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EMPOWERING THE INSPECTORS GENERAL 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 

Serial No. 115–11 

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

( 

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

https://oversight.house.gov 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

Jason Chaffetz, Utah, Chairman 

John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee 

Darrell E. Issa, California 

Jim Jordan, Ohio 

Mark Sanford, South Carolina 

Justin Amash, Michigan 

Paul A. Gosar, Arizona 

Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee 

Trey Gowdy, South Carolina 

Blake Farenthold, Texas 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

Thomas Massie, Kentucky 

Mark Meadows, North Carolina 

Ron DeSantis, Florida 

Dennis A. Ross, Florida 

Mark Walker, North Carolina 

Rod Blum, Iowa 

Jody B. Hice, Georgia 

Steve Russell, Oklahoma 

Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin 

Will Hurd, Texas 

Gary J. Palmer, Alabama 

James Comer, Kentucky 

Paul Mitchell, Michigan 

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 

Robin L. Kelly, Illinois 

Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan 

Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey 

Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands 

Val Butler Demings, Florida 

Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois 

Jamie Raskin, Maryland 

JONATHAN SKLADANY, Staff Director 

WILLIAM MCKENNA, General Counsel 

KATIE BAILEY, Government Operations Subcommittee Staff Director 

JACK THORLIN, Senior Counsel 

SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on February 1, 2017 ......................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

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

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

The Hon. Kathy A. Buller, Inspector General, Peace Corps, CIGIE Legislation 

Committee Executive Chair 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 15 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 17 

The Hon. Scott S. Dahl, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 23 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 25 

The Hon. John Roth, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 31 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 33 


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EMPOWERING THE INSPECTORS GENERAL 

Wednesday, February 1, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz [chairman of the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Duncan, Issa, Jordan, Sanford, Gosar, DesJarlais, Farenthold, Meadows, DeSantis, Ross, 

Blum, Hice, Grothman, Hurd, Palmer, Comer, Mitchell, Cummings, 

Maloney, Norton, Lynch, Connolly, Kelly, Lawrence, Watson Coleman, Plaskett, and Demings. 

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

I want to thank everybody for being here. This is, as we kick off 

the 115th Congress, we’re doing as we had done in the 114th Congress, and having our first major full committee hearing with our 

inspectors general. We cannot thank you enough for the great work 

that you do. In fact, we have a packed audience here. Indulge me 

here for a moment, while those that are testified to stay seated. 

But if you’re part of that inspector general community, either as 

staff or the inspector general, if you could please stand for a moment, I’d like to recognize those of you. Oh, very good. Thank you, 

thank you, thank you, on behalf of all of us that serve here. Thank 

you for your service and your interest. 

And we want you to know how deeply valued you are and the 

work that you do. One of my greater fears is that you do all this 

work, and that we’re not doing enough to make sure that we’re 

paying attention to it, and that we’re actually acting on it. 

You know, we’re not only the Oversight Committee, but we’re 

also the Government Reform Committee. So we want to be able to 

take that good work that you do, and translate it into action that 

actually helps solve the problems, so you’re not continuing to look 

at the same problem year, after year, after year. That should be 

such a flashing red light for this committee in everything that they 

do. 

The inspectors general are embedded into the Federal Government to protect taxpayers. And they are really the first line of defense against waste, fraud and abuse, nonpartisan, as patriots, to 

understand what’s happening in the bowels of this large bureaucracy. 


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In the fiscal year 2015, it’s estimated that the inspectors general saved roughly $37 billion annually with just the budget of $2.7 billion. That’s a pretty good rate of return, and a pretty good evidence 

that the money we spend in the inspector general community is 

certainly worth the effort. 

The—again, this is the first committee, but—the first hearing, 

and as I kind of get into it the details of some of this, I want to 

address something that did pop up in the news. There was a mistake that was made where a junior member of the transition team 

left a message. I’m not sure if it—I know it was on at least one 

person’s voicemail, I don’t know if it was on all of your voicemails, 

saying that you’re working on a temporary basis. That was later 

clarified by a more senior person that that was not the case. I 

think as Inspector General Horowitz will say, and I want to let you 

know, that I’ve spoken with the general counsel at the White 

House on this topic. I think it is safe to say that that was a mistake. They wish it hadn’t happened. It is not their approach. It’s 

not their intention. 

