IG even had to sign one. But the fact is 

is that the IG is now getting access to the information it needs to 

do its job. That’s real. That’s happening. 

Personally, I have always believed that the best course is to try 

to help the parties resolve these competing statutory interpretations if possible. I believe that it is preferable to coming back to 

Congress and seeking a change in the law. This is not easy and it 

sometimes takes hard work, but that is exactly what I have directed my staff to do. We could sit on the sidelines and do nothing, 

or we could get into the effort and try to make things work. 

For example, at our last hearing in September, we heard about 

a similar disagreement between the EPA and the IG about Federal 

statutes governing Homeland Security-related investigations. The 

IG wanted access to this information under the IG Act, while the 

EPA cited other statutes that they believed required them to work 

through the FBI. On that issue, my staff worked for many months, 
4 

meeting with each party to address their concerns, and I believe 

that we are now very, very, very close to a resolution. 

The leaders of these offices all seem to have an agreement in 

principle, but the FBI senior leadership field officers and agents 

need to fully commit. Last Friday I wrote to the chairman, and he 

referenced that letter, requesting that we call these agencies as 

soon as this week to get us past the finish line, and I sincerely 

hope we can do it. 

Of course, on some occasions, we have to draw lines. At the Department of Justice, for example, the IG has waited for months for 

the Office of Legal Counsel to render an opinion on statutes governing their document dispute with the IG over grand jury and 

other sensitive investigative information. To the agency’s credit, 

they said they would support a legislative fix if necessary, but this 

ongoing delay is simply unacceptable. We need a resolution and we 

need a resolution soon. 

Finally, in some cases, it may not be possible to salvage a workable outcome. For example, Representative Henry Waxman, who 

served previously as the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, worked very hard to try to address management 

deficiencies at the Chemical Safety Board. Although he made a 

number of very sensible recommendations, we heard at our hearing 

last September that the CSB chairman failed to adequately address 

these problems, and in fact, had created a dysfunctional work environment. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you once again for holding this 

hearing. I want to thank you also for agreeing to sit down with me 

and other—these IGs from the three agencies to see what we can 

work out, but again, I agree with you, we have to find solutions to 

this problem so that that does not have to happen over and over 

again. But, again, I thank you, and I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. Thank you. 

I will hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any members 

who’d like to submit a written Statement. 

Prior to my recognizing our three panelists today, we have a 

number of people in the audience who either serve as an inspector 

general or work for one of the Inspectors General. I’d actually ask 

you to rise. I’d like to recognize you and, A, thank you for your 

service, and just understand your support and your being here 

today. If you wouldn’t mind standing for a moment, I’d appreciate 

it. Thank you for being here. 

[applause.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We thank you for your service, we thank 

you for your commitment to this Nation, and we are trying to hold 

this hearing so that you can better do your job and get back to 

work and do the things that you need to do and have access to the 

records that we believe under the law you should be able to have 

without question. 

We are now going to recognize our panel of witnesses. The first 

is the Honorable Michael E. Horowitz, who’s the inspector general 

of the United States Department of Justice. He also is the new 

chairman of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, often referred to as CIGIE. The Honorable Arthur A. Elkins, Jr. is inspector general of the United States Environmental 
5 

Protection Agency; and Ms. Kathy Buller—close enough? I want to 

get it right, sorry—is inspector general of the United States Peace 

Corps. 

These three people have testified before this committee previously, and we welcome you all, but pursuant to committee rules, 

all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify, so if you would 

please rise and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear or 

affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, 

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? 

Thank you. Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in 

the affirmative. 

We are going to allocate 5 minutes for each of your opening 

Statements. We’ll be pretty liberal in that policy. And I’ve asked 

Mr. Horowitz, who brought a letter today that he had sent to Members of Congress, if you could take a few extra moments or minutes 

and explain in your own words that letter as well—it should be on 

each member’s desk—I would appreciate that. So we’ll now recognize Mr. Horowitz. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL E. HOROWITZ 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman 

Cummings, members of the committee. Thank you for having me 

testify here today and thank you for the strong bipartisan support 

of this committee as we’ve discussed these issues. 

I wish I could report to you that since we last appeared before 

the committee, that the concerns identified in the letter signed by 

47 Inspectors General have been resolved. Unfortunately, they 

have not. 

My office continues to face challenges in getting timely access to 

information. For example, the FBI still maintains that the Inspector General Act does not entitle us to access certain records in the 

FBI’s possession, such as grand jury, Title III electronic surveillance, and Fair Credit Reporting Act information, because of disclosure limitations in statutes other than the IG Act. 

In May 2014, in an attempt to resolve this dispute, the Department’s leadership referred the matter to the Office of Legal Counsel. However, 8 months later, we are still waiting for that opinion. 

I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important it is that OLC 

issue its opinion promptly, because the existing procedures at the 

Department undermines our independence and puts in place a 

process that essentially is consistent with the FBI’s legal position. 

The status quo cannot continue indefinitely. 

We appreciate, as I said, the strong bipartisan support from this 

committee and the Congress. Most significantly, in December 2014, 

a provision included in the Appropriations Act, Section 218, prohibits the Justice Department from using appropriated funds to 

deny my office timely access to records in its possession unless in 

accordance with an express limitation of Section 6(a) of the IG Act. 

While the only—while the law only recently went into effect, it is 

clear that the Department has taken notice of it and it has had 

positive impact. However, despite that action, the FBI continues to 

maintain its legal position. As a result, the FBI is continuing its 
6 

costly and time-consuming process of reviewing documents responsive to our requests prior to producing them to us in order for them 

to determine whether we are entitled to receive them. 

Our reviews have been impacted by the FBI’s process, and that 

production has delayed our work, including on whistleblower retaliation investigations, which we are charged to undertake and review. 

As we are—as we are directed in Section 218, today the—our office provided the Appropriations Committee with a letter and cc’d 

our oversight committees, including this committee, regarding two 

whistleblower matters where we have not obtained timely production to those records, and I’ll describe that letter in a moment. 

It is long past time to resolve this legal dispute. The FBI’s position contradicts the plain language of the IG Act, Congress’s clear 

intent when it created our office, the FBI’s and the Department’s 

practice prior to 2010 of providing the very same categories of information to our office without any legal objection, court decisions 

by two different Federal district judges stating that our office could 

receive grand jury material, and the reasoning of a 1984 decision 

by the Office of Legal Counsel concluding that grand jury material 

could be provided to the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. We remain hopeful that the OLC opinion will conclude 

that the IG Act entitles my office to access all records in the Department’s possession. However, should the OLC should decide otherwise, I would be pleased to work with the committee to develop 

an appropriate legislative remedy. 

Let me briefly mention other areas where I think the ability of 

Inspectors General to conduct strong and effective oversight could 

be enhanced. One such area is the capacity of Inspectors General 

to obtain testimony from former agency employees, contractors, and 

grant recipients. While the IG Act empowers us to subpoena 

records from those individuals, we cannot require them to testify 

even if they have critical evidence. While I believe any such authority should include protections to ensure that it is used appropriately and only when necessary and does not inadvertently impair Justice Department prosecutions, I’m confident such protections can be developed while also empowering Inspectors General 

to carry out their responsibilities. 

Another area where strong and effective inspector general oversight could be enhanced is by enabling us to more efficiently obtain 

and match readily available information in furtherance of our efforts to combat fraud and misconduct. This information currently 

exists, it does not require any further collection of information, and 

Inspectors General in each agency already have access to it or are 

entitled to access it. The timely use of such data will better enable 

Inspectors General to identify those who improperly receive Federal assistance, Federal grants or contracts, or duplicative payments. In my view, exempting all Inspectors General from limitations in the Computer Matching Act would greatly assist our ability to ensure that Federal programs are effective and efficient, 

without undermining the purposes of that law. 

Finally, I’m aware of concerns that have been raised relating to 

the CIGIE integrity committee, including with respect to the timeliness of its work and the transparency of its efforts. One of my 
7 

first meetings as chair of the CIGIE was with the assistant director 

of the FBI, who chairs the integrity committee in order to discuss 

ways to address these issues. OIGs must maintain the highest levels of accountability and integrity, and as the new chair of CIGIE, 

I will make it a top priority to improve the procedures of the integrity committee. 

I look forward, as I said, to working with the committee on these 

issues. And that concludes my prepared Statement. Let me turn, 

then, briefly, if I could, to the letter that we sent this morning, and 

this relates to Section 218. And as I mentioned in the prepared 

Statement which I had provided to the committee yesterday morning, we have had looming deadlines with the FBI. One of them for 

production was yesterday. The FBI informed us—and this regards 

two whistleblower retaliation investigations that we are undertaking. The FBI had made partial productions, they had not made 

complete productions, they informed us that they needed more time 

beyond yesterday to produce the remaining materials, they needed 

until the end of this week in one matter, until the end of next week 

on the other matter, and that they needed that time for purposes 

of reviewing the records to determine whether we were entitled to 

access to them or, in their legal opinion, not, based on restrictions 

in other statutes, in which case they would then have had to go 

and would have to go to the Deputy Attorney General or the Attorney General for approval to provide them to us. 

We discussed this matter. I had conversations until last night 

with the Department about trying to get the information pursuant 

to yesterday’s deadline. The FBI believes it needs to continue that 

process because of its legal views, and as a result, the deadline 

passed last night. 

And pursuant to the Act, it is on the Inspector General’s office 

to report those matters to the Appropriations Committee, and that 

is why we sent the letter. And regardless of the fact that, in our 

view, they needed this week and the following week, the purpose 

of the—of the need for that extension was precisely what Congress 

in Section 218 said was not permissible. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Horowitz follows:] 
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Chairman CHAFFETZ. I now recognize Mr. Elkins for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR A. ELKINS, JR. 

Mr. ELKINS. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings and members of the committee. I am Arthur Elkins, 

inspector general for the EPA and the CSB. Thank you for inviting 

me to appear before you today. 

From this seat last June, I addressed impediments to access at 

CSB. In September, I addressed broader issues of access and 

whether there is a need to strengthen or clarify the IG Act. Today 

I will report on progress and challenges that still remain. 

This OIG had requested documents of the CSB in the course of 

an investigation, which officials refused to provide, asserting attorney-client privilege. We explained that such denial violated the IG 

Act by obstructing an IGs unfettered access to all materials and informations available to the agency. Eventually, I sent a 7-day letter 

to CSB chairman Moure-Eraso. Although the CSB forwarded my 

letter to Congress as required, CSB officials continued to refuse to 

produce the documents. 

In June, both the chairman and ranking member of this committee instructed the CSB to provide the documents to the OIG. 

Subsequently, the CSB substantially complied. However, officials 

have yet to provide an affirmation of full compliance with our request. Still, the OIG was able to proceed with and complete our investigation. 

Last week I sent a report to President Obama, who oversees Mr. 

Moure-Eraso. That report finds there is evidence sufficient to support a conclusion that the chairman and two of his senior officials 

violated the Federal Records Act in implementing regulations by 

using non-governmental email systems to conduct official government business and not capturing those emails in the CSB record 

system. 

I would like to thank the committee for taking action in response 

to our 7-day letter, which allowed us to proceed with and conclude 

our investigation. 

In September, I reported that the EPA had asserted the OIG 

may have access to intelligence information only with the EPA’s 

permission. In addition, the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security was 

conducting investigative activities without any legal authority, 

thereby interfering with OIG investigations. Senior OIG and agency officials have now reached a theoretical agreement on a substantial portion of the issues, with two caveats: First, we are only beginning to implement the agreements; and second, we have not resolved the issue of OHS having an assigned criminal investigator. 

We have agreed that the OIG has access to all EPA activities. 

On another brighter note, Administrator McCarthy began 2015 

with a memorandum to the EPA work force addressing cooperation 

with and providing information to the OIG. She called upon the 

vigilance of EPA staff to report fraud, waste and abuse. 

Finally, in August, my office received information alleging an incident of serious misconduct by a senior EPA official. Over an approximately 5-month period, during which the agency placed the official on paid administrative leave, the OIG uncovered additional 
15 

allegations of improper actions by the same person. OIG investigators sought to interview the official a second time, but the official 

claimed to be retiring immediately, and refused. In fact, the official 

still was employed by the EPA. The agency ordered the official to 

cooperate with the OIG, but as the official stalled, retirement paperwork was processed and the official was allowed to retire, cutting off the OIGs access and the agency’s ability to impose disciplinary remedies, including termination. Other examples in which 

EPA employees refused to appear for OIG administrative interviews are captured in my written Statement. 

The IG Act access mandate predominantly has been applied to 

documents. It also applies to people. If an OIG needs to interview 

an employee who may have relevant information, other than when 

there is a possible criminal exposure, that employee is obligated to 

provide the information, but the Act provides no enforcement mechanism. I believe that this committee should look into the gap between what the IG Act requires and OIGs ability to achieve those 

requirements. 

In conclusion, this committee has thanked me and the OIG community for the work we do in protecting taxpayer funds. We appreciate that, but there is a disconnect between what the oversight 

committees observe and appropriations that emerge from Congress. 

Budget levels made available are impeding our ability to do our 

work. We’ve returned $7.33 for every dollar given to us in the past 

year. I know this is not an appropriations committee, but I ask for 

any help you can provide. 

Access to documents and staff rest with the agency. Adequate 

funding must come from Congress. All are necessary to fully accomplish our mission. Yet the OIGs have control over none of these. As 

I stated in September, the concept underlying the IG Act is fragile 

and can be likened to a house of cards. The removal of the cooperation card will cause the foundation upon which the House is built 

to collapse. 

Mr. Chairman, I will be pleased to answer any questions that 

you or committee members may have. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank you, Mr. Elkins. Appreciate it. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Elkins follows:] 
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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Ms. Buller. 

STATEMENT OF KATHY A. BULLER 

Ms. BULLER. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings 

and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today and allowing me to summarize 

my prepared Statement. 

As you know, our access issue stems from a sensitive and important subject: the Peace Corps’s handling of volunteer sexual assault 

reports. So before I continue, let me emphasize that our push for 

access goes beyond our zeal for upholding the basic principle that 

transparency and accountability are the hallmarks of good governance. Our push for access is about doing everything we can to confirm that volunteers, who sacrifice so much when serving in remote 

corners of the world, receive the services they need when they are 

victims of sexual assault. 

Standing in our way to fulfilling that duty is a legal opinion 

drafted on July 9, 2013, by the Peace Corps former general counsel. 

That legal opinion asserts that the Kate Puzey Act of 2011 overrides my broad right of access to agency records under the IG Act. 

As a result of the legal opinion, Peace Corps established policies 

and procedures denying OIG access to information. These policies 

effectively undermined one of the key purposes of the Kate Puzey 

Act, which is to enhance OIG oversight of sexual assault incidents 

to ensure Peace Corps does not repeat past mistakes. 

It is worth reminding the committee that the Kate Puzey Act 

was enacted after more than 100 volunteers reported that Peace 

Corps had ignored allegations of sexual assault, blamed victims, 

and mismanaged their cases. 

Since my last testimony on September 10th, Peace Corps has 

issued revised policies and procedures that grant OIG access to 

more, though not all, information on sexual assault reports. Unfortunately, these revisions took place only after 2 years of discussions 

with the agency, Members of Congress, two congressional hearings, 

negative press coverage, and a hold being placed on a nomination 

of the Director, and ultimately the signing of a formal agreement 

between the agency and the OIG. 

My office is hopeful this agreement will give us enough information to fulfill some of our oversight duties, and Peace Corps has 

been responsive to our requests for information regarding two 

cases. However, I have several concerns about the agreement. 