As I said to—mentioned in a committee hearing yesterday, I had 

an opportunity to visit with the President when he visited us in 

Philadelphia last week. It was a very brief conversation, but he 

thanked me for the work that we are doing in oversight. He said, 

Continue to go doing what you’re going to do. Even though I’m the 

President, you need to keep looking at the Federal Government, 

the bureaucracy. And that’s the impression, but that’s also literally 

what they have told me. When I spoke with Don McGahn, who is 

the White House General Counsel, he assured me that was not the 

case. And I’m glad that we got that clarified. We would all be concerned on both sides of the aisle if that was the approach that they 

were taking. And they shouldn’t have done that. It was a junior 

person. And you need to let me know if you’re seeing or hearing 

anything to the contrary, but I’ve been assured that that is not 

what they are doing. 

This was a mistake that also happened in the Obama administration in 2009, went to fire Mr. Walpin, then the IG for the Corporation of National and Community Service. That firing came 

without the President giving the legally required notice to Congress, and was the only IG firing by a President in the last 35 

years. Mr. Walpin later sued saying the firing was retaliation for 

an investigation he undertook. There’s—with each new administration, I’m sure there is a learning curve, and hopefully, they’ve 

learned that lesson. 

I also think it’s very important for the vacancies that are there 

that those are filled in a swift manner. Now, we’re not in total control of that here in the House. We get more frustrations coming out 

of the Senate. And you can understand the large amount of people 

that have to go through that confirmation process from the Supreme Court Justice to cabinet level to others that need to go 

through the Senate confirmation. I hope that that’s swift. I’m not 

in total control of that here in the House. 

Like I said, but I will do everything I can to encourage, and 

push, and say to the White House and to this administration it is 

in their best interest, their best interest, to have a vibrant inspector general community. People act best when they are having someVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:34 Aug 15, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26357.TXT APRIL

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one look over their shoulder and it protects us all. It protects the 

taxpayers; it protects the White House; Congress; it protects everybody. So we will take that approach as we do that. 

In the year 2014, 47 inspectors general sent a letter to this committee and to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee detailing significant access problems. For example, 

the Peace Corps inspector general, who is here with us, was being 

denied access to files related to sexual assault of Peace Corps volunteers and by the Peace Corps general counsel. Denying access to 

files is something I have fought, Chairman Issa fought before me, 

and we will continue to fight as a committee. 

In another instance, the chemical safety board told the EPA inspector general to not provide documents based on attorney-client 

privilege, a new creative way to suggest that they didn’t have to 

be open, transparent, or allowing you access to the information you 

need. 

In the last 2 years, we worked closely with Ranking Member 

Cummings to craft legislation to ensure the inspectors general can 

do their jobs. I want to thank Mr. Cummings personally for his 

steadfast support on these issues. I think we’ve worked well on 

them. The result of the cooperation was the IG Empowerment Act 

of 2016, which was signed into law in December. It took a lot of 

lifting to get there, but not nearly the amount of lifting that you 

do and the frustration you’ve been bumping up against for so long. 

The bill made clear that the inspectors general can only be denied documents based on explicit statutory prohibitions, not vague 

privileges or strained readings of other statutes. In addition, the 

Act streamlined investigation procedures, instituted new reporting 

requirements to improve transparency, and streamlined the investigation process to make IGs’ operations more efficient. We will 

continue to support the inspectors general in this new Congress as 

these issues may arise again. 

One issue carried over from last Congress that should be addressed, again, is the vacancies. As of 2015, the average duration 

of an IG vacancy—this is the average—during the past administration, was 613 days, far in excess of the previous administrations. 

That’s unacceptable, and we have got to work to speed that up. I 

hope the new administration makes it a priority to fill these vacancies and we will push them to do so. 

Finally, I’d like it hear from our witnesses on the process of 

criminal referrals by the inspectors general. Our IGs do great work 

conducting investigations, and many times, their work culminates 

in a referral to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution. 

There is little transparency regarding the volume, evaluation, or 

outcome of these referrals. Frustratingly, I have been peppering 

the Department of Justice to provide us such stats, but they are 

just simply—have stonewalled us for years during the Obama administration. 

The IG Empowerment Act attempts to increase the transparency 

by requiring reports to Congress on the referral data. If I know 

what is being referred directly to the Department of Justice, I, 

then, have a better fact pattern to push the Department of Justice 

to say, Why don’t you ever prosecute these people? It’s not good 

enough to say, well, just fire them, if you want a remedy, just fire 


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them. But the civil service reform, which we’re going to go through 

in this Congress, is so prohibitive on firing people, it is this vicious 

circle where the bad apples that are there causing the most harm 

often continue to sit in their seats, take income while harming the 

rest of the process, their fellow employees, the departments, the 

agencies, and ultimately, the taxpayers. So we would like to read 

more about the referral process and what can be done to better expose it and we will do our part to push the Department of Justice, 

or the local—whatever the appropriate law enforcement is to—actually prosecutors to actually push on this. 

I, again, want to thank you all for the great work that you do. 

You represent literally thousands of people who spend their lives 

doing this. We can’t thank you enough. I appreciate you all attending today and thank the witnesses in particular. 

So with that, I’ll now recognize the ranking member, Mr. 

Cummings. 

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

you for calling this hearing. 

Let me say to all of the inspectors general and the staff here 

today, I want to thank you. As the chairman was talking, I thought 

it would be appropriate that I share with you a question that has 

come to me over, and over, and over again. And the question is, is 

when some of these issues came up, people have asked me about 

the inspectors general, they say, do you trust the inspectors general? And I say, yes. But the other question they ask is, well, if the 

inspector generals were replaced, how would you feel about that? 

I said, first of all, the people who hold these positions are people 

who are independent. And if they felt that they could not be independent, they would not take the positions. 

And so, I would feel comfortable with our inspectors general. And 

I want to thank you, I echo the words of the chairman. We trust 

you. We believe in you. We thank you. We realize that so many of 

you could be doing so many other jobs, probably making a lot more 

money. But you are doing the job that feeds your souls. And so we 

thank you. 

You do an extraordinary job, and we in Congress rely on you for 

exactly these reasons. The title of today’s hearing is ‘‘Empowering 

the Inspectors General.’’ Our committee has acted in a bipartisan 

manner under both Democratic and Republican leadership to promote the critical work of IGs. For example, on December 16th, 

2016, President Obama signed into law the bipartisan Inspector 

General Empowerment Act of 2016. However, one thing that 

disempowers inspectors general is when they are threatened; 

threatened with retaliation for reporting waste, fraud and abuse, or 

even worse, threatened with termination. When that happens, it’s 

up to this committee to step in, investigate, and protect our IGs. 

Yesterday, I sent a letter, along with vice ranking member of this 

committee, Mr. Connolly, to the White House counsel, Don 

McGahn. I raise concerns about disturbing reports that Trump officials threaten to remove numerous, numerous inspectors general 

after the Inauguration. This all started on Friday, January 13. The 

Trump team officials assigned to various Federal agencies called to 

inform their respective IGs that their positions was only, and I 

quote, ‘‘temporary,’’ end of quote. 


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He also reportedly informed several IGs that they should begin 

looking for other employment. The inspectors general who were 

concerned about these calls—anonymous calls, immediately began 

contacting leaders of their organizing body, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. 

As we understand it, after urgent calls all over the weekend, 

some IGs were informed that higher level officials on the Trump 

team decided to reverse this misguided action. The IGs were told 

that these calls were erroneous. They were told they never should 

have been made. If this indeed occurred, that would be a small relief. 

But here is why I remain concerned: You know, a lot of people 

say, you know, we ought to cross that bridge when we get to it. 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re at the bridge. We have now obtained what we believe is the email that the Trump team sent out 

to their political officials assigned to the Federal agencies. This 

email was sent after normal business hours on the evening of Friday, January 13. It directed Trump staffers to make the calls, and 

I quote, ‘‘tonight,’’ end of quote. In all capital letters and later in 

bold. They were instructed to tell the IGs that they were staying 

over into the Trump administration only, and I quote, ‘‘on a temporary basis,’’ end of quote. 

The email also references vetting the IGs, but does not explain 

on what basis. This email demonstrates that these calls were not 

isolated incidents. These calls were not isolated incidents. This was 

a coordinated campaign to target inspectors general that someone 

in the Trump team planned, approved, organized and executed 

across multiple agencies. The problem is that we still do not know 

who. Whoever approved these calls had absolutely horrendous judgment, and should not be allowed anywhere near the reins of power. 

We also still do not know who ultimately reversed this terrible approach. And we still have no official communication confirming that 

this reversal, in fact, applies to all the IGs. 

So yesterday, we wrote to the White House counsel asking him 

these questions. Most importantly, we asked for official confirmation that President Trump has no plans, has no plans to fire any 

IGs now that he has been sworn in. 

I ask unanimous consent that our letter be made a part of the 

official record, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The letter, without objection, so ordered, 

but I would like to see the email, which you have not shared with 

us, I don’t believe. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We did share it. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You just gave it to me. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We shared it with you early this morning. 

I also ask the committee staff conduct a transcribed interview of 

the Trump official who sent this email so that we can investigate 

this matter. We have several of IGs here today so we can get their 

accounts of what happened. 

At the broadest level, we want to make sure that every single inspector general has been told, in no uncertain terms, that their jobs 

are safe. Unfortunately, these actions are a part of a troubling pattern of misguided and politically motivated attacks on government 

watchdogs, ethics experts, law enforcement officials, and career 


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government employees. And as I said before, they say we should 

cross the bridge when we get to, we’re at the bridge. 