First, I am concerned about the appropriateness of my office having 

to enter into an agreement to obtain information that we are entitled to by law and that we need to fulfill our statutory duties. 

I am also concerned that the agreement does not undo all the 

damage these policies have caused. Since the agreement was 

signed, staff remain confused on how to handle sexual assault 

cases, and staff and volunteers remain confused about when they 

can or must report information to OIG. 

Finally, I’m concerned about Peace Corps’s ability to meet its 

commitments under the agreement, such as implementing a system 

that would permit OIG to review sexual assault cases without full 

access to information. Lacking such access, Congress would be un-
23 

able to properly assess whether Peace Corps is adequately responding to victims. 

It is clear that despite some progress, this agreement remains a 

temporary fix and much work remains to be done to restore a culture where staff and volunteers communicate openly with the IG. 

Congress and Peace Corps have the power to solve this issue. 

Congress could take legislative action to ensure we get full access 

to agency records. The Peace Corps, for its part, could retract the 

erroneous legal opinion underlying its misguided policies. As long 

as that opinion remains in place, Peace Corps is free to rescind our 

agreement and withhold or delay OIG access to sexual assault reports. Moreover, its very existence sets a dangerous precedent 

whereby any agency may withhold information by deciding to interpret a law as overriding the IG Act. 

Allowing agencies to decide when they will or will not release information to their IG creates a clear conflict of interest. Not only 

that, it forces IGs to spend their limited time and resources wrangling with the agency to obtain information, as I have done for over 

2 years. Taxpayers and volunteer victims of sexual assault, in particular, deserve better. 

While Peace Corps withdrawing its legal opinion may resolve our 

access issue, it will do nothing to help other IGs who are denied 

full access to agency records; therefore, I appreciate the committee’s efforts to help restore our access for the sake of Peace Corps, 

volunteer victims of sexual assault, and the entire IG community. 

Thank you. That concludes my prepared Statement, and I’m prepared to take any questions you may have. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

[Prepared Statement of Ms. Buller follows:] 
24 
25 
26 
27 
28 
29 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I’ll now recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

Mr. Horowitz, help me understand what the atmosphere was like 

at the Department of Justice, and when did this change? I mean, 

this is a new phenomenon, is it not? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. This changed in 2010 before I became inspector 

general in response to a legal opinion issued by the FBI’s general 

counsel. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you—prior to that, you were able to access grand jury information, Title III electronic surveillance information, Fair Credit Reporting Act information? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. My office had no objection to any 

legal access to those. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So they had been in operation to be able 

to access that information. And then what—I’m trying to get at the 

heart of what changed. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I’m at a loss to look—to understand why, frankly. 

And it—when you look at it, the law did not change, the work we 

were doing didn’t change. In fact, one of the reviews, we got credit 

information at the start, and then 2010 came along and we were 

told we weren’t going to get it anymore. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. What—are you impeded doing your job on 

any other information or is it exclusive to those three issues? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. So far it has been those three issues, but we have 

a list of several other items where the FBI has indicated it believes 

there are problems with producing them to us as well. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. How often do you have to negotiate what 

you are going to be able to see? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It has—much like inspector general Buller said, 

it has taken far too much of my time and, frankly, it is taking far 

too much time of the leadership of various parts of the Department 

to work these out. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And this is one of the concerns, is that you 

have to go in and negotiate for this. And, Mr. Elkins, what’s your 

experience with that? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, I have to agree with everybody on the panel 

here. The—the issues that—that I have been confronting have 

spanned, you know, over 5 years. And when you think of the expense not only in my shop, but here on the Hill, the agency, it is 

just—it is phenomenal, it just doesn’t make any sense, but I’ve had 

the same sorts of issues. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Well, what percentage of the information 

do you need to come to a complete conclusion? 

Mr. ELKINS. I need all of the information. To the extent that I— 

to the extent that there’s any information that’s missing, then I can 

be assured that, you know, I’m making a good decision. I need all 

the information. And the IG Act envisions that all the information—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So how often do you bump into this problem? I mean, I think before, you had mentioned that you get 90- 

plus percent of the information, but it is that last little bit, isn’t 

it, that you’re—— 

Mr. ELKINS. Absolutely. 
30 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Explain that to me. Give me an example 

of—do you have something that comes to mind when I bring that 

up? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, I guess I can, you know—hypothetically, you 

know, I can—I can think of a number of different issues. You know, 

in the course of any investigation, you know, it is important that 

we don’t rush to judgment, it is important that we have all of the 

information, that we make sure that we are targeting or we are approaching, you know, the folks who need to be approached. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And sorry to interrupt you there. Explain 

to me the situation with the Homeland Security and the lack of jurisdiction that you see. What are they doing—are they impeding 

your ability to do your job? Are they doing the same job that you’re 

doing? What’s happening with that? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, in the past—and we’ve made some progress in 

that area, so I want to preface that by saying we’ve come a long 

way in that area, but in the past, what the issue was is that we 

were working at opposite ends. There was activities in terms of investigative activities that clearly fell within the jurisdiction of the 

IG that we were not being provided that information at all, and the 

Office of Homeland Security, assuming that they had investigative 

authority, were going out on their own and doing their own investigations. But clearly, you know, you can’t have—especially in law 

enforcement, you can’t have two folks doing opposite—opposite missions. So that’s the type of issues—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But they were from—from Homeland Security? 

Mr. ELKINS. The Office of Homeland Security within EPA. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The last thing I want to bring up in my 

last minute here is—and you’re fairly extensive in this description 

here, but one of the concerns is that people get into hot water, 

you’re pursuing what’s happening, and then they just file these retirement papers and then the issue just goes away. They get full 

retirement, they get full benefits, they’re not held accountable. 

Go into a little further detail about these—this allegation of this 

one person that you were investigating at the EPA. 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, yes. This is a—it is an interesting set of facts. 

You know, we had allegations that—of inappropriate conduct by 

this particular senior official, and over a period of time, you know, 

in doing the investigations, we found additional individuals who 

were coming forward and providing us, you know, more and more 

information. We felt that we needed—in order to address some of 

these issues, we needed to talk to that individual. 

And after about a 4-or 5-month period, when the individual was 

placed on administrative leave, once we approached the individual, 

he decided that he was going to retire. He didn’t really want to talk 

to us. It was almost immediate. He said, I’m retiring today, and 

within a matter of hours, the paperwork was cut and he retired. 

Now, he was directed by the agency’s management to talk to us, 

but nothing happened. He didn’t talk to us. He says, I’m retired. 

The agency produced the paperwork, he was gone. So—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. My time has expired, but I would hope that 

those of us on both sides of the aisle, these allegations is fairly serious. As the inspector general wrote, the senior official’s inappro-
31 

priate behavior toward at least 16 women from 2004 to present, 

violation of security procedures, mishandling of classified information, lack of due diligence by senior EPA executives who did not act 

on this information and did not hold him accountable, and which 

it ultimately resulted, as he wrote, in six additional women being 

subject to the senior official’s inappropriate behavior from January 

2014 to July 2014. We have to be able to figure this out. These people have to be held accountable. To just simply retire and take full 

benefits, not be held accountable, don’t—ignore the investigation 

here from the Inspectors General, you just don’t get a ‘‘get out of 

jail’’ free card by just filing some retirement papers and then not 

being held accountable. 

Appreciate the time here and the patience. Now recognize the 

gentleman from Maryland, the ranking member, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I— 

and one of the thing that I just want to ask all of you, you know, 

all of us are public servants and, I think, trying to do the jobs that 

we are sworn and agree to do. And one of the reasons why I’ve 

spent so much time, and my staff has spent so much time in this 

is because I do believe that at times there can be, I guess, legitimate disputes. Would you agree? I’m just curious, Mr. Horowitz. 

Legitimate disputes between the IG statute and the statutes that 

these agency heads are using to say, well, maybe they can’t give 

up the information or they have to review it or whatever. I mean, 

are there legitimate disputes or are you saying that they’re trying 

to hide something? That’s the only other—I mean—one or the 

other. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Yes. I’m not here to suggest anybody’s making a 

legal opinion in bad faith at this point, but the issues that we had 

historically discussed were about sensitivity and how to handle documents—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Right. 

Mr. HOROWITZ [continuing]. And access; not should we get them, 

but how do we safeguard them in some of the most sensitive work 

we did. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And you, Mr. Elkins? 

Mr. ELKINS. I would agree. You know, the IG Act is clear. You 

know, we need access in order to do our job. There could be legitimate disputes, and I think built into the system there’s always the 

opportunity to talk through these disputes, but at the end of the 

day—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You got to get—you got to get some resolution. 

Mr. ELKINS. We have to have resolution. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do. Mr. Elkins, the challenges you’ve faced in getting the information from the 

EPA’s Office of Homeland Security have been certainly a priority 

of mine, and I know yours. As you know, and my staff has spent 

many hours working with your office and the Office of Homeland 

Security to help address this issue, and it looks like we’ve gotten 

pretty close. 

Since our hearing in September, there have been a series of additional meetings between your office and the Office of Homeland Security. Is that right? 

Mr. ELKINS. That’s correct. 
32 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And on October 15th, EPA Administrator McCarthy sent you and the acting associate administrator of OHS an 

email, and it said this, ‘‘I want to confirm that OIG shall, consistent with its authority under the Inspector General’s Act, have 

access to all information shared between FBI and OHS under the 

2012 MOU subject to OIG personnel having the necessary clearance and the need to know. This is effective immediately.’’ 

So that was a positive step in the right direction, right? 

Mr. ELKINS. That was positive. It was positive. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And our staffers on the committee, both Democrat and Republican, received a bipartisan briefing in from your office on January 28th, your counsel, Alan Larsen, stated that your 

office has ‘‘seen a lot of progress,’’ but he also said that you 

‘‘haven’t yet crossed the finish line.’’ Is that right? 

Mr. ELKINS. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you agree with Mr. Larsen? 

Mr. ELKINS. Yes, I do. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So things have improved, but there’s still a 

long—there’s a ways to go, isn’t there? 

Mr. ELKINS. There is a ways to go. And, you know, you also have 

to realize trust—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Very important. 

Mr. ELKINS. And over the years, the trust piece has been rocked. 

And so I don’t know what I don’t know. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Right. And I’m not—I’m just trying to make sure 

I get a clear picture here, a complete picture. The—so when you 

say that trust has eroded, and I agree, I’m known for citing the 

book, the ‘‘Speed of Trust’’ by Covey, which talks about when you 

cannot trust someone or you don’t have a trusting relationship, it 

is all downhill and it is almost impossible to accomplish anything. 

So you would say a lot of this is—over the years, has been caused 

by this distrust. Is that right? 

Mr. ELKINS. That’s correct. You know, we’ve—I’ve had a lot of assurances over the years that didn’t pan out, and, you know, 4 or 

5 years, and here we are today still talking about this situation. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Can you explain the challenge presented by the 

FBI? 

Mr. ELKINS. Quite frankly, no, I can’t explain it. it is—you know, 

you have to understand that the MOU that this whole argument 

is built on, we weren’t a party to that MOU. This was a unilateral 

agreement that was put together by the agency and the FBI which 

pretty much wrote us out with us have been even a role in it, so 

it is difficult for me to understand since I wasn’t a part of the process, but it is not based on any legal authority. From what I understand, the FBI has even said that there’s no reason that they can’t 

share information with us, and they’re willing to do so. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So things stand right now with the FBI willing 

to do so, but—— 

Mr. ELKINS. But we still have an MOU in place that says that 

they’re not. That MOU is still in place. The MOU hasn’t gone anywhere. As I recall, there is a meeting scheduled in March between 

agency management, myself and the FBI, and we are supposed to 

sit down. Now, subsequent—or maybe, I understand, from your office and what I’ve heard here today that maybe we will all get to-
33 

gether and have a conversation as well, but until that—that happens, the MOU is still in effect. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, the chairman—you heard the chairman in 

his opening Statement, and he agreed to sit down with us and see 

what we could work out. And I can understand you-all’s position 

and I understand all of our position is that you shouldn’t even have 

to do that, you shouldn’t even have to, but—but as I always say, 

sometimes you have to deal with what you’ve got, the cards at that 

moment. Hopefully we’ll get something more permanent resolved 

here, but the question becomes what would you like to see done in 

that meeting, accomplished in that meeting? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, first of all, I would like for all parties to agree 

that the IG should have unfettered access to information and to 

people, period. And to the extent we can get there, we can move 

forward. We can’t get there, and the MOU stands in the way. So 

if we can get over that hurdle, that’s what I’d like to see. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And how soon do you want that meeting to happen, the meeting that—— 

Mr. ELKINS. It should have happened years ago, but I would like 

to see it happen today, tomorrow, as soon as possible. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman 

from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Horowitz, I share your frustration with the Justice Department as well. I’m going to shift to a slightly different topic, but still 

in this general area of frustration with lack of cooperation and lack 

of doing what I think they’re required to do under the law. 

Are you aware of the fact that Lois Lerner’s attorney, Bill Taylor, 

reported that Ms. Lerner sat down for a lengthy, and that’s his 

term, her attorney’s term, lengthy interview with the Justice Department regarding the situation of targeting conservative groups 

and that criminal investigation? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I’m not personally aware of it, but I think I’ve 

read somewhere along the way in news reports. 

Mr. JORDAN. And my question is do you find that strange that 

Ms. Lerner is willing to sit down with the Justice Department but 

not willing to answer Congress’s questions? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It would be difficult for me, Congressman, to answer that without knowing—— 

Mr. JORDAN. But just sort of a—I mean, you’re an accomplished 

lawyer. Just the general point that, you know, it is the Justice Department that can put her in jail. We can’t put her in jail. we are 

just trying to get information so that the American people can 

know what happened when the IRS systematically targeted people 

for exercising their First Amendment rights. Don’t you think that’s 

a little strange? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It would be hard for me to opine on what the 

strategy was there on—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Horowitz, last year the U.S. House of Representatives voted, with 26 Democrats I might add, voted to call for 

a special prosecutor at the Justice Department to look into this investigation, and on May 7th, 2014, May 7th of last year, 9 months 

ago, the U.S. House held Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress. 
34 

Do you have any information about what U.S. Attorney Ron 

Machen is doing with that Contempt of Congress resolution he has 

as district attorney for the District of Columbia? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I don’t. 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you know how the statute reads, Mr. Horowitz? 

The statute says, Section 194 says that such certification having 

been made, the contempt resolution having been made, it shall be 

the duty to bring the matter before the grand jury. 

Are you familiar with Section 194? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I’m generally familiar with it. 

Mr. JORDAN. And wouldn’t that seem to point out rather clearly 

that Mr. Machen should take this to the grand jury? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. You know, I certainly think there are questions 

there and to ask about the—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Now, there’s—my understanding—and, again, 

you’ve been at the Justice Department a long time, I’ve looked at 

your bio before, very accomplished attorney. There is an exception 

for the U.S. attorney to not take this to a grand jury. Do you know 

what that exception is, Mr. Horowitz? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I don’t off the top my head. 

Mr. JORDAN. I will tell you. It is executive privilege. So if there’s 

executive privilege, it doesn’t have to take it. So, again, thinking 

about recent things Congress has done, that executive privilege exception would apply to, say, the contempt resolution of Attorney 

General Holder, correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I’m not sure I’ve sort of looked at this, frankly—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, let me ask you this: Do you think there’s any 

type of executive privilege that exists between—for Lois Lerner? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Congressman, I’d have to pass on opining on 

that. Frankly—— 

Mr. JORDAN. But as a lawyer, the only way executive privilege 

would exist for Ms. Lerner is if she had some kind of conversation 

with the President or his key advisors. Isn’t that correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. My general understanding of executive privilege 

law—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. 