In December, the Trump team sent a questionnaire to the Energy—and listen to this—in December, the Trump team sent a 

questionnaire to the Energy Department, requesting a list of all individuals who took part in international climate talks over the past 

5 years. We’re at the bridge. In January, White House Chief of 

Staff Reince Priebus, issued a veiled threat to the Director of the 

Office of Government Ethics that he, quote, ‘‘Ought to be careful,’’ 

end quote, in his criticism of President Trump’s refusal to divest 

himself of his corporate ownership interests. The Director told 

members of this committee, including the chairman, that this 

threat made him feel and his department feel—he said ‘‘it was 

chilling,’’ end of quote. 

Just last week, Trump administration officials violated multiple 

Federal laws by imposing gag orders on the communications of 

Federal employees, including, in some instances, communications 

with Congress. We’re at the bridge. 

Within the past few days, the White House press secretary stated the Trump administration’s official position that any State Department employees who disagree with the President’s decisions 

should leave the government rather than voice their dissent. We’re 

at the bridge. And on Monday, after the acting Attorney General 

concluded that the President’s executive order banning Muslims 

from entering the country may not be legal, the President fired her 

for saying so. 

What we are witnessing, ladies and gentlemen, simply is not normal. This is not normal, and we must never let it become normal. 

This is the United States of America. We have a Constitution. And 

we must be the guardians of that Constitution. 

And as I close, this has only been a few weeks. These actions 

cannot be tolerated by those of us who have, as our core mission, 

rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. And this should be something 

that concerns all of us. Federal employees fear what is happening 

and what may be next to come. We will rely on our inspectors general more now than ever. 

There was just an article in The Washington Post this morning, 

I think it was, that talked about the many employees who are now 

going to inspectors general, because they are afraid. And so, your 

jobs become very, very, very significant, even more significant than 

they’ve ever been, because people see you as the last line of defense. And I hope that all of my Republican and Democratic colleagues will join together in a bipartisan manner to support our inspectors general in their mission. 

And let me say this: I thank the chairman, because he has been 

one of the strongest folks on this committee to make it clear that 

we will protect whistleblowers, that we will protect Federal employees, that we will protect those who want to make our government the best that it can be. He has also been a strong advocate 

for marching forward to make sure all of us make this, our great 

Nation, a more perfect union. 

With that, I yield back. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman. Point of inquiry. I’m looking at the redacted version of this email, and some of the redactions we’d like 


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to know more about, such as who besides the author it was to be 

copied to, and, of course, who it was sent to. Is there an unredacted 

version of this, to your knowledge, or maybe to the minority leader’s? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We’ll work with their staff to figure that 

out. 

Mr. ISSA. I’d appreciate being able to see it in camera would be 

helpful as we try to correct this. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. All right. Let’s move on. We will hold the 

record open for 5 legislative days for any members who would like 

to submit a written statement. 

We will now recognize our panel of witnesses. We are pleased to 

welcome the Honorable Michael Horowitz, Chair of the Council of 

the Inspectors General on Integrity, Efficiency, and the Inspector 

General for the United States Department of Justice. We have 

worked closely with Mr. Horowitz through the years and enjoy his 

perspective, professionalism, and what he is does. We appreciate 

you being here, sir. 

The Honorable Kathy Buller, who is the executive chair of the 

Legislation Committee on the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, and the Inspector General at the Peace 

Corps. She has testified here as well. We appreciate you being 

here. 

The Honorable Scott Dahl, Inspector General of the United 

States Department of Labor. Thank you, sir, for being here, as well 

as the Honorable John Roth, the Inspector General of the United 

States Department of Homeland Security, who has also testified a 

number of teams before this committee. 

As you know, pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses are to 

be sworn before they testify. So if you will 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, so help you God? 

Thank you. 

Let the record reflect that all the witnesses answered in the affirmative. You know the drill. I don’t need to explain the rules. As 

Trey Gowdy likes to say, when you see the yellow button, speed up, 

that’s what we do when we get to a stoplight, that’s what you need 

to do here, too. We will give you great latitude. 

Mr. Horowitz, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL E. HOROWITZ 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

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

to testify today. The IG community sincerely appreciates this committee’s steadfast support over the years. And thank you, Mr. 

Chairman, Ranking Member Cummings, Congressman Meadows 

for your sponsorship of the landmark IG Empowerment Act, and 

for the committee’s unyielding work in making sure it got passed. 

Congress could not have spoken louder or clearer about its bipartisan support for giving IGs the tools we need to do our important 


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oversight work. IGs are the representatives of the taxpayers, making sure their money is being used efficiently and effectively, and 

that waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement are rooted out. The 

independence of IGs is the foundation of our work, allowing us to 

conduct nonpartisan objective oversight. That work in fiscal year 

2015, as the chairman noted, resulted in the IG community identifying approximately $26 billion in potential savings with which 

agency management agreed. And additionally, our criminal and 

civil cases identifying, or allowing agencies to receive or cover over 

$10 billion. Compared to the IG community’s aggregate budget of 

about $2.7 billion, the recoveries and potential savings represent 

about a $14 return on every dollar invested by the OIG—in the 

OIGs by the Congress. 

OIGs also issue recommendations to address fundamental issues 

of agency management identified in our audits and reviews. We appreciate the committee’s interest in these recommendations, and as 

you are aware, there are, indeed, thousands of open recommendations across the OIG community. We look forward to working with 

the new administration to address them. 

Let me briefly highlight some other key issues for the community. First, there are numerous IG vacancies, as the chairman 

noted, and it is critical that they be filled promptly.Nine of 36 

presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed IG positions are vacant. 

That’s 25 percent of those positions. And the agencies—and the vacancies are at some of our largest agencies. 

By law, IGs must be selected without regard to political affiliation, and based solely on the basis of their integrity and demonstrated ability in certain proficiencies. Under the IG Act, the 

Council of the IGs is responsible for recommending candidates with 

exemplary qualifications for these positions. 

We look forward to continuing to fulfill this role with the new administration, and hope it makes filling IG vacancies a priority. 

Second, we’re concerned about the potential impact of the hiring 

freeze. As careful stewards of taxpayer money, we fully appreciate 

and respect the importance of prudently allocating Federal resources. However, given our track record of returning to the Treasury far more money than we are budgeted, we believe careful consideration should be given before impacting our ability to root out 

waste, fraud, and abuse. 

OIGs were hit particularly hard during sequestration, and it had 

a significant impact on our work. We look forward to working with 

the incoming OMB Director on these issues. 

Finally, I want to discuss the importance of whistleblowers to our 

work. Whistleblowers perform an invaluable service when they 

come forward with evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement, and they never should suffer reprisal for doing so. They provide OIGs with critical information, and we want to make sure 

they are comfortable doing so. 

At the Council of IGs, we have created a whistleblower ombudsman working group to consider best practices to help us better address the wide range of issues related to whistleblowers. In my office, we’re dedicating ever increasing resources to handle our substantially increasing docket of whistleblower retaliation allegations 


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involving FBI employees, and employees of contractors and grant 

recipients. 

However, our ability to fulfill the additional responsibilities that 

recent legislation has placed on us and which we welcomed, requires sufficient staffing, otherwise, it would be difficult for us to 

maintain and continue our other oversight work as our whistleblower retaliation docket continues to grow. 

We look forward to working with the committee, with the incoming administration, the bipartisan House and Senate whistleblower 

caucuses, to address these whistleblower issues. 

Thank you, again, for the committee’s strong support and I’d be 

pleased to answer any questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Horowitz follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Ms. Buller, am I pronouncing it right? I want to make sure. I 

want to say Bueller, but that’s because I have watched that show 

so many times. You’re now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF HON. KATHY A. BULLER 

Ms. BULLER. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, 

and distinguished members of committee, thank you for inviting 

me to appear before you today to discuss the important work of 

IGs. As chair of the Legislation Committee for the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency, and as one of the IGs 

whose access was denied by the agency I oversee, my testimony underscores our appreciation for the bipartisan support we receive 

from this committee and from Congress. 

Two years ago, I testified before this committee about the struggles my office faced in obtaining the information we needed to do 

our job. The former general counsel of the Peace Corps erroneously 

interpreted a law in a way that effectively kept my office, Congress 

and the American public in the dark about critical information regarding care provided to Peace Corps volunteers who experience 

sexual assault. 

My office was not alone. Starting in 2010, other agencies began 

denying or delaying access to information, including the Departments of Justice, Commerce, and Treasury, as well as the Chemical 

Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. In 2015, DOJ’s Office of 

Legal Counsel issued a legal opinion that threatened the independence of all IGs, and challenged the access that is central to IG oversight. It was clear that congressional action was needed. 

Thanks in part to the bipartisan efforts of this committee and its 

staff, the passage of the Inspector General Empowerment Act restores what Congress intended, that IGs have the right to access 

all materials and documents necessary to oversee their agencies. 