Mr. HOROWITZ [continuing]. Would be that. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. Have you looked into why Mr. Machen has 

not taken this to the grand jury? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have not. And we would not be allowed to 

look into that under the jurisdictional authority of our statute, or 

we would have questions certainly to raise about that, about 

whether we could even look at that. 

Mr. JORDAN. If this committee asked you to look into that, could 

you look into it? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I don’t believe so, although we would certainly 

want to look more closely at it. The issue being that under the IG 

Act, our office is limited to—in what we can do to oversee allegations of misconduct by department lawyers. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. Finally, the last thing I would say is this, Mr. 

Chairman. This is a pattern. The executive branch agencies, first 

they drag their feet, they don’t comply with things Congress wants. 

I mean, we have a subpoena—as just a recent example, we have 
35 

a subpoena that came from this committee in August 2013 dealing 

with a situation that took place in Benghazi, and we’ve yet to have 

the State Department comply with that subpoena a year and a half 

ago. 

So there’s all kinds of examples where executive branch agencies 

won’t work with Congress, won’t comply with the law, just like 

these Inspector Generals are pointing out today, as they pointed 

out in Mr. Horowitz’s letter from today, and now, and now we find 

out it is across the board. So this is—this is, I mean, a very appropriate hearing and I appreciate the chairman doing this. And with 

that, I would yield back my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I want 

to thank Mr. Horowitz and all of those associated with the independent councils in our government. 

I am particularly interested in law enforcement material, perhaps as a lawyer and perhaps because I regard some of this material as extremely sensitive and because I think this committee 

should not simply be exposing problems, but getting to remedies for 

these problems. And as I understand it, the Department of Justice 

has been reluctant to give access to certain kinds of information 

which address, the average person would regard them as highly secretive, like grand jury matters, wiretapping matters, even credit 

reporting matters. 

Now, your complaint, as I understand it, is that in order for you 

to get access, this has to go through bureaucratic steps all the way 

to the deputy attorney general. Is that not correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s the process currently set up, that’s correct. 

Ms. NORTON. And apparently in some of your investigation, you 

regard this delay as compromising your office’s independence? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. 

Ms. NORTON. And this is what I want to—want to seek clarification. Your—the statute couldn’t be more generically clear, without 

exception. It says, I’m talking about 6—Section 6(a)(1). It states 

that the IG shall have access to all records, reports, audits, reviews, documents, and papers. And I don’t know when this statute 

was passed, but that’s what it said then. I haven’t seen the legislative history. All I know is normally access to something like grand 

jury, and wiretap materials is of the utmost secrecy. 

Now, the Justice Department says that if they get an Office of 

Legal Counsel opinion, then they would apparently be ready to release this material to the inspector general. Is that not correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s what they say they’re waiting for, is the 

Office of Legal Counsel opinion. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I have to tell you, Mr. Horowitz, I can understand an Office of Legal Counsel not wanting that weight on his 

shoulders, whoever he is, when it comes to materials that have always been regarded as secret, and no matter what the statute says. 

And I—and, of course, you’re still waiting and they’re still investigating. 

I’m wondering if we shouldn’t simply call the question and ask 

for a change in law so that that would not be on the shoulders of 
36 

a single law enforcement officer. When we are talking about something that in our society has always been regarded as secret for 

very good reasons, perhaps even before there was an independent— 

an IG statute, should we continue to wait and should we be content 

with an Office of Legal Counsel, or would it not be preferable for 

this Congress to clarify this issue once and for all? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s an excellent question, Congresswoman. 

And just to clarify, my office before 2010 got all of this information 

without any legal issue—— 

Ms. NORTON. Yes. And we don’t—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ [continuing]. From the FBI. 

Ms. NORTON. So, you know—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. There was no issue. 

Ms. NORTON. And so we don’t know—when we are in the—we 

are in an era of growing secrecy, which many of us object to precisely because we don’t know what the secret is, we don’t know 

what has transpired between 2010 and 2014. We have the same 

administration. Has there been a change in administration? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. There has not. 

Ms. NORTON. So, you know, we are talking about the same folks, 

and yet they don’t want to give this material over. What that says 

to me is that, you know, the next administration, you could go the 

same Sisyphus uphill climb. 

Isn’t it time for some of these matters, at least these matters involving historically secret matters, because secret matters for very 

good reason, no matter who we are talking about, to simply get a 

clarification of a statute that is very general and does not seem to 

admit of any exceptions, would that not help at least with such— 

such sensitive materials to clarify this matter? And is there any 

reason for this committee not to come forward with a change in law 

once and for all? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. And I think the issue for the inspector general 

community has been that the law is clear, the practice had always 

been to give us that information. 

Ms. NORTON. We understand that. I’m talking about the 

delays—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. No. And I’m—right. 

Ms. NORTON. Look, look, Mr. Horowitz, unlike some people on 

this committee, I’m remedy-oriented. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I know that. 

Ms. NORTON. You know, we can have you back here, and you’ve 

been here before. Now, I’m not talking about the other matters. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. No. I understand. 

Ms. NORTON. I’m talking about these matters which have always 

been considered highly secret. Is there any reason why we should 

delay clarifying this in law? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The concern in the inspector general community 

is, yes, if Congress immediately passed something and it could go 

through, that would be great, it would resolve all our issues. The 

problem is what the Department—the FBI and the Department 

and OLC has been looking at is what was Congress’s intent back 

in 1978 when it passed the statute? And the concern being that if 

Congress took—took this up to imply or suggest for any reason that 

perhaps the law is unclear, when everybody in the inspector gen-
37 

eral community thinks it is crystal clear and the practice has been 

that it is crystal clear we get access to it, that it could, if it didn’t 

pass immediately or get addressed immediately, it would be cited 

as a reason not to give us access going forward. And that’s a— 

that’s a significant concern that we have. 

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you, but I want to say 1978— 

between 1978 and 2014, there’s such a world of difference in secret 

matters, I think this needs to be looked into more closely. Thank 

you very much. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the 

panel, each of you, Mr. Horowitz, Mr. Elkins Ms. Buller. Thanks 

for the work you do. Sounds like it is pretty much an uphill battle, 

and with deference to my colleague as well. I really think we ought 

to set the primacy on our discussions here on the law. What is the 

law? 

I would—I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that—that rather than 

pushing ourselves to change the law, when we hear from a panel 

as distinguished as this and the many in the room that are simply 

attempting to use the law that is clear. I mean, I’ll read again 

where section 6(a) of the IG Act States clearly have—that IG shall 

have access to all records, reports, audits, reviews, documents, papers, recommendations, or other material which relate to programs 

and operations with respect to which the inspector general has responsibilities under. That’s pretty clear, even for a nonattorney like 

myself. 

As a minister, I’ve got to settle disputes on the issue of Scriptures, but this is the law, and we are doing a good work here, pushing back against the idea that things change, and yes, they do. I’ve 

had birthdays, 63 of them, and I changed, but the law is the law, 

and I think that’s our concern for today. 

Mr. Horowitz, many times you’ve raised the issue of the FBI restricting your access to certain documents and information. You 

even went so far as to include a formal complaint in your most recent semi-annual report, which is extremely rare. How do the FBI 

and DOJ justify withholding grand jury and Title III material from 

you? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The position they have taken since 2010 is that 

they have now interpreted those other statutes as placing limits on 

what section 6 says in the IG Act. 

Mr. WALBERG. They’ve interpreted it? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. 

Mr. WALBERG. You have not had this problem before? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Prior to 2010 we did not have that issue raised 

by the FBI. 

Mr. WALBERG. What is the process for obtaining these materials 

if you need them for an investigation? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We send the document request to the FBI. 

They’ve put in place, frankly, what’s a costly and timely system of 

now reviewing records before they produce it to us, something they 

hadn’t done previously, for the purpose of determining whether 

they needed to withhold those materials from us so they could then 
38 

look at them, confer with the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General, get an opinion memorandum from the Attorney 

General or Deputy Attorney General authorizing them then to release them to us. 

Mr. WALBERG. So it is correct or incorrect that you have to convince the Attorney General to release the materials to you in any 

case? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. They certainly have to explain to the Attorney 

General. The Attorney General has to conclude it in each case. We 

have not yet had us have to go into the room for those meetings. 

Mr. WALBERG. How that has that process affected the pace of 

your investigations? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It has had a significant impact on us. Frankly, 

the biggest impact is on the staff, when you talk about the thousands of people who work in the IGs offices. If you had some of my 

staff up here explaining to you how it impacts their day-to-day ability to do their jobs, we get bogged down, we stop work, you lose 

valuable time and money and resources on our side, You have the 

FBI ramping up on their side. It is a process that just doesn’t need 

to happen and didn’t happen before 2010? 

Mr. WALBERG. It affects your independence? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It absolutely affects our independence. 

Mr. WALBERG. Which is the rationale that the Congress had in 

mind to make sure we had oversight. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. If we have to go through the agency leadership to decide whether we get records, that’s a serious 

problem undermining our independence. 

Mr. WALBERG. In your testimony you pointed out that section 

218 of the appropriations bill that we are living under now prohibited DOJ from using any funds to deny your office access to agency 

materials. 

Do you believe this provision has a positive impact on your access to records? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think it generally has had a positive impact. 

Mr. WALBERG. Why do you believe the President in the budget 

that he has just released yesterday tries to remove this provision? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I can’t explain the motivation. I can tell you I 

think we’ve had a—it hass had a productive effect on our discussions with the Department generally. 

Mr. WALBERG. Well, the President attempts to explain the 

change when he says in the budget address that the Department 

is unaware of any specific materials that OIG believed necessary 

to its reviews but to which the OIG has not been granted access. 

Have you made the Department aware of access issues? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Made aware of the access issues as I’ve talked 

about in my Statement and in prior hearings? We haven’t ultimately had anything withheld from us, but that is dependent on 

who sits in the corner offices at the Department. Fortunately, the 

Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General have committed to getting us the material, but it turns on whether—on a 

decision by them as opposed to an independent decision by inspector general. 

Mr. WALBERG. Okay. Well, I would just add, I am very interested 

in why the President would say this when we have a hearing like 
39 

this, and we’ve had one before, I’m certain that the Inspectors General have concerns why the President would want to remove that 

section when it seems so important that Congress would address 

it and say we need to use the Inspectors General appropriately and 

fully and give them access. 

So I thank you for this questioning, and we’ll see the answer. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. We now recognize 

the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the ranking 

member for holding this hearing, and I want to thank the witnesses for offering your testimony and helping the committee with 

its work. 

This really is a, you know, in a way, a constitutional crisis if this 

is going to be the position of the administration or any administration. We had this situation back during the Bush Administration 

when we were trying to do oversight on Iraq reconstruction, and 

now I see in the last couple of weeks that—that DOD has taken 

a position against the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction where information that used to come to this committee, 

and now I’m the ranking Democrat on the national security subcommittee, that information that we got for the last 6 years is now 

not available to us. 

I guess last night The New York Times reports that there has 

been a reversal in part on the part of the NATO resolute support 

mission to release some of the information that we used to get all 

the time. So we are really hamstrung here. As long as—I mean, 

oversight is really a constitutional responsibility of ours. It is inherent in the balancing of the checks and balances between the executive, the Congress, and the judiciary, and if we can’t get that 

information, if we can’t have you as our emissaries in a real way 

to get that information to us, we cannot do that part of our constitutional responsibility. 

And, you know, it mystifies me how this is happening all across 

the government in all these agencies at the same time and just recently. Like I said, for 6 years we were getting this information, 

these reports, these action reports. You know, I’m not a conspiracyminded person, but, you know, I do have to say that we know, from 

your reports—actually Stuart Bowen, who is the inspector general 

for Iraq reconstruction, he actually helped us determine that in 

Iraq we had trained 930—938,000 Iraqis, military, police, and border patrol. 

We spent $25 billion on training Iraqis. So now when the military comes up with this new plan to train some more Iraqis, we 

can push that back on them, and the reason we can is because Stuart Bowen and members of this committee did dozens and dozens 

and dozens—and I give credit to John Tierney, who is no longer a 

Member here, but he did some great work on that. The reason we 

know that that system does not work and that Americans—American taxpayers’ money was wasted was because of the work that 

the inspector generals did, that you-all did. That’s how we got that 

information. 

And now they are saying we can’t have that information because 

it is embarrassing, it is embarrassing, that that information that 

you gave us allows us to hold the executive accountable. That’s the 
40 

way this is supposed to work, and I just—I’m troubled by the fact 

that all of a sudden the transparency is shutting down, that you 

are not allowed to do your jobs. And I just want the say that, you 

know, at the outset, both the ranking member and the chairman 

both said it is pretty sad that the Inspectors Generals have to come 

here to Members of Congress to help them to do their job, but that 

is—it might be sad, but this is where we are at. Like the ranking 

member said, sometimes you get—you are what you are, and so we 

have to have a partnership between the inspector general community and Congress to make sure that we all do our jobs, that we 

help you help the American people. That’s what this is all about. 

So maybe it is—maybe it is a legal quandary, maybe we have to 

get reaffirmation from the courts that this is indeed our constitutional obligation, but we have to work together. And just by closing, 

I’ve used up all—almost all my time. I just want to say that in 

prior budgets, we had defunded the ability of the inspector general 

community to do their job. And I know that Mr. Elkins eloquently 

stated that resources are a big part of this as well. 

In order to for them to do their job and help us with the issues 

that we are all talking about, we need to fund this part of government. You can be against big government, you can be against intrusive government, but you can’t be against functioning government, and functioning government are those people out there that 

do this work every single day. And I just want the say that we 

ought to remember that when the budget time comes around. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Well said. I appreciate that. 

Mr. Gosar from Arizona is now recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for all that 

you guys do at the inspector general’s office. 

Mr. Horowitz, thank you for everything. Specifically my next 

questions come on the Department of Justice. Quick question. Is 

the Department of Justice run from the bottom up or from the top 

down? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think generally from the top down. 

Mr. GOSAR. Hmm. And you’re a dependent or an independent 

agency? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We are an independent agency housed within the 

Justice Department. 

Mr. GOSAR. You’re no lesser of an attorney than anybody in the 

DOJ? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I will let others make that judgment, Congressman. 

Mr. GOSAR. I think I’d put your credentials against anybody from 

what I see. 

Whistleblower protection. Are you concerned about that? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We are deeply concerned about it, and I’m deeply 

concerned it is arisen in this context that I’ve sent the letter today. 

Mr. GOSAR. Have you seen the protection of whistleblowers get 

stronger today or are they less so than lets say 2009? And I am 

picking that particularly. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, we have certainly made efforts to make 

them stronger, but when you see this action where we are trying 

to move forward on a whistleblower retaliation allegation, and 
41 

the—involving an FBI employee and the FBI wants to first review 

the documents to see if we are legally entitled to get access to 

them, that causes me great concern. 

Mr. GOSAR. Absolutely. And I go back to something your partner 

right next to you said. Trust is a series of promises kept, and to 

the gentlewoman across that I’ve seen, what happened since 2010, 

well, there is Fast and Furious, the AP reparations, Jane Rose and 

IRS, Benghazi, it goes on and on and on. 

Are you familiar, Mr. Horowitz, with slow walking documents? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have certainly had difficulty getting prompt 

access to documents. 

Mr. GOSAR. Prompt access to documents also supports proper 

protection for whistleblowers, does it not? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. 

Mr. GOSAR. So I’m going to go back to your testimony in September 2014 to this committee. You stated, ‘‘the FBI and some 

other department components have refused our request for various 

types of documents. As a result, a number of our reviews have been 

significantly impeded.’’ You added that DOJ officials caused significant delays in gaining access to important documents in the IGs review of Operation Fast and Furious. 

Do you believe that the delays caused by the refusal of the DOJ 

officials to release documents were intentionally done by some officials within the agency in order to slow down the IGs investigations? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I actually was not, the IG, back when that all 

played out before—— 

Mr. GOSAR. But you’ve seen significant delays? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. But I have certainly seen significant delays. 

Mr. GOSAR. I mean, just like us in those delays, you’ve seen those 

delays because it took a Freedom of Information Act to get that information when it was not available to you or us. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I’ve seen them, and my staff, frankly, has lived 

them. 

Mr. GOSAR. Okay. So could these delays and impediments to the 

investigation in the Fast and Furious which continue today, 

amount to obstruction in your opinion? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. They have certainly—— 

Mr. GOSAR. I mean, this is not normal course. 

Mr. HOROWITZ [continuing]. Impacted. Let me just say—— 

Mr. GOSAR. This is not normal course of procedure, is it not? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It shouldn’t be. Unfortunately, in many reviews, 

we are seeing it over and over again, and it has impacted those reviews. 

Mr. GOSAR. So let me go back to this DOJ being top down. So 

if the Attorney General wants to set an atmosphere of change and 

compliance, he could, could he not? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think across all of the components, that culture 

that was talked about earlier is critical to set. 

Mr. GOSAR. And the same thing with this President. He promised 

an era of transparency, and I’ve hardly seen, you know, the most 

transparent administration period. So even the President could actually expediate this, could he not? 
42 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think there are a lot of people in this process, 

I agree, that could have an impact by sending a clear message that 

what happened prior to 2010, which worked just fine, no law 

changing in 2010 is where we should be. 

Mr. GOSAR. So you are very familiar with the Vaughn Index, 

right? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. 

Mr. GOSAR. So was there anything in the Vaughn Index that 

really merited executive privilege? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Congressman, I wouldn’t opine on that. Frankly, 

I haven’t—I’m familiar with the index. I frankly—— 

Mr. GOSAR. Once again, it goes to that mindset from the top 

down, I mean, so when you start seeing private emails being put 

on executive privilege, I mean, it behooves me that we are not following the law. And the way our system is based is that everybody 

in good faith upholds their oath to defend and protect this Constitution, to uphold the rule of law, would you agree? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I agree with that. 

Mr. GOSAR. So it starts from the top down, not the bottom up. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think, frankly, it is both the top and the bottom 

and everything in between that we’ve had both—— 

Mr. GOSAR. But as an executive, you set the tone. You told me 

that—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. 

Mr. GOSAR [continuing]. From the top down. So you set the tone 

from the top. And where responsibilities of aggression are, responsibilities of accountability need to be placed. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. You know, we’ve taken the position from, certainly since I’ve been there in 2012 with the leadership of the Department that given the past practice, given how things worked before 2010, there is more than—more than enough good faith basis 

to send a message that the IG, as the Section 6 states, is entitled 

to access all of these records. And we’ve always handled them appropriately. We have never violated any of the provisions in the 

grand jury secrecy, Title III, et cetera, that are rightly there to protect privacy interests. That has never been an issue. 

We have done the Hanssen review, we have done national security reviews, we have done FISA Amendment Act reviews, we have 

done PATRIOT Act reviews. I can go on and on about the sensitive 

work my office, primarily, as I said, the staff has done for the 25 

years of our existence. We have acted responsibly and appropriately. Nothing changed in 2010, and what we need to do is get 

back to where we were before 2010 when there was a culture of 

openness and a dialog that occurred between our office and the 

components on how we appropriately handle those materials, review those materials to ensure that among the most sensitive information, which is what we are seeing when we are looking at the 

FBI national security matters, we do maintain that carefully, and 

we should have that dialog. But it shouldn’t be whether we see it 

but how we handle it and go forward. 

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I just would like to say that—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 
43 

Mr. GOSAR [continuing]. This is a very important question for the 

future Attorney General to be asked pointedly about her views in 

openness. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Recognize the gentleman from 

Virginia, Mr. Connolly for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. Mr. Horowitz, is it not true that the 

President is a Kenyan socialist colonialist who lied about his birth 

certificate? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I wouldn’t even venture to try and answer that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Oh, so in other words, there is some leading 

questions an IG should not and cannot answer; is that correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I try not to answer questions that—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. 

Mr. HOROWITZ [continuing]. Frankly haven’t—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I appreciate the point. I really appreciate the 

work IGs do, but in order for us and the public to have confidence, 

we also need to have confidence in you. We need to make sure you 

are purer than driven snow, and that where there are any ethical 

or professional misconduct questions or even questions about methodology that seem not to be right, that there has to be a remedy 

that’s accessible and transparent to address that and correct it; 

otherwise, your whole investigation is tainted if you are tainted. 

Would you agree with that, Mr. Horowitz? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I agree completely. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And Mr. Horowitz, you are now the chairman of 

something called CIGIE, the Counsel of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. Would you briefly tell us what CIGIE does? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. CIGIE is the umbrella organization of all 72 Federal IGs the Congress set up when it created the IG Act. We have 

a number of responsibilities that include coordinating reviews 

among IGs, working to get replacements for vacant—IG vacancies, 

and we have an integrity committee that oversees allegations 

against Inspectors General and their most senior officials. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. You have an integrity committee as a subset of 

CIGIE? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And who chairs—who chairs the integrity committee? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. The FBI. I hope the chairman heard that. The 

FBI chairs the integrity committee. 

So when a charge is made about one of your colleagues, founded 

or unfounded, and assuming that it doesn’t go to one of the specialized agencies, EEOC goes one place and something might criminally be referred to another place, but that which is left goes to the 

integrity committee about professional conduct and so forth; is that 

correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And it is chaired by the FBI. So when that committee—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Uh-huh. 

Mr. CONNOLLY [continuing]. In the due course of time investigates somebody and comes up with a finding, they then present 
44 

the report to you as the chairman of CIGIE for your review; is that 

correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. They actually by statute don’t. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. They don’t? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. They send their report to the Deputy Director for management at OMB, and if it is a Presidential 

appointee, to the President. If it is a non-Presidential DSE IG, it 

goes to the agency. It does not go to the CIGIE chair. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Hmm. So if the broad public wants—let’s say 

somebody wants to clear his name. Let’s say an unfounded charge 

comes before CIGIE and the integrity committee and it is unfounded but it has to be investigated, that report then gets buried 

at OMB and maybe never sees the light of day? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Under the statute, the records would be maintained by the FBI, and obviously, any recipient of a report would 

have a record of it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. How often does the integrity committee meet? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Frankly, I’m not a member of it. I’m not a part 

of it, but one of the things that I certainly want to do is have it 

meet on a monthly basis so that we can move matters more quickly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So, for example, if there were a complaint or a 

charge filed against an IG, is there an immediate process that gets 

kicked in, or do we just wait for your biannual meeting? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Under the procedures currently in place, there is 

a process that kicks in in terms of it going to a working group to 

review it, consider it, and then processes that go forward from 

there. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And two of us on this committee filed a complaint against one of your colleagues, and all we got after a fairly 

detailed six-page, single-spaced complaint on July 31 of last year, 

we simply got a one-paragraph thing saying we reviewed it and we 

think his response—his response sufficiently addressed the allegations, period. Thank you very much. Have a good day. 

Is that how you would conduct your review of an agency such as 

the one you’re assigned to? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think that is a issue that’s important for us to 

take up in CIGIE, to how—how to better deal with the transparency issues that you’ve raised and I know we are concerned, 

other members were talking about. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, we are going to give you a chance, because 

I assure you Mr. Cartwright and I will refile our complaint. 

Let me ask a question. I have here the Council of the Inspectors 

General on Integrity and Efficiency. You’re familiar with that? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Yes, I am. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. In that document, it says ‘‘IG should avoid any 

appearance of partisanship in such engagements. Bipartisan meetings and outreach is the most appropriate format for such OIG 

meetings. If a bipartisan meeting is not feasible, it is the best practice to ensure the majority and minority understand the willingness of the OIG to meet separately.’’ 

Would you say that a consistent pattern of meeting with just one 

side of the aisle by an IG would be in violation of at least the spirit 

of that guidance? 
45 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Congressman, it certainly isn’t a practice that my 

office would follow. We follow that practices of reaching out to both 

sides. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Are you aware of the fact that the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, and I wrote a year ago, almost to the day, February 4th, 2014, complaining about that very fact and that very behavior by J. Russell George, the inspector general at the tax administration of the Treasury. Are you aware of that complaint? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I’m not familiar with it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I’ll make sure you have a copy of it. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Time has expired. We now recognize the 

gentlewoman from Wyoming, Mrs. Lummis, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

the gentleman and women of the Office of the inspector general for 

your work on behalf of the American people, those here present 

and your colleagues as well. 

I’d like to focus my questioning on Mr. Elkins and—— 

Mr. ELKINS. Yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS [continuing]. EPA. Mr. Elkins, is it the case that 

on January 16th you sent a memo to the President in followup to 

your investigation on the use of private email addresses by the 

Chemical Safety Board chairman Moure-Eraso, and to the general 

counsel Richard Loeb of the CSB, and the managing director Daniel Horowitz, and that these—the office found, your office found information sufficient to support a conclusion that these three officials used private non-government emails to communicate on 

Chemical Safety Board matters? 

Mr. ELKINS. That’s correct. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And is it a violation of the Federal Records Act to 

do that, to use—— 

Mr. ELKINS. That was our conclusion, yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I have a copy of Arthur Elkins’ inspector general’s report to the President in my hand. I would 

like to enter it into the record. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We would like to ask unanimous consent to 

enter into this into the report pending a review by this inspector 

general to make sure that there is no sensitive information that 

should not be released, but pending that review and getting back 

to our committee, I would ask unanimous consent that it be entered into the record. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I have no objection except what 

you just said. I just want to make sure there are privacy concerns, 

should they might adhere to. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So we will review these documents, allow 

the IG to review these documents before they go into the printed 

record. Without objection, that’s the way we’ll proceed, and I thank 

the gentlewoman. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Has the White House responded to your report, Mr. Elkins? 

Mr. ELKINS. Yes, the White House has. Actually, yesterday afternoon, I received a letter from the counsel to the President, a copy 

of the letter that was sent to the chair stating the intent to be com-
46 

pliant with the law in the expectation that the White House—the 

expectation of compliance. So I did receive a letter and there was 

a followup, yes. That occurred yesterday. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And what followup will you be making to your report based on the White House’s response? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, at this stage of the process, once our report is 

done and we forward it on to the deciding official, in this case it 

will be the President, it is really in the President’s ballpark to then 

make a decision. So there is not much we can do beyond that. 

We’ve made a recommendation, and you know, that recommendation needs to be acted on, so our role is pretty much over with. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Do you know, are officials still using private 

emails to conduct official business at the Chemical Safety Board? 

Mr. ELKINS. I can’t say conclusively that the issue has been fully 

resolved because, you know, we haven’t received—we don’t know 

that we received all the information that we requested, so that’s 

still an open matter. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Going back to some testimony that you provided to this committee in June 2014. You testified that as of that 

date in June that the Chemical Safety Board refused, and to that 

day, continued to refuse to provide documents that you requested, 

and that you determined were necessary to investigate these activities. Did they ever provide those documents? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, they were supposed to send us an affirmation 

that they have complied with our request. To this date, we are still 

waiting for that affirmation, so one can infer that maybe there is 

still information out there that we don’t have. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. You don’t know what you don’t know. 

Mr. ELKINS. Correct. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. I want to switch over to the EPA’s semi-annual report to Congress from the first half of 2014. You indicated in that 

report that multiple offices at EPA were obstructing the OIG, including Homeland Security, chief financial officer, Chemical Safety 

and Pollution Prevention, and the Office of General Counsel all 

within EPA. Which of those offices have been most problematic to 

you? 

Mr. ELKINS. The office of Homeland Security. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Is—so no other offices as egregious as that one, but 

you’ve had problems with all of them. 

Mr. ELKINS. That’s a fair assessment, yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Have any of those offices improved? 

Mr. ELKINS. Yes, I think they have all improved. We have made 

progress, and I have to thank this committee for their efforts because, but for your efforts, I may have a different report; but for 

your efforts, things have improved greatly, yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. You testified about being blocked from access to 

the EPA’s office of Homeland Security. I think that was back in, 

well, roughly half a year ago. How were you prevented from access 

to information by them? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, the prevention really has come about from just 

stonewalling, just not providing the information that we have requested. It is stonewalling. That’s the best way I can describe it. 
47 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Well, and your testimony submitted at that time, 

you said that OHS’ investigation of John Beale, this was the guy 

who defrauded the EPA under the guise of being a CIA operative. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentlewoman may finish her question 

that may be asked, but the gentlewoman’s time has expired so—— 

Mrs. LUMMIS. You know, Mr. Chairman, I’ll allow one of my colleagues to complete this line of questioning. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentlewoman. 

Now recognize the gentlewoman from Michigan, Ms. Lawrence 

for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Thank you, Chairman Chaffetz and our ranking 

member Mr. Cummings. I believe we have an obligation to preserve 

the independence and the effectiveness of the Office of the inspector general at the Department of Justice as well as other agencies. 

I want to thank all of you here today for your service and for the 

hard work that you do every day. 

Today I would like to direct my questions—my concerns to the 

Peace Corps, and if I could ask Ms. Kathy Buller. Your testimony 

States that a legal opinion of the previous Peace Corps’ general 

counsel is ‘‘standing in our way of fulfilling the duties of the inspector general’s office.’’ 

Can you tell us a little bit about the legal issue here and why 

there is a disagreement? 

Ms. BULLER. Back in 2011, Congress passed the Kate Puzey Volunteer Protection Act, and in that Act they created a system for 

Peace Corps to implement its program for assisting victims of sexual assault, and there were a number of requirements contained in 

that legislation. One of them was to create a system of restricted 

reporting that would allow a victim of a sexual assault to come and 

report that they had been assaulted and receive whatever services 

they needed as a result of that assault without their information 

being disseminated widely. 

That legislation also created a mandatory duty for my office to 

do evaluations periodically. Included in those evaluations is the requirement that we review a significant number of sexual assault 

cases to assure that volunteers had, in fact, received the services 

that they needed. 

In addition, the legislation also contained exceptions to the prohibitions against disclosure of restricted reporting information, and 

one of those exceptions contained the language that if—if required 

by other State or Federal statutes, and the argument that we have 

been having, or had been having with the former general counsel, 

he didn’t interpret that particular provision to include the IG Act 

even though it specifically said Federal statute. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Thank you. 

In your testimony today, you’re saying that the Peace Corps has 

corrected course by issuing policies and procedures that grant OIG 

greater access to information; is that correct? 

Ms. BULLER. That’s correct. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. So I’m pleased to hear that progress has been 

made. I’m pleased to hear that. What policies and procedures have 

been issued that has changed and given you the position that 

greater access to the Peace Corps information? 
48 

Ms. BULLER. Until we entered into the MOU, we basically had 

a blackout of information concerning restricted reports with the exception of three pieces of information, and that those three pieces 

are the country of the occurrence, the type of assault that it was, 

and the type of location, for example, if it was on public transportation. That was the only information that we got from restricted 

reports, and we only got that after a letter was written by the 

former chairman of this committee. So basically we got no information. 