At the Peace Corps, we have begun unwinding the damage 

caused by the access-denying policies. We are working with the 

agency to fully restore our access to the records we need to ensure 

that Peace Corps volunteers who have been sexually assaulted receive the care that they deserve. 

The IG Empowerment Act not only restores the IG community’s 

right of unfettered access, but also provided tools to ensure our 

independence and improve our oversight authority. In particular, 

exemptions from the Computer Matching Act and Paperwork Reduction Act will ensure IG independence, and will help us more effectively prevent and detect fraud and conduct timely surveys without being subject to the approval from our agencies we oversee. In 

short, your bipartisan support for IGs has empowered inspectors 

general across the Federal Government. 

In my role as chair of the CIGIE Legislation Committee, I liaise 

with Congress on legislative matters that affect the IG committee. 

One role of our committee is to provide assistance to Congress as 

it considers legislation to improve IGs’ ability to carry out the oversight mission that taxpayers and Congress expect. 

I want to briefly mention four priority items that the IG community has identified that would improve our ability to oversee the 

Federal Government: First, our community would like to work with 


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Congress to protect information that can be used to exploit 

cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Our reviews, including reviews requested by Congress, identify weaknesses in Federal IT systems. 

This information could be a roadmap for those who want to do 

harm. While classified and law enforcement information is protected from public disclosure, there is no single protection that covers all IT security vulnerability information. 

Second, the IG community recommends that IGs have the authority to compel testimony of those subject to our oversight. This 

authority was included in a bill that passed this committee and the 

House during the last Congress. Our work can be substantially 

hampered by the inability to compel the testimony of witnesses 

who have information that cannot be obtained by other means. 

While this authority was not included in the bill that became 

law, we are encouraged by this committee’s continued consideration 

and bipartisan support for testimony and subpoena authority for 

IGs. 

Third, removal of IG requires congressional notification at least 

30 days before removal, providing a crucial safeguard to protect our 

independence. This safeguard can be defeated if an IG is placed in 

a paid or unpaid non-duty status, effectively silencing IGs without 

notifying Congress. The IG community supports additional legislative protections to IG independence to ensure that such personnel 

actions involving an IG are not abused. 

Finally, legislative reforms have the potential to make the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act a significant tool to recover fraudulent expenditures for the benefit of the taxpayers. This act allows 

for recoveries in cases of small dollar fraud, or in cases DOJ does 

not accept for prosecution. If used to its full potential, the recoveries could be significant. 

To conclude, the IG community is grateful for the steadfast bipartisan support it has received from Congress and from this committee. We look forward to our future cooperation to ensure integrity and efficiency in the Federal Government. 

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Buller follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Mr. Dahl, you’re now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SCOTT S. DAHL 

Mr. DAHL. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, and members of the committee. Thank you 

for inviting me to testify today on the work of OIGs. 

Let me begin by highlighting a stark example of the value of our 

work and the importance of OIG access to the information we need. 

In 2015, two students were killed at different Department of Labor 

Job Corps centers, both allegedly by their fellow students. In one 

case, the student was shot and killed in his dorm room at the St. 

Louis Center. In the other case, the student was brutally killed 

next to the Florida homestead center, resulting in the need to 

transfer or relocate more than 350 students. These tragic cases, 

and other serious incidents, make clear why we have identified the 

safety and security at Job Corps centers as the top management 

challenge for the Department. Our auditors had previously analyzed Job Corps data that revealed some centers had failed to report and investigate serious misconduct, including assaults and 

drug abuse. 

Our current review has identified additional concerns such as 

problems with the centers interacting with law enforcement, inadequate camera monitoring and security staffing, and very limited 

use of employee background checks. 

Mr. Chairman, this is just one of many examples that show the 

significant impact from the work of OIG staff who demonstrate 

daily their dedication to the OIG mission of promoting efficiency 

and effectiveness in government programs, and of combating fraud, 

waste, and abuse. 

I also express our appreciation as Michael and Kathy have for 

the committee’s strong support of the efforts of all OIGs and for addressing the barriers that exist in our work. In that vein, we commend the committee’s bipartisan efforts towards the passage of the 

IG Empowerment Act. We are pleased that Congress has reaffirmed the authority of OIGs to have unfettered access to records. 

This access is essential to our work. 

Mr. Chairman, another example of the value of OIG oversight is 

in our work on the abuse and rising costs of compounding drug 

medications in the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, or FECA 

program. The cost of compounded drugs in FECA have skyrocketed 

from approximately $2 million in 2011 to nearly $240 million in 

2016, more than a hundredfold increase substantially surpassing 

the costs of all other drugs combined. 