After we entered into the MOU, we got more information. With 

the exception of certain pieces of PII and explicit details of the sexual assault, we can get access to that information. There is several 

problems that still remain with that, however. We are dependent 

on the agency to go through all of their records to determine what 

needs to be redacted from the information that we get. We are 

never going to be fully assured that the information that we got is 

the information that was contained in the files. We will never be 

able to go in and just do an audit of the system to make sure that 

they are adequately recording everything that needs to be recorded. 

One of the first things that we did years ago was to do an audit 

of the crime incident reporting system to make sure that the 

crimes that were being reported were being properly categorized. 

We could not do that type of an audit on the restricted reporting 

information. There are just a lot of prohibitions to general oversight that we still will not be able to do. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. I want to thank you for that update. But one 

of the things that I’m hearing from you while we have made 

progress, we still have some issues that we need to deal with, so 

I want to get back, but I want you to know that we truly support 

the work that you do, and this committee is here to look at those 

issues as we move forward. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentlewoman. We’ll now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Meadows for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank each of you for 

your testimony today. 

Mr. Elkins, I’m going to follow up on Mrs. Lummis’ questioning 

and complete her question, and it deals with an EPA employee who 

we heard testimony here about him being a CIA agent for a 

lengthy period of time, actually, and you know, as a story that can 

only be made for television or a movie as it unfolded. You have 

been investigating that, but I’m troubled to hear, and that’s what 

I want to followup on, is that you indicated that you tried to interview the Office of General Counsel at the EPA, and that interview 

was denied. Is that correct? 

Mr. ELKINS. We tried to interview a—an attorney in the Office 

of General Counsel. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. ELKINS. Yes. And we did not get cooperation from that attorney. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And so they—are they claiming the Fifth, or why 

would they not allow you to get to the bottom of what I think all 

Americans believe is just an unbelievable story? 
49 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, from what I understand, initially, she just did 

not want to talk to us. I’m not quite sure that there was any privilege given, but subsequent to that, I think one of the areas of privilege is attorney/client privilege being that, you know, she was a 

agency attorney and the agency was the client, and so in some sort 

of way they thought that—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. In a twisted way, attorney/client privilege. 

Mr. ELKINS. It does not apply. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I’m sure we have a few attorneys out here who 

would have a hard time with that argument; would not you agree? 

Mr. ELKINS. So, absolutely. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. So let us go on a little bit further because 

the chairman, in his opening questioning, talked about another employee who had an issue with an intern and 16 other alleged offenses of a sexual nature, and yet there was a delay there in terms 

of getting you the information; is that correct, Mr. Elkins? 

Mr. ELKINS. That’s correct. We were not able to get all of the information. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So because of this delay, we put potentially other 

women in harm’s way; would you agree with that? 

Mr. ELKINS. I would agree with that, yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So if we are doing that, that this delay of information that we are hearing that is a consistent theme, not only 

with you but I would imagine with a number of others in the audience here, has real consequences; wouldn’t you agree with that? 

Mr. ELKINS. It has very serious consequences. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So if it has serious consequences, what do we 

need to do to compel compliance, because I think it is very clear 

on both sides, both Democrat and Republican, that we think that 

this is an important issue, that the intent of Congress is that you 

should get all of the information and not some, and it shouldn’t be 

subject to legal interpretation. What do we need to do to enforce 

compliance? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, that is the million dollar question. You’re absolutely right. There is a gap in the IG Act that allows these sorts 

of things to happen. We can only go so far. I can only make recommendations if it is not a criminal matter. We only have so much 

authority, and we rely really on this body right here to come up 

with some solutions. We would be glad to sit down and talk to you 

about some ideas. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, here, while you’re under oath, and we will 

not take the time today, but I would ask each one of you, but also 

anyone else that happens to be listening, we want names. We want 

you to name names of those that are presenting the problem, and 

let the chairman and the ranking member know that, and we will 

followup. 

So it is imperative that we get to the bottom of this so that no 

one else potentially gets harmed, whether it is a whistleblowers or 

anybody else. 

Mr. Horowitz, let me go back to you because one of my colleagues 

mentioned about the integrity committee and the importance of 

making sure that the IGs do their job and that—my understanding 

is that the head of the integrity committee is the FBI. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. They chair the committee. 
50 

Mr. MEADOWS. So they chair the committee, and I know that on 

January 21st—and I would ask unanimous consent that the letter 

gets put into the record, Mr. Chairman. It was a letter from Chairman Chaffetz and Ranking Member Cummings and myself that 

really wanted us to get the report with regards to some serious allegations that were made, and I would ask unanimous consent. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So do you not find it ironic or troubling that the 

FBI who fails to give you information, Mr. Horowitz, chairs this 

particular committee and yet they have not complied with this letter? Do you find that troubling? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Certainly is a similar concern to what we have 

and the issues we face. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So if we are being stonewalled, to use Mr. Elkins’ 

language, if we are being stonewalled in terms of transparency 

within CIGIE, would it not be a better place to have someone else 

chair that other than the FBI that may have a conflict of interest? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think there was a serious discussion about that 

last year in trying to figure out how to reform and address some 

of the concerns in the integrity committee, and I know there are 

many members who continue to have that question. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And do you have the—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentleman’s time is expired. We still 

have members hoping to ask questions, so—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I will yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. We’ll now recognize the gentleman from California, and I want to make sure I pronounce his 

name properly. Is it Lieu? 

Mr. LIEU. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Very good. Mr. Lieu from California is now 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for Ms. 

Buller. I agree with your interpretation of the Kate Puzey Peace 

Corps Volunteer Protection Act. I find it impossible to believe that 

Congress would have intended with this Act, which was designed 

to prevent sexual assault cases in the Peace Corps, to somehow obstruct IGs from investigating sexual assault cases. 

My question to you, because I believe that prior opinion by their 

prior general counsel is ridiculous. We now have a new general 

counsel. What is your office’s relationship with the new general 

counsel at the Peace Corps, and do you know whether or not what 

the view is of the new general counsel about that legal opinion? 

Ms. BULLER. My relationship with the new general counsel is 

very good so far. He has been there since October, and we have had 

several meetings and discussed a number of issues. I have not specifically discussed the legal opinion with him. I have spoken to the 

Director about it a number of times. I think it is fair to say that 

I don’t think that she would be opposed to having it revisited. I 

don’t know what the position of the new general counsel is on that, 

but that is something that we could find out. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you. And then I have a question for the panel. 

When I served on active duty in the Air Force, I was a JAG, and 

one of my duties was to work with inspector generals and to review 

their reports and make recommendations to the commanding offi-
51 

cer, but for this IG system to work effectively, you needed all employees to feel like they can share whatever it is they want with 

IG, completely free and clear. And my concern is, if we have a lot 

of one off memorandums of agreement and different specific issue 

areas, people get confused, they don’t know what they can or cannot share, so it seems to me that we need to change the law. 

And I understand your concern, following up on what Congresswoman Norton said about if we were to try to make a change and 

it didn’t happen, it can be used against you. What if instead we put 

in a pretty harsh penalty. We do not change the standard of the 

IG Act, we do not say we meant what we said. We basically add 

a pretty harsh penalty for violating it. Would that help you do your 

job? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think that is certainly one vehicle. That is 

frankly why we were appreciative of section 218 in the Appropriations Act because it starts to put forward that notion of we mean 

what we say in Congress in section 6(a), and through an appropriations bill you are obviously limited in what you can do, but that 

was a way that Congress tried to take that action, and I think 

what you mentioned, Congressman, is another way, vehicle to get 

at that issue. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you. I yield back my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Mulvaney for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to talk with 

all the witnesses a little bit about how and when this started. 

Mr. Elkins, I will start with you because you mentioned something that I was not familiar with, which was this memorandum 

of understanding, I think if I heard it correctly, between Homeland 

Security and the EPA that you were not involved with. When did 

that happen? 

Mr. ELKINS. I don’t have the date right off the top of my head, 

but I believe 4 or 5 years ago. 

Mr. MULVANEY. And I think that is what you said to Mr. 

Cummings. You have had this difficulty now from 4 or 5 years ago. 

Mr. ELKINS. Yes. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Ms. Buller, I ask you the same question. Is there 

a point in time where you saw the practices changing? 

Ms. BULLER. Yes, with the passage of the Kate Puzey Act. It was 

November 2011. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Okay. So November 2011. 

Mr. Horowitz, I think you testified that there was a FBI general 

counsel opinion in 2010 that was sort of a touchstone for the 

change in practices within the agencies that you oversee. By the 

way, what was the—what was the subject matter of that—of that 

general counsel’s opinion? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. There were a couple of reviews going on. One was 

Fast and Furious, one was our review of the FBI’s use of its material witness warrants and whether it was appropriate in exercising 

its national security authority there. The third was the FBI’s use 

of national security letters under the PATRIOT Act, so again we 

are trying to conduct oversight over the FBI’s use of authorities 

that Congress gave to it. 
52 

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Elkins, do you remember, was there anything pending at your agency or was there something that happened that gave rise to the MOU? I am just trying to figure out 

why it suddenly happened. 

Mr. ELKINS. You know, I think it was a matter of turf battles. 

I think it was personalties deciding that they wanted to carve out 

a certain section of authority for themselves, and they saw a conflict with the IGs role. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Okay. 

Mr. ELKINS. That’s my opinion. 

Mr. MULVANEY. All right. But what I’m hearing is it is 2010, 

2010 or 2011, and 2011. Thereabout is where it changed. I wish I 

could ask that question of everybody. We may end up doing that, 

if they saw a particular time when the weather changed, for lack 

of a better word. 

I do want to come back and talk to Mr. Horowitz about the question one of my colleagues asked you regarding the President’s 

budget, to go back and cover it real quickly. We did add the language in section 218 last year. It passed with bipartisan support, 

folks on both sides of the aisle supported that language, and the 

President has taken it out of his proposed budget. I originally 

thought that that might be an oversight. The budget, as you have 

seen it, is something like this, and you could easily miss something 

like that, and I was surprised to see the language they included, 

and I’ll read it to you again, because I think it merits a little bit 

of discussion. 

This is from the President’s proposed budget in explaining that 

language coming out. It says, ‘‘The Department is unaware of any 

specific materials the OIG believed necessary to its reviews but to 

which the OIG has not been granted access.’’ 

It is just not possible that that is a true statement, is it? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. What that statement does is gloss over how we 

get the documents ultimately. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Okay. Tell me about that. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We do not get them pursuant to the IG Act, some 

of these documents. What happens is the FBI decides, based on its 

legal views, that other statutes limit their ability to hand it to us, 

so they go to the Deputy Attorney General or the Attorney General 

and say ‘‘can we give it to them, do you give us permission to give 

it to them?’’ The AG or the Deputy makes a determination that our 

review will help them manage the Department as opposed to the 

inspector general making that decision, an independent entity, it is 

being made—the Department, in essence, is deciding for itself 

whether our reviews will help them so they will allow us to look 

at the records. 

Mr. MULVANEY. I have been in government to know—long 

enough to know how you can gloss language, and I see exactly 

what you are talking about. I think the bottom line is that you still 

think that the language in 218 is necessary and helpful to you. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It has been necessary. It has been helpful. I 

can—there have been several issues where—we had with the DEA 

recently where, before December—mid December when this became 

law, we were having difficulty getting those records. In two instances in January, we—I engaged with the Administrator of the 
53 

DEA and an associate in the Deputy Attorney General’s office who 

were very helpful in working through those issues, but we made 

clear we had a deadline under 218, and in our view, we needed the 

documents by the deadline, and so in those instances I can give 

precise examples where it has been helpful. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Let me ask you very quickly in the time I have 

remaining about an issue that you raised about the warrantless 

searches, because there was an article in The New York Times just 

last month about it. There was a new report that was released that 

had been declassified but still redacted and sent to The New York 

Times, and it actually quoted you or it cited you, it didn’t quote 

you, that said that in the report on the warrantless searches that 

was delivered to the Times, the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, concluded the FBI was doing a good job, The New York Times’ 

words, making sure that email accounts targeted for warrantless 

collections belonged to non-citizens abroad. 

And I guess my question is this: In—and I’m not asking you to 

give any classified information. I want to make that clear. In conducting the review that is the subject of the report that was recently made public, did you get everything that you asked for and 

everything that you felt you needed in order to conduct your investigation? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. To be clear, in each of the areas, we have ultimately gotten what we have needed to do our work. The problem 

has been in various reviews, and I don’t recall that that is one 

where it came up, but certainly others related to the FISA, PATRIOT Act, others are ones where these questions have been 

raised. In fact, one of the categories that has not yet played out but 

that the FBI has indicated it has questions about whether it could 

share information with us is raw data from FISA matters, and so 

what Congress has asked us to do is oversee the FBI’s authorities 

in those areas to make sure they are exercising appropriately. To 

do that, we have to know that we are getting everything and we 

are getting everything promptly. That is the challenge we keep facing over and over and over again. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS [presiding]. I thank the gentleman from South 

Carolina. The gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, Ms. Plaskett, 

is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Thank you very much. Good morning. Thank you 

so much for your patience and your professionalism in dealing with 

these issues. I wanted to direct my questions to Mr. Horowitz, and 

thank you for testifying. You testified before this committee last 

September and you raised several concerns about your office’s ability with the granting of timely access to the information. And during that testimony, you stated that the FBI and other Department 

components initially refused the office’s request; is that correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That is the issue, yes, that we have been having. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And that after that refusal, it was then elevated 

to another level and ultimately either to the Deputy Attorney General or to the Attorney General’s office at which time the quote 

was, you were granted us permission to access the records by making the finding that our reviews were of assistance to them. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. 
54 

Ms. PLASKETT. And that the Department further stated that 

their intention to do so in future audits and reviews and that the 

current Department’s leadership had supported our ability to access those records. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That is correct. 

Ms. PLASKETT. So the issue for the Department of Justice and 

FBI have been the MOU and the legal opinion that was given? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The issue is that the FBI believes it needs to go 

through this process that they have set up. There is no actual 

MOU in place. This is a process they’ve set up in order to get that 

permission here. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And that process was set up by what measure? 

What was the reason for them setting it up? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. There was a—it was in response to the FBI’s 

legal opinion. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Legal opinion. So the legal opinion—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It was not vetted through us. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Their legal and their belief constrains them from 

freely giving—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. 

Ms. PLASKETT [continuing]. Information related to grand jury, 

wiretap, Fair Credit Reporting Act information, those types of—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. And maybe others. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And other types of information. 

Now, it is my understanding that the Department has ultimately 

granted access to the requested reports and that has there ever 

been an instance that you already stated that you did not receive 

that? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We are not aware of any. 

Ms. PLASKETT. You are not aware of any? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Right. 

Ms. PLASKETT. But it is a timing factor? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It is a timing factor, and I will add, it is a waste 

of resources factor. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Correct. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The time it takes me, and frankly, my staff to do 

it, and the FBI has built this mechanism to review these records 

solely for the purpose of having to go to the Attorney General, the 

Deputy Attorney General to ultimately give them to us. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Uh-huh. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It is—you—— 

Ms. PLASKETT. Well, having worked on the staff of a Deputy Attorney General who has oversight over 9,000 attorneys, many different agencies and divisions within the Department of Justice, I 

can imagine that it would take quite a number of months in some 

instances before you would receive—you would come up in the cue 

to receive the information and the permission, correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. And to be fair, the Deputy Attorney General, the 

Attorney General have been very supportive of getting that material to us. The problem is, at every step of the process there is a 

delay. My staff has to go through the issues. The FBI has to review 

the records. It then gets elevated to me. I elevate it to the general 

counsel in the FBI or the Director or the Deputy Director. It then 

goes from there up. All of that takes time. 
55 

Ms. PLASKETT. So now, am I understanding also is that the Department of Justice has stated that they are in a legal review of 

this to determine if this should be—this process should be 

changed? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And what is the status of that review? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. To my understanding, all of the briefing, if you 

will, was submitted to the Office of Legal Counsel. My office sent 

materials. CIGIE sent its submissions. I understand other components sent submissions back in May of last year. We have heard 

at various times we might get the opinion in the fall, later in the 

year, but we still have no opinion. 

Ms. PLASKETT. No deadline has been given for the opinion? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Not that I am aware of. 

Ms. PLASKETT. So it would be helpful to you for this committee 

to either push forward that opinion to be granted or a change in 

the law? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Agree completely, Congresswoman. From our 

standpoint now, any opinion is what we are looking for. Hopefully 

it is a good opinion. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Uh-huh. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. But frankly, if it is not a—we are operating 

under the bad-opinion outcome. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Right. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s what’s been set up, and we are all struggling with it because of the lack of a decision. We get a decision, 

my guess is Congress would then—if it is bad, Congress, as we 

have talked about today, I think would probably act pretty promptly. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Well, it appears that you are operating under a 

very old law which has broad scope for the Inspector General’s Office, and contrary to maybe my colleague’s opinion, the law is not 

stagnant, and so there is constant changes that occur within the 

law, particularly in areas where technology or issues or circumstances change which will allow for opinions or further clarification or some other mechanism to make sure that the law is applicable to the time in which you are operating. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. There certainly are some issues where that comes 

up. I do not think, frankly, in the ones that the FBI has raised 

with us, FBI—grand jury, the law has been the same all through. 

Title III, it has been the law all the way through, but there are 

other areas where we havehad discussions about how evolving information and technology impacts our access. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Well, I am thankful that the Department is working with you, and I am hopeful that this committee will be able to 

move that along much faster. Thank you so much, and I yield the 

balance of my time. 

Mr. MEADOWS. The gentlewoman’s time is expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina for 5 minutes, Mr. 

Walker. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, panel, and 

to all the IGs who have been sitting out here for right at 2 hours 

now. I will not use my full 5 minutes by trying to get strictly and 

directly to the point. 
56 

The pattern here of obstruction is obviously at this point not an 

isolated incident, and specifically I want to dial down—Ms. Buller, 

the ‘‘u,’’ a short ‘‘u’’ or a long ‘‘u,’’ is that Buller or Bueller? 

Ms. BULLER. It is Buller. 

Mr. WALKER. Okay. Buller. All right. Fair enough. I want to talk 

specifically or work toward a question here. I find some of the 

things that you have shared today very concerning. My wife helped 

launch the sexual assault nurse examiner program at Wake Forest 

University Baptist Medical Center, and as a minister for 15 years, 

I have counseled some people who walked with some of the darkest 

times of their life. These victims, there are many obstacles, I will 

put it this way, to come forward to share such tragic moments in 

their life, and I’m troubled, I believe your words were, though there 

have been improvements, specifically after the last two committee 

meetings, that there have been improvements, challenges remain. 

And I struggle with the fact that there are challenges remaining 

in such a sensitive and potentially damaging area. I do not understand that because we are not dealing with just unethical behavior. 

We are dealing with criminal behavior in some of these incidents. 

So my question for you today is because of the obstructions that 

you continue to face from whoever, unnamed sources at this point, 

hopefully that will be resolved in the future, is it fair to say that 

we could be protecting these predators—and I will say predators 

because even, and the FBI has been thrown out a few times today, 

according to the FBI, the one behavior pattern that they have no 

proof can be amended are those who are continually sexually assaulting others. 

So my question is, are we, at some point, if we cannot remove 

these barriers or challenges, are we protecting these predators who, 

in remote areas, have no law enforcement people to contact? 

Ms. BULLER. I think the issue we have is with restricted reporting, and the way—the reason it was created was to allow people 

to come forward and get the services they need without law enforcement necessarily launching an investigation, and we respect 

the whole concept of reporting and why it was put into place. 

The problem being that if law enforcement does not find out 

about it, then there is nothing that law enforcement can do, but 

that is a choice that is being given to the victim, and it is a legitimate choice, and Congress saw that as a legitimate choice when 

they created the Kate Puzey Act, and our problem is not with restricted reporting. Our problem is with the fact that restricted reporting has been used to keep information from my office that we 

need to perform our oversight capabilities. Even if we had access 

to the restricted reported information in total, my law enforcement 

officers, by statute, could not go out and investigate. 

Mr. WALKER. What do you think may be the first immediate approach is as far as resolving the frustration? 

Ms. BULLER. What I did would be to have the Peace Corps retract the legal opinion, because it is the legal opinion that was the 

impetus for all of the policies and procedures. To date it has not 

been retracted. The general counsel left the agency, I believe, in 

October, and we do have a new general counsel. We continue to 

work with him, and hopefully we can get that retracted, but as I 
57 

said in my testimony, if we get it retracted for us, it does nothing 

to help Art and Mike Horowitz. 

Mr. WALKER. Right. A real problem. Thank you Mr. Chairman, 

I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Will now recognize 

the gentleman from California, Mr. DeSaulnier. Did I pronounce 

that properly? 

Mr. DESAULNIER. That was great, Mr. Chairman. I apologize. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I can not do any better than that. So I will 

now recognize you for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. I respond to almost anything close to that, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Well, I want to thank you all for the job you do. I really do not 

think we could overstate the importance of the integrity of the 

work you do. As someone who believes in the possibility of government being a force of enormous good in this country, I think that 

those who lack that, it really comes down to trust. 

So, Mr. Elkins, I want to talk to you specifically about some of 

your comments about the Chemical Safety Board. As you may or 

may not know, in the area of California that I represent, we have 

a very large intensity of chemical and hazardous material facilities. 

It was very important to my predecessor that this group work well. 

Just last week we had a major report from the board on a major 

incident at the Chevron refinery in Richmond that just narrowly 

missed killing or seriously injuring 18 constituents. 

So knowing of the importance, first let me ask you a general 

question. You said about not reaching a judgment, this balance 

that you all have to face and then the erosion of trust. Usually it 

takes two parties, whether it is deliberate or not, to have that happen, and some of the other comments by some of my colleagues. 

Could you—you have done this for a while. Have there been incidents from your side, from the IG community, where you wish that 

the material you had gotten had not been used in a manner that 

it had been used that helped to get us to this point where there 

is an erosion of trust? 

Mr. ELKINS. Off the top of my head, I can not really think of any 

examples where that has occurred, but let me just state that we 

are not above the law. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Understand. 

Mr. ELKINS. We have an obligation as well, and we could be subject to sanctions, criminal prosecution if we violate the law. So it 

is—I am not talking double standards here. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Okay. And then specifically to the CSB, and I 

am familiar some of the personality issues that have happened at 

the board. So in your testimony in September, you issued a 7-day 

letter to try to get the information of the private emails, and that 

you said that it was the only time in your tenure that you had to 

issue a 7-day letter. Is that accurate? 

Mr. ELKINS. That is accurate, yes. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. So in spite of that, you were able to complete 

your investigation, and that led you to, ‘‘evidence sufficient to support a conclusion that the chairman and two of his senior officials 

violated the Federal Records Act in implementing regulations by 

using non-governmental email systems.’’ 
58 

Now, in your investigation, was that deliberate? Did these three 

individuals deliberately use their private emails to avoid the Federal Records Act? 

Mr. ELKINS. It would sure seem that way, yes. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. And are there consequences for them, either 

individually or the board? 

Mr. ELKINS. There definitely are consequences. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Have there been consequences implemented? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, the consequences are that we sent that information on to the White House with—with the ROI, and then the 

White House would then have to take actions. And the White 

House, as I said earlier, has issued a letter directing that they comply with the law. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. So this is an issue of compliance. And I find 

in my previous life in local and state government is always a big 

issue, whether it is a civil grand jury or it is a legislative body trying to get people to comply, and it goes to a little bit about some 

of the concerns by previous speakers about the Peace Corps as well. 

So in terms of compliance specifically to CSB, are you satisfied 

that they are complying now with the letter of the law? 

Mr. ELKINS. No, I can not say that I am totally satisfied, because 

they, again, have not affirmed that they have complied with our requests, so we are still waiting. So until I receive that affirmation, 

I do not know what I do not know. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Okay. And, Mr. Horowitz, and again, my personal experience, whistleblowers are really important, but how you 

handle them is really important. So as you work on your working 

group, and just briefly if you could mention some of the struggles, 

my experience may be accurate or not, but it is mine, the front end 

and the back end are two of the most important, so trying to find 

out if somebody actually is valid and has objective material, and I 

wonder if you could comment on that, and then the back end when 

it comes to retribution. 

And then last, I have a question on a different subject matter. 

Maybe you could tell me, when you allocate resources for investigations, what percentage do you put to just getting the information, 

and has that changed over time? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. On the whistleblower issue, I could not agree 

with you more, Congressman. I think it is very important for IGs 

and our staffs to respect allegations that come in, thoroughly look 

at them, evaluate them, respond. I have found that simply the response and the interaction with folks coming forward is very important even if you ultimately conclude there is not merit or there is 

not sufficient information to corroborate the allegation. So that is, 

I think, very important on the front end. 

And then on the back end, I agree with you. If there is certainly 

confirmation of the allegations, making sure that there are processes in place and protections in place to ensure that whistleblowers who suffer retaliation have a vehicle to come forward and 

get remediation for what occurred and get it done promptly. And, 

frankly, one of the concerns, as I said that I have about the issue 

that is in the letter today, is that it comes up in two whistleblower 

cases where we have outstanding requests for several months, and 

the reason we are being asked to wait even longer through this 
59 

week or next week is so the FBI can determine what are things we 

do not get access to so the Attorney General Or the Deputy Attorney General can decide we should get access to it. That is a problem also in terms of the message to a whistleblower as they look 

at issues if they see that process. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank the gentleman. Appreciate it. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We will now recognize the gentleman from 

Georgia, Mr. Hice, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The law is very clear when it states that all records, reports, documents, people and so forth are to provide the information that you 

need, and, of course, that is the issue that brings us here. You have 

stated clearly, each of you, that in order to do your job, you need 

100 percent of the information that you request. That being the 

case, what percentage would you say of that 100 percent do you not 

receive or is delayed to the extent that it is problematic? Just—and 

I realize this is just a guess, but what would you say? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Our issue has been the delay issue and the timely receipt of it, and the Congressman’s—— 

Mr. HICE. Okay. 

Mr. HOROWITZ [continuing]. Question as well, which is it is taking a substantial amount of my time as inspector general and a significant time of certain teams of mine who get delayed. Ultimately 

they may get the records, but it is taking us, in some instances—— 

Mr. HICE. Okay. How much is delayed? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Months—— 

Mr. HICE. Okay. 

Mr. HOROWITZ [continuing]. Of time. 

Mr. HICE. The rest of you experience a similar type of thing? 

Mr. ELKINS. Yes. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. 

Ms. BULLER. In my case, we do not—up until recently, did not 

get the records, period, until we entered into the MOU. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. So we have a whole gamut of issues here: Significant delays to the extent that you are unable to do your job or 

not receiving the material at all? 

All right. Last year Attorney General Holder testified before the 

Judiciary Committee in April at that time regarding this type of 

issue. He said, ‘‘I’m not sure exactly what the process is, but I do 

not think that it is anything that has had a negative impact on any 

investigation that he’s tried to conduct.’’ 

What is your assessment of that statement? It sounds like it is 

not true. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, the impact on our investigations has not 

been that we did not ultimately get the records. The impact on our 

investigations has been the time delay, and if there are findings associated with our efforts, that means we do not learn of them early 

enough, the Attorney General does not learn of them early enough, 

and the Congress does not learn of them early enough. 

Mr. HICE. But the Attorney General said that he is not aware of 

anything that has had a negative impact at all on the investigation, and that would not seem to be true. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, as I mentioned, that is the impact we have 

had, that it’s had on us, has been the delay and the delay in our 
60 

ability to do our work and get our reports done, and that does have 

an impact on—on our ability to do what you—what Congress has 

instructed us to do. 

Mr. HICE. All right. I understand. Mr. Horowitz, you mentioned 

that during this time when you experienced personally in 2010 

delays and the type of things that you are experiencing, that was 

right in the middle of some of the issues that were being dealt 

with, the PATRIOT Act, national security issues, Fast and Furious. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. 

Mr. HICE. There were a number of issues taking place at that 

time. And we have also determined today that our system around 

here in Washington operates with authority, people do as they are 

told. Is it reasonable to the average person hearing this information today to conclude that it would appear as though somewhere 

someone in whatever position of authority has been able to direct 

agencies to either withhold or delay information? Would that be a 

reasonable conclusion? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. In my instance, it was an FBI general counsel 

opinion that—and it was from—through the FBI back in 2010. 

Mr. ELKINS. In my opinion, generally it starts at the top in terms 

of messaging, in culture. If the top says it is okay to do it, then 

everybody else will fall into line. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. 

Ms. BULLER. In my case, it was a general counsel opinion that 

was issued that caused the problem. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. So this—the problem that you are facing is coming from somewhere at some higher level that is giving directives 

and it is going through. So as one of my colleagues mentioned a 

while ago, we need some names. If you are aware of any, we—in 

order to get to the root and pull the root of this problem up, we 

need some names, we need something to go by. 

Let me shift gears real quickly in the brief moment that I have 

left. Have—in the midst of your requesting information, have you, 

to your knowledge, ever received back information that was edited, 

altered, redacted in any way? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have initially received redacted information. 

We have also learned through our reviews that reports—productions that we were told were complete, it turned out when we interviewed witnesses were not complete, and we had to go back and 

ask for supplemental records. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. Mr. Elkins? 

Mr. ELKINS. Yes. I ca not think of any instance where we have 

received information that has been redacted. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. Ms. Buller. 

Ms. BULLER. Well, in our case, pursuant to the MOU, they do redact information before they give it to us. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. So we have a multiple issues of problems here, 

where you are not receiving information, you’re receiving delayed 

information, or you’re receiving information that, in one way or the 

other, is inaccurate when you receive it? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That—we are being told it is complete, and it 

turns out we find other records along the way. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. Thank you. 
61 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize the 

gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Cartwright, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The premise of the hearing today is getting full and efficient access to the information necessary to conduct effective oversight, but 

Congress needs to do oversight on the Inspectors General as well. 

In February 2014, as he said here today, Mr. Connolly and I wrote 

a letter to Deputy Director Colbert, inspector general Fong, and 

Deputy Assistant Director Campbell to raise serious concerns over 

the troubling activities of Treasury inspector general for Tax Administration, TIGTA for short, J. Russell George, with respect to 

TIGTA’s May 14, 2013, final audit report named ‘‘Inappropriate 

Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax Exempt Applications for Review.’’ This included IG George appearing to have officially sanctioned audit processes and procedures that, both in appearance and 

in reality, indicate TIGTA’s Office of Audit was conducting an audit 

on behalf of and in consultation with Republican members to the 

exclusion of Democratic members and staff. 

We concluded that TIGTA produced a fundamentally flawed 

audit that harmed the public interest to such a severe extent that 

trust and confidence in TIGTA’s independence, ethics, competence 

and quality control have been called into question and its effectiveness had been threatened. 

We urged the Integrity Committee to investigate the matter. 

Their response was ridiculous. I am going to read it to you. 

‘‘Dear Ranking Members Connolly and Cartwright, the Integrity 

Committee, IC, of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity 

and Efficiency recently reviewed the allegations you provided about 

non-conformity to GAGAS and evasiveness in testimony before 

Congress by J. Russell George, inspector general for Tax Administration. Your office referred these matters for IC consideration on 

February 5, 2014. 