Our current investigations in this area have focused on fraud 

schemes involving collusion between prescribing physicians and 

dispensing pharmacies. In one case alone, the OIG special agents 

have identified potential fraud that involves nearly $100 million. 

We are also conducting a review of the Department’s management 

of pharmaceuticals and all of its workers’ compensation programs, 

with a particular emphasis on compounded drugs as well as the 

use of opioids. 


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In addition, my office is collaborating with the IGs of other agencies who have faced similar problems with compounded drugs to 

identify potential fraud and how we can change the programs. Another area of significant concern is with the fraud in DOL’s foreign 

labor certification programs, in particular, the H–1B program that 

allows for nonimmigrant employment and foreign workers and specialized occupations. Our agents are investigating schemes involving employers filing fraudulent applications with DOL, like owners 

of a New York health care staffing company that pled guilty last 

year to fraudulently using the program to staff medical centers 

with foreign nurses. These fraud schemes often deprive U.S. workers of available work opportunities. 

We also partnered with DOJ and other law enforcement agencies 

to investigate labor trafficking as part of human trafficking. For example, our agents investigated a Texas employer who was convicted last year for underpaying foreign workers and housing them 

in dangerous conditions. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, timely access to the Department’s data 

systems is an area of significant concern for my office, especially 

for systems managed by contractors. We’ve encountered lengthy 

delays in gaining access to these data systems and the Department 

has incurred significant increased costs from outsourcing this data 

management. 

These challenges we have identified underscore the importance of 

the committee’s support for the work of the OIGs. We look forward 

to continuing our productive relationship with this committee and 

the Department and our shared goal of improving efficiency and effectiveness in the Department’s programs and operations. 

I request that my full statement be entered in the record. And 

I would be pleased to answer any questions that you or members 

of the committee may have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Dahl follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. All of your full statements, 

written statements will be entered into the record, of course. 

The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, 

Mr. Roth, you’re now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN ROTH 

Mr. ROTH. Thank you. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member 

Cummings and members of the committee, thank you for inviting 

me to testify about inspector general challenges and recent legislative changes enacted by the Inspector General Empowerment Act 

of 2016. 

No government agency, no matter how dysfunctional, will change 

of its own accord. During my tenure as inspector general for DHS, 

I witnessed three agencies, FEMA, TSA and the Secret Service that 

have had to confront the necessity of change in the manner in 

which they do business. It is a wrenching process that no agency 

would undergo voluntarily. Change in a bureaucracy happens as a 

result of three things: a dramatic, intervening event, followed by 

intense scrutiny of agency programs and operations, and a result 

in leadership commitment to change. 

Independent oversight by both the inspector general and Congress is critical and necessary ingredient to positive constructive 

change. For example, FEMA’s approach to disaster response 

changed only after Hurricane Katrina revealed the shortfalls in its 

operations; consistent IG and congressional scrutiny brought further analysis to the problem; and the administration and FEMA 

leadership committed to change the manner in which FEMA responded to these events. As we saw in the Superstorm Sandy response, FEMA has dramatically improved its response operation as 

a result. 

TSA was likely confronted with the need to change as a result 

of dramatic and troubling shortfalls discovered by our covert testing program, as well as other OIG reports about deficiencies in 

TSA’s judgment of risk in relation to expedited screening, vetting 

airport employees, and managing the access badge program. 

It was only through IG oversight, oversight by this and other 

committees, and TSA’s new leadership strongly embracing the message that TSA, at last, publicly acknowledged the need for change, 

and started the long road to becoming a more effective organization. 

Finally, as this committee well knows, the well-publicized protective failures by the Secret Service resulted in hearings and investigations by this committee, by my office, and by the independent 

protective mission panel. This oversight resulted in excruciating 

process for the examination and self-examination, which is, by no 

means, over, about the manner in which the Secret Service does 

business. As a result, the Secret Service has taken steps to fix 

some of the systemic issues that have plagued the agency over 

time. 

Oversight makes the government better and fosters positive 

change. The critical and skeptical review of programs and operations acts as the disinfectant of sunlight to ensure a more efficient 

government. It works in conjunction with the Inspector General’s 


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Act requirement that IGs keep Congress fully and currently informed of problems, abuses, and deficiencies within the Department. I thank the committee for its leadership in championing the 

IG Empowerment Act, it supported the inspector general community, and the cause of vigorous and independent oversight. 

I would also take a moment to thank my staff, who is creative, 

energetic, and I am proud to lead in this effort. My office will continue to conduct independent oversight over DHS’s programs and 

operations. Although significant progress has been made, the Department continues to face longstanding persistent challenges in 

overseeing and managing the homeland security mission. These 

challenges affect every aspect of the mission, from preventing terrorism and protecting our borders, transportation systems, to enforcing our immigration laws, ensuring disaster resiliency and securing cyberspace. 