The IC reviewed the allegations against Mr. George and requested his response. The IC reviewed the response from Mr. 

George and determined that his response sufficiently addressed the 

allegations, thus, the IC determined the matter did not meet the 

threshold for further consideration and has closed the matter. 

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Angela 

Byers, Acting Chair, Integrity Committee.’’ That was their response. 

In September 2014, my office and the Connolly office requested 

a copy of the complete unredacted response that was submitted to 

the integrity committee by Mr. J. Russell George, and we still have 

not got a response. If his response was so comprehensive and beyond reproach, then why can’t we even see that response? 

Look, this is about transparency and consistency. We would 

like—we would like to see all the documents related to this. 

Mr. Horowitz, can I get a promise from you that you will share 

that unredacted response with us in a timely fashion? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Congressman, I learned about this last night 

from Congressman Connolly’s staff. The statute that creates the integrity committee makes the FBI as the custodian of records for integrity committee matters. So I will follow up and ask the FBI 
62 

about the records, but I—I know nothing more than what you just 

referenced in the letter, and need to follow up on that. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Will you do—will you follow up? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Yes, I will follow up—— 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. HOROWITZ [continuing]. On the request. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Because I hope that you and Congressman 

Connolly and I and IG George can work together to get the information we need so that Congress can do its necessary oversight. 

Responses like that are just ridiculous and cannot be tolerated if 

we are going to believe in transparency and consistency in our 

oversight process. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do. And I have heard concerns raised by members of both parties about the Integrity Committee and making 

sure it is operating more effectively in terms of timeliness as well 

as transparency concerns, and something that we need to talk 

about. And I think, frankly, some of them are statutory based on 

how the Integrity Committee was created. So I think part of it is 

us talking with the FBI about the processes, but part of it is also 

talking about whether there needs to be any fixes to the statute. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Then I thank you for your commitment, Mr. 

Horowitz. And, Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Russell, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The three of you and scores of your colleagues that stand with 

you believe that the IG Act is clear in granting you the authority 

to obtain all the documents, and that has been discussed many 

times respective to each department. A Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel opinion is pending that has been referenced 

that will either agree or disagree with the law. An affirmative ruling solves the dispute, a negative ruling will provide legal and congressional options to uphold the law against the ruling. 

Given the importance of the OLC ruling to unconstipate the 

timely review of information, what can Congress provide, in your 

view, to help expedite the ruling so you can do your job? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think continued contact with the Justice Department by the committee and Members of Congress, as I have 

been doing, to try and find out when we can expect an opinion. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Elkins? 

Mr. ELKINS. I will concur with Mr. Horowitz. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Ms. Buller? 

Ms. BULLER. From personal experience, I have noticed that every 

time Congress has gotten involved in our issue, we have seen 

movement, at least as far as Peace Corps is concerned, so I concur 

with what has been said. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Would there be any other options beyond asking 

when a date could be expected? I mean, obviously they have told 

you that it may be in the fall, it may be—we are not sure. Congress 

could also get that type of an answer. What other options might be 

available? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, certainly something I think we will discuss 

and think about and talk with the committee as to whether there 

are other options and other issues. As I said, I think Section 218 
63 

in the Appropriation Act has had a positive impact generally. Obviously there has been an issue that I have addressed today, but that 

is a vehicle by which there has been some change. And I concur 

fully with what inspector general Buller said, which is every time 

Congress has gotten involved, it has resulted in attempts to address some of our concerns. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Other members of the panel? 

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. This—this marks the halfway 

point of our hearing, and—hang in there. We are getting there. We 

are getting there. 

All right. We will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. 

Carter, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And—thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

And thank all of you for being here and thank you for what you 

do. Please don’t ever think that what you do is not important, 

please don’t ever think that what you do is not appreciated. It is 

very much so. 

I can’t help but get the impression, and please correct me if I am 

wrong, but at least in certain circumstances, it seems to be us 

against them. How did that evolve? I mean, what happened? 

What—how did we get to that point? I mean—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It would—hard for me to say that, the latter part, 

because I was not there in 2010, but it is interesting you say that, 

because when I talk to my staff and they talk about what it was 

like before 2010, it was, we go—we are part of the Department of 

Justice, we are independent, but we are within the Justice Department. We would go to our components like the FBI and say, we are 

investigating the Hanssen spy matter. We need access to records. 

The discussion would be about how do we make sure we are looking at them in the appropriate place with the right people who 

have the right clearance, not, we have got to look at them, we are 

not sure if you are entitled to them. A completely different dialog 

and, frankly, I will go back to what Art said, culture. Inspector 

general Elkins has it just right. There was a sea—a significant 

change in the attitude with the relationship. 

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Elkins? 

Mr. ELKINS. In addition to that, I think in some cases agencies 

do not really understand the role of an IG and they see the IG has 

an adversary rather than as a vehicle to help the agency be more 

efficient and more effective, and that relates to culture as well, but 

if you come in with the attitude that, you know, the IG is an adversary, then that is going to set a—you know, it is going to set a 

tone. So I think that is a part of it. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. 

Ms. BULLER. Well, from my perspective in the Peace Corps, we 

really did not have that mentality before the issuance of the general counsel’s opinion. We had country directors who would call us 

asking for information, asking if this would be the type of case that 

we would normally take, things like that. 

Since the issuance of the general counsel’s opinion, that kind of 

communication has pretty much stopped, which is really detrimental to volunteer victims of sexual assault in particular, because 
64 

there are so many opportunities that they could get information 

from us on how to do things, how to process, for example, a safe 

kit, a rape kit that a country director does not feel comfortable 

even calling and asking anymore. 

Mr. CARTER. All right. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I was just going to say, and I want to make clear 

also, I have got a lot of components in the Justice Department. 

Most of them are still having that relationship. So we are doing a 

lot of work, for example, on the Federal Bureau of Prisons. We 

have a very strong working relationship with them. I could name 

many more components like that. So I do not want to leave that 

impression, but we do so much work with the FBI and the DEA, 

that that is where a lot of our work ends up focusing. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Well, very quickly, and, you know, any time 

we are in a situation like this, we want to do some self-assessment. 

Mr. Horowitz, you said there were 72 IGs and that 40-some-odd 

had signed off to this. Let’s talk about those who did not. What are 

they doing differently? Are they not having any problems, or were 

they intimidated to not sign, or can we get any best practices from 

them? You know, let us—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think, frankly, you’d have to talk to the others 

who decided not to sign to understand why. I do not think it was 

necessarily because they—that the issues they were facing were 

the reason, or were not facing, were the reasons for their decision, 

but I think I would suggest you would really need to talk to them. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. 

Very quickly, because I want to get this in. The recommendations 

that you make, particularly as it pertains to saving money, which 

is one of the primary reasons, if not the primary reasons that I am 

in Congress, it is because of an $18 trillion debt that I do not want 

to leave for my children, I do not want to leave to my grandchildren, none of you do. Are those recommendations being looked 

at? Are they being adhered to? What—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We followup on all our recommendations and we 

find, generally speaking, they are implemented and they are followed. We have issues at times, but we have a very strong track 

record of—at the Department of following up on them. 

I will add one way to save money and time, frankly, is resolve 

this issue, because it is causing a waste of resources and time on 

all sides. 

Mr. CARTER. Great. 

Well, Mr. Chairman, that was the quickest 5 minutes I have ever 

seen, but nevertheless—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. They get faster and faster, I guarantee you. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Nevertheless, please understand, whatever 

the ruling is of the OLC, regardless, what you do is important, 

what you do is appreciated. If you continue to have problems, 

please, please come back to us. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALMER. First of all, thank each one of you for your service 

and for coming today. 
65 

Mr. Elkins, I believe you were asked earlier about the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security. Is this the office that utilizes armed 

agents? 

Mr. ELKINS. No. They should not have any armed agents. 

Mr. PALMER. Are you aware, or do you know what office or division of EPA has armed agents? 

Mr. ELKINS. Sure. That would be the CID division. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. Has anyone contacted your office about the 

use of these armed agents against private citizens or municipal 

governments at any level? 

Mr. ELKINS. Not that I am aware, but we may have hotline complaints that just have not reached their way to me as of yet. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. There is an issue of this that I would like to 

address later, Mr. Chairman, this may not be the appropriate 

forum for that, of the EPA using armed agents, particularly against 

a small town in Alabama where they showed up at a waste treatment facility, full body armor and weapons drawn, and I would 

think that would be an area that would be of interest to the Inspector General’s office in terms of oversight. That is a little heavyhanded. 

Ms. Buller, in regard to the situation at the Peace Corps, were 

any of the people who were involved in the sexual assault prosecuted? 

Ms. BULLER. We have had instances where we have had prosecutions for sexual assault. Most of the instances of sexual assault involved host country nationals, so they are prosecuted in their country. 

Mr. PALMER. Were there any cases where the prosecution may 

have been impeded? 

Ms. BULLER. As far as the—this new policy that’s been implemented? 

Mr. PALMER. Right. 

Ms. BULLER. it is only been in place for about a year. And if a 

volunteer chooses to go restricted reporting, there is no prosecution 

that’s done. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. Then can you speculate, or maybe you can 

give an answer as to why your investigation would have been impeded? 

Ms. BULLER. It would not necessarily have been my investigation, it would have been the investigation of the host country where 

the incident occurred, but when a person decides to file a restricted 

report, it does not go outside of a specific chain of people, so there 

would be no possibility for the local law enforcement to get the information. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. And, Mr. Horowitz, I have a question for you 

in regard to the overall discussion that we have had here today. Do 

you think any of these delays would constitute obstruction? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. They certainly have had a significant impact on 

our reviews. The—the time ranges are very significant. Ultimately 

we have gotten—or we are told we have gotten the records, so I 

think that is where it stands at this point. They have certainly— 

for the time when we are not getting them, they have obstructed 

us and prevented us from completing our work in a timely fashion. 
66 

Mr. PALMER. In regard to a timely fashion, then, particularly 

where it involves political appointees, would that—could that be 

considered an act of running out the clock? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do not know specifically what the motive is for 

why this is occurring. Frankly, it started with the FBI with the 

general counsel, who is not a political appointee, who came in. But 

there certainly could be more done to resolve this quickly in terms 

of the OLC opinion, it seems to me. We—again, we just need an 

opinion. Hopefully it will be good, but if it is not good, that will 

allow Congress to look at what is problematic from the Department’s standpoint and then correct the problem. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, to echo what Congressman Carter said, we do 

appreciate the work that you are doing. I think it is absolutely critical that we have transparency and oversight and accountability, 

and anything that can be done to expedite your work needs to be 

done. I think we owe it to the American people to restore confidence in our government. And I thank you for the job you are 

doing and for your willingness to come before us today. 

I yield the rest of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Now recognize the gentleman 

from Texas, Mr. Hurd, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HURD. I’d like to add my thanks to you all on coming here 

today. My first question is actually for Mr. Elkins. As a former CIA 

officer for 9 years, I was undercover. The case of John Beale is very 

interesting to me. It is usually the other way around. We are saying we are someone else rather than someone saying they are one 

of us. What do you need in order to continue that investigation and 

bring that to closure? 

Mr. ELKINS. Well, the—Mr. Beale’s case has been closed. He is 

serving time in prison—— 

Mr. HURD. Okay. 

Mr. ELKINS [continuing]. Right now. 

Mr. HURD. Well, good work. 

And my next question is for Ms. Buller. You know, in the documents you provided talking about, our push for access is about fulfilling our collective responsibility to ensure that we, Congress, the 

Peace Corps and the OIG do everything we can to ensure our volunteers, who sacrifice so much time when serving in remote corners of the world, receive the services they need when they are victims of assault. And my question to you is how can we better fulfill 

our collective responsibility? You had mentioned earlier about having the Peace Corps retract their general counsel opinion. What 

else—what else can be done? 

Ms. BULLER. Well, short of Peace Corps retracting the general 

counsel opinion, the only other alternative I can see is Congress 

taking some sort of action to make it perfectly clear that the IG Act 

means what the IG Act says, and that we have access to all of the 

information. 

Mr. HURD. Excellent. Thank you for that. 

Mr. Horowitz, my next question, in your opening statements, you 

talked about the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act. 

And how is that specifically hindering the ability of the IG community to execute its responsibilities? 
67 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The issue there is that IGs in one department 

have access to certain information; IGs in another department have 

access to information. And one of the things that we try and do, 

for example, is try and detect improper payments. Where are individuals getting payments from two agencies that are duplicative, 

that they should not get both, they might be entitled to neither, but 

they are certainly not entitled to both. And so that would be an example where if we could exchange that information and speak 

about—and match the data in an easier way through our own initiative, that would be helpful to us. 

Mr. HURD. So do IGs not have the ability to directly access information from servers? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We do not have the—that is a major issue for 

several IGs directly, which is we do not have the ability to directly 

access that in our own agencies, and we also do not have the ability 

to access data or information across agency without going through 

the process in the Computer Matching Act which requires us, for 

example, to go to the agency’s leadership to decide if they should 

give us the authority to be able to match information that would 

look at potential misconduct or wrongdoing within the agencies. 

Mr. HURD. So why do some IGs have direct access and others 

don’t? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. By statute as well as by approval through the 

various processes that are laid out in the statute. 

Mr. HURD. So does this impact an IGs independence? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It would certainly strengthen and—our ability to 

be more independent, because to get those approvals for many of 

us, we need to go through our agency head. It is not something 

that I as IG have the authority to decide. I have to go through the 

agency leadership to get that authority, and so that does impair 

our independence. 

Mr. HURD. So if the IG has to request access to information from 

someone within the agency itself, does this tip off the agency that 

the IG is conducting an investigation? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. They would normally be aware generally of our 

review. it is, frankly, more a concern that they are managing the 

documents. And, as my colleagues said, you do not know what you 

do not know. We do not know how thorough it is, how promptly it 

is being done. 

In my situation, we are being told we are getting everything. In 

Ms. Buller’s situation, she was being told she was not getting everything. And that is the concern. It should be the Inspectors General who are deciding what documents we need to do our work. The 

system that is set up for several of us now is that the agency is 

deciding what documents it thinks we should get for our work. 

Mr. HURD. Well, as the chairman of the Information Technology 

Subcommittee of this committee, I am looking forward to having 

further conversations on this topic, something that is very important in order for you all to continue to do your jobs of making sure 

that the money we collect from citizens is being used effectively 

and efficiently. So appreciate your time and what you guys do. 

I yield back the rest of my time. 
68 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman from Texas. And now 

recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thanks much. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. If you can hit your button there, talk button there. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. There we are. Okay. There we are. 

You talked about expanding—Mr. Horowitz, you talked about expanding IG authority and compelling more testimony. Can you give 

me examples of how that would benefit your work? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. So, for example, we often—we have often faced 

the problem where on the eve of an interview, employees have retired or resigned. At that point, we do not have access—we can ask 

them for a voluntary interview, but we can not compel them to testify, which they would have to do had they still been an employee. 

And what we want to ask them about is conduct while they were 

employed. And that is the difficulty we are facing. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Can you give me any specific example 

where you really wish you had that authority? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, one that comes to mind, in the—one of the 

reviews we did after Fast and Furious, we wanted to interview the 

U.S. attorney from Arizona, who had already resigned from the Department, and he declined our voluntary request for an interview. 

We have no further ability to get that information. He had actually 

provided testimony to the Congress, I believe to this committee, 

and the committee then allowed us to see the testimony he had 

given to you, but that is how we got his information. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. That applies when somebody is no longer 

in government service or no longer at their job, or what is the—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. it is someone who once was in government service, we want to talk to them about what they did while 

they were in government service, but then left the service. And at 

that point—we can subpoena those people, by the way, for their 

records, we just can not get their testimony. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. And you still have the authority over 

them if they are working anywhere in the government or do they 

have to be in the executive branch or—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. If they are within the executive branch, we have 

had instances where we have gone to other IGs in other agencies 

and worked with them to compel the testimony, because they are 

still employed within the government, within the Federal Government. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Could you give me another example of appropriate boundaries you think where any more authority would 

be? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, I think there needs to be some assurances, 

protections built in that were—that there are careful consideration 

before we are running out and subpoenaing individuals who are no 

longer with the government, for example. We have got to make 

sure that we are not compelling testimony where there is a Justice 

Department prosecution that could be impaired. So there are a couple of things that we need to do, in my personal opinion, to take 

those steps. 
69 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I do not know. Do you ever abuse your discretion 

now, you know? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. No. I agree. I mean, I think—but it is the same 

thing. For example, subpoena authority that my office has, there 

are certain categories of subpoenas that come to me personally for 

my personal review. There are others that we allow folks other 

than myself to authorize. And I think those are the kind of controls 

we—where we want to make sure exist so that it is elevated to a 

high level and there is careful consideration given to it. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. We are almost done here. You are on the 

home stretch. I’ll ask you—I’ll ask you just a broad question for 

each one of the three of you. 

Obviously, you know, your testimony today is just scary, because, 

you know, we rely on you guys so much to make sure our government is functioning and it is functioning with integrity. Do you 

have any broad comments on how you see individuals responding 

today? I mean, you have all had a given period of time in this position, over a given period of years. Say today compared to 4 years 

ago, 8 years ago, what have you, do you see any trends going on? 

Mr. ELKINS. I do not know if I would call it trends. Ever since 

I have been in this role, I have seen these issues that we are talking about today, they have always been there. 

So if there is any trend, the trend is is that having the support 

of this committee has made a positive difference, because to the extent that we are seeing arguments or obstructions, those instances 

are actually becoming fewer, and there is a sense from the agency 

head at least to want to talk about cooperation. That would not 

have happened but for your involvement. So that is the trend that 

I am seeing. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. Go ahead. 

Ms. BULLER. From my perspective, the trend has been toward 

not—it—the staff of the Peace Corps has been very confused by the 

general counsel’s opinion as to whether or not they can cooperate 

with us, whether they can give us any information, not just the information related to sexual assault. Before the opinion, we had a 

fairly good working relationship with the staff of the Peace Corps. 

We would have, as all IGs do, little times where they have questions about what we are doing, but they were readily answered and 

we got what we needed. it is changed now. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. I thank the gentleman. I will now recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, 

Mr. Gowdy, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate you and the ranking member on your— 

your new title, the ranking member’s continuing title, and thank 

both of you for having this very important hearing, which was consistent with your work when you were on the committee before you 

were the chairman. 

I apologize to our three witnesses. There is a simultaneous hearing going on in Judiciary, which required my time, but before I left, 

Mr. Chairman, I made a note that perhaps at a future hearing, if 

you decided it was worthwhile, it might be productive for us to 

have the Department and have the Bureau and have the appropri-
70 

ators here so we can all kind of have this conversation at the same 

time. You know, for Mr. Horowitz to have a position that is not 

held by the Department of Justice, I don’t know who would win 

that debate. Mr. Horowitz has a tendency to win most debates he 

is in, but I think it would be helpful for everybody to be at the 

table together. 

With that in mind, Mr. Horowitz, it is been a long time since I 

took a class on statutory construction, so I am going to ask you to 

help me with that. Here is the phrase: all records, reports, documents, or materials. What do you think the word ‘‘all’’ means? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. it is been a long time as well for me, but ‘‘all’’ 

means everything, all. 

Mr. GOWDY. Now, you had a very distinguished career in the 

Southern District of New York. I think you were a white collar 

prosecutor. I suspect that when you were doing investigations, you 

wanted as many documents as you could have before you made a 

charging decision. Right? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That is correct. 

Mr. GOWDY. And you worked for the Department of Justice, and 

I assume that when it came time for you to meet your discovery 

obligations to the defense, you did not kind of pick and choose 

which documents you wanted to turn over, you turned over all 

those that you were legally required to do so. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That is correct. In fact, my practice was to invite 

the lawyers in and they could look through the file cabinets. 

Mr. GOWDY. An open file policy. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Open file policy. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right. I want to ask you specifically with respect 

to material witness warrants, for those watching at home who do 

not know what that is and do not know why it is important, what 

is it and what do you want access to that you are not gaining access to? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. So material witness warrants are a process by 

which an agent and a prosecutor can go to a court to arrest an individual, not for committing a crime, but because they have relevant 

evidence that relates to a criminal investigation. That provision 

has various restrictions on it. 

One of the allegations that occurred after 9/11 was whether the 

Department and law enforcement components were abusing that 

authority to arrest witnesses. We undertook a review. We asked for 

information relating to grand jury proceedings, which is critical to 

understanding what is being done, because the very purpose of arresting the individual is to put them before the grand jury to get 

testimony. So in order to understand whether it is being abused or 

not, you need to know what’s happening in the grand jury. We 

asked for that information back. This occurred right in the outset 

of some of these issues, 2010, 2011. It took, if I recall correctly, 

nearly a year to get resolution on that so we could gain access to 

those grand jury records so we could evaluate whether the work 

was being done properly or whether we had concerns about it. 

Mr. GOWDY. There is an old adage that justice delayed is justice 

denied, and evidently we have bought in—we have bought into that 

as a country, because there is a Speedy Trial Act for—for prosecutors—— 
71 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That is correct. 

Mr. GOWDY [continuing]. So you can get the case to court. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Right. 

Mr. GOWDY. Explain to us why it is not only important that you 

get the information, the ‘‘all’’ in that statute, but also get it in a 

timely fashion? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We get allegations about waste, fraud, abuse, 

about misconduct, about whistleblower retaliation, just to give you 

some examples. We are reviewing those to see if, in fact, they are 

accurate. I think everyone would agree that if there are allegations 

of whistleblower retaliation that prove to be true, waste, fraud, 

abuse going on in the Justice Department, everybody would want 

to see that uncovered as quickly as possible so it could be remediated, so it could be addressed, so it could be fixed. That is the kind 

of delay that—that is the kind of impact we are having when we 

are delayed. 

Mr. GOWDY. I think it is important for the folks at home to understand that the three of you, Jason uses the word sometimes 

‘‘auditor.’’ Because he is not a lawyer, he uses words that are easier 

for him to understand. I think of you as being more independent, 

neutral arbiters. You do not work for anybody except for your fellow citizens. And I really—you know, I do not know whether I will 

live long enough to see a Republican administration or not, but this 

really should transcend politics. You cannot do your job without 

timely access to the documents. And I do not know the other two 

inspector generals as well as I know Mr. Horowitz, but you have 

a reputation of being a total, complete strait arrow who calls balls 

and strikes exactly as you see it. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Sure. 

Mr. GOWDY. I am completely comfortable with you in your job. 

I’d be more comfortable if you had access to all the documents in 

a timely fashion. And I wish all three of you luck. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. GOWDY. Certainly. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The—first of all, I think the gentleman’s made 

some excellent points. And going back to your initial point with regard to having everybody in the room, I think that is a great idea. 

As a matter of fact, the chairman and I had talked about it a little 

earlier today, not on the record, that we were going to try to get 

these folks on the other side of this to get an understanding of 

what is happening there so that we could move forward, and the 

chairman has said that perhaps we would have a hearing, but we 

would bring those folks in, because I agree, we have got to get past 

this, we—and so I just wanted to make you aware of that. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I know that when you and Chairman Chaffetz 

put your minds in the same direction, there is nothing that cannot 

be accomplished. So I—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentleman’s time—— 

Mr. GOWDY [continuing]. Look forward to—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ [continuing]. Has expired. I now recognize 

the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Buck, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BUCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Horowitz, I wanted to visit with you a little bit. I may be 

the only Member of Congress that worked in an IGs office a num-
72 

ber of years ago before I became a prosecutor, and I have a concern. Without seeing the IGs subpoena and without hearing from 

the other side, do your subpoenas, in any way, inhibit an investigation? In other words, you are all—you were also a prosecutor, you 

understand the discovery requirements that can be created if there 

is a parallel investigation, you understand the concerns with grand 

jury secrecy and the disclosure that must be made to a court. Do 

your—are your requests narrowly enough drawn so that they do 

not inhibit FBI prosecutions and counterintelligence, counterterrorism, very serious areas? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Very fair question and something as a former 

prosecutor, I am acutely aware of. We do a couple of things to try 

and be careful in that regard. We tend not to undertake investigations or reviews while there are criminal cases ongoing or criminal 

prosecutions ongoing; we try to make sure where that is happening 

but we need to investigate, we do it in a manner that does not 

trample into an area that could harm the case. Best example I can 

give is, and I was not here at the time, but post-9/11, we were 

asked to look at the issues at the same time the Moussaoui prosecution was going forward. And everything I have heard from my 

staff is an example of, frankly, their longing for the good old days 

where we did work together in a manner that the FBI respected 

our ability to have to plow—move forward, get the work done, but 

we also understood and worked with the agency to make sure that 

we did it in a responsible, careful way, but never compromising our 

independence, never compromising our thoroughness and making 

sure we did everything to get to the bottom of issues. 

Mr. BUCK. And a perfect example might be a subpoena for—a 

grand jury subpoena for financial records. We would typically ask 

for 3 or 4 years of financial records, and then get a monthly statement and then go through the monthly statement and ask for specific items that we are looking for. 

Do you have that relationship with the Bureau at this point 

where you can actually ask for a broader area to go through specifically and say this is what we are really after, can you help us, or 

is that something that you do not want to do? Does that give away 

your investigation? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. No. We have had that discussion. Indeed, I will 

give you a good example. Just recently with the DEA, and Section 

218, we had a deadline approaching, I talked with the administrator, I talked with an associate in the Deputy Attorney General’s 

Office with constructive ideas on how to make sure we saw and 

had access to the information we needed to assure ourselves that 

we were getting that, but then allow them to keep custody, take 

custody of the records that were unrelated and were not of interest 

to us going forward so that we could make sure that we had satisfied our needs in terms of thoroughness, review, et cetera, but also 

respecting their concerns about how the records were maintained 

and stored and kept. 

And those are the kinds of dialogs that should be occurring; not 

can we get access, but how do we make sure our access is done in 

a manner that is consistent with our independence, consistent with 

your expectations of what we need to do to get to the bottom of 
73 

issues, but also understanding that there are countervailing issues 

and concerns out there. 

Mr. BUCK. With the short time I have left, I want to ask a question of the whole panel. And you mentioned the word ‘‘independence.’’ From the agency’s perspective, often it is not independence, 

it is a thorn in their side. What you discover may embarrass them, 

what you discover may be something that they—that is turned 

around in the press and embarrasses them in a way that indicates 

that they are not doing their job properly, or it could be used for 

political purposes by others. 

How do we overcome that issue? And I throw this open. How do 

we—how do we really address the—what we all want, which is 

achieving an efficient and accountable government? 

Mr. ELKINS. I think it boils down to trust ultimately. If the two 

parties trust that we are all on the same page—because at the end 

of the day, we are all on the same page. You know, we all work 

for an agency, and the mission of the agency is our mission. For 

EPA, it is to protect public health and the environment. That is my 

job to do that as well. But my job is a little different, because I am 

focused on identifying where funds are not being used to the full 

extent and then making recommendations that they can. So it really kind of boils down to trust. If you have got the trust in the relationship, things can work out. If you do not have trust, it is going 

to be rocky. 

Mr. BUCK. I yield. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Thank you. Well said. I now 

recognize the gentleman, Mr. Cummings from Maryland. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 

thank all of you for being here today. You know, when I was sitting 

here listening to you all, I could not help but think about when I 

was teaching my—one of my sisters to drive. And so she is driving 

along and I am sitting in the driver’s seat—I mean, in the passenger’s seat, and a man steps out and she almost hits him. And 

I stepped on her foot, literally. You know, I put my foot on—on the 

brake, and I said, ‘‘Why did you do that?’’ And she said, ‘‘He should 

not have been there. I said, He was there.’’ 

My point is is that, you know, we do have a problem here, and 

that is why I have spent so much time, and the chairman and our 

committee trying to help resolve the problem, because we do have 

a problem. So on the one hand, hopefully we get to some type of 

permanent solution, but in the meantime, we want to do everything in our power to help you do your jobs. 

And I understand the frustration. I really do. I understand you 

have your—you’ve got the IG law, which seems to be very clear, 

but on the other hand, I have to believe that there are people on 

the other side of these arguments who might make very strong arguments saying that they are trying to obey the law and trying to 

do what they believe is right. I have asked you, I asked you all earlier whether you felt that somebody was trying to hide something 

and all that, and you basically said no. So—so we have got to get 

past this. 

I just want to commit to you that I’m—I am committed to both— 

both sides, in other words, to both avenues: one, to do whatever we 

have to do right now to get you where you have got to go and at 
74 

the same time trying to come up with a permanent solution. I 

think we have got to do both. I do not think that we can stand 

around and not try to do something to help you get past some of 

these immediate problems that you are experiencing. 

And, again, I want to—I want you all to do your jobs. You have 

very, very important jobs. I mean, we sit here, and I know the 

chairman will agree with me, there are many times we get very 

frustrated trying to figure out how do we make sure that government does what government is supposed to do. And then—you 

know, and then—so the now is—now we are at a point where we— 

we’ve got to try to figure out how can we get these issues resolved 

as fast as possible. 

It is going to be interesting to hear the other side. I want to hear 

what they have got to say. I am absolutely curious, Mr. Horowitz, 

as to why the same things that you are requesting that you used 

to be able to get now you can not get them. I am curious. I want 

to know that. I really do. 

I also do not want us to move away from what Ms. Norton said. 

It may be a situation where there have been some things that have 

changed. I do not know. I thought maybe it was because of 9/11, 

but this stuff just happened. So—I mean, it started in 2010, right? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. [no verbal response.] 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, again, and I’m saying to the departments 

that are listening to us today, get ready, because we want maximum cooperation with the IGs, but we also want everybody to be 

able to do their job in an effective and efficient manner. 

So, again, I want to thank all of you. I want to make sure that, 

not just the witnesses, but all the IGs who have taken the time out 

to be here today, I want to thank you for making a difference in 

our country. I know that many of you all get—have frustrations, 

but the fact is that you all are making a big, big difference, and 

we want to help you make an even bigger difference. And may God 

bless you and God bless all of those who work with you and support you. Thank you very much. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. And I want to echo 

and—the sentiment that you feel, I think, on both sides of the 

aisle. We truly do appreciate the good work, the hard work, the 

diligent work that is done within the IG community. We have more 

than 13,000 people who dedicate their time and their lives. They 

are patriotic Americans. They’re trying to root out the waste, the 

fraud, the abuse, the bad apples that might be there, and for that, 

we thank you and appreciate that. I know a lot of you work for a 

long period of time and wonder does anybody pay attention to that, 

does anybody read that, and I assure you that it is of the utmost 

importance. 

As I said at the beginning, if you can not do your job, then we 

can not do our job in Congress. And we rely so heavily on your perspective, your non-partisan view of the world and the objective 

viewpoint that you take. And to that extent, I hope you all carry 

back how much we love, care and appreciate those that work day 

in and day out. 

So this has been a bit of a long hearing, and this committee now 

stands adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 1:13 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
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