The Department is continually tested to work this one entity to 

achieve its complex mission. The key to sustained games made 

thus far is a leadership commitment by the new administration 

and continued thoughtful but vigorous oversight by the Congress 

and my office. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I’m happy to answer 

any questions of you or other members of the committee. Thank 

you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Roth follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

Mr. Horowitz, let me start with you. The testimonial subpoena 

authority is something we helped to champion. Did that make it 

into the bill and why didn’t it make it in the bill? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It do not make it into the bill unfortunately, despite the tremendous efforts of yourself and the ranking member 

in pushing it. My understanding was the Department of Justice 

continued to object to the very end. And in order to get the bill 

passed through the Senate, it had to be removed. And we hope and 

look forward to working with you again, and we will not walk away 

from the fight easily. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And, at least personally, I am going to help 

champion this and we will make another run at it again, but I do 

believe the inspectors general need the ability to compel testimony. 

We had a frustrating case where somebody was being approached 

and then they just, like on a piece of paper, said, I hereby resign, 

and handed it to somebody. Just thought by leaving the employee— 

leaving the employment of the Federal Government, they could just 

simply walk away from all this disaster that they had caused. I do 

believe that the inspectors general need to have the ability to compel testimony, particularly for those investigations that you’re 

doing. 

Does anybody—any of the others wish to shed any light? Mr. 

Horowitz, if you can shed any light or any personal experiences 

within your purview that would illuminate this problem further? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I’ll just mention the two examples that are public 

in our reports, and that are of significant programs, are review of 

the FBI’s handling of 702, a high-ranking FBI official that refused 

to cooperate with us because he had retired, and it would have 

been an important interview to have in connection with our review 

of the President’s surveillance program. 

Back in 2005–2006 time period, the former attorney general and 

the former deputy AAG refused to speak with us because they also 

had left at that time. And there are—I could give you innumerable 

examples where we do our administrative work, and have similar 

situations that you’ve just referred to yourself, Mr. Chairman, 

which is resignations on the eve of testimony, and our inability 

then to get the evidence we need. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Ms. BULLER. From a Peace Corps perspective, our employees are 

all term limited, so after 5 years, they time out. And so if we want 

to speak with them after that period of time, they are no longer 

a government employee. It makes our job a lot more difficult. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Very good. 

I really do appreciate you bringing up the idea of whistleblowers. 

In fact, later this afternoon, we have a hearing specifically on whistleblowers, and they do need to have unimpeded access to communicate, not only with the inspectors general, but also Members of 

Congress, and we take that very, very seriously. 

I want to just, in the last minute and a half that I have here, 

one of things we’re deeply concerned about, we heard testimony 

throughout the last couple of years about sexual misconduct, sexual 

assault, the varying degrees of table of penalties. One of the more 


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stark examples I like to use was within the Department of Justice, 

because if you look at the Department—even within the Department of Justice, they have different tables of penalties, different 

definitions. I think that is a congressional challenge for this committee, and something we do plan to address. 

If you can illuminate or shed any light on challenges on things 

you’ve seen that you think we should address as we try to deal 

with this problem in making sure that we get rid of these bad apples. Does anybody have an example or something they can shed 

some light on? Go ahead, Mr. Horowitz. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. As the committee is obviously aware, from our review on the law enforcement components of the Justice Department, and as the chair mentioned, we found these wide-ranging different uses of the penalties. The terminology, we are about to go 

forward with a report about how the civil division handles these 

issues. It will again show a unique approach, different approach by 

another component of the Justice Department. I think one of the 

things that’s very important as sexual harassment becomes something that needs to be addressed forcefully and clearly is coordinated, high-level approaches. It can’t be decentralized within an 

agency. It can’t be left to 30-plus components in the Justice Department to decide what 30 different ways they are going to approach 

it. Because the memo comes from the leadership on zero tolerance. 

And so if leadership is the one putting out that policy, and is expecting to create the culture, they need to look at that and drive 

that throughout the organization equally. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. My time has expired. I now 

recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you all for being here. 

Mr. Dahl, you raised two issues that really caused me to pay 

super attention, when you raised the issue about the Job Corps. 

Without getting into, you know, any confidential information that 

you can’t disclose, at some point, I would really like to talk to you 

about that, because that is a serious problem. You may not know 

it, but I had a nephew who was brutally killed about 5 years ago, 

shot to death in Norfolk. I would just like to talk to you about the 

Job Corps, because I would like to know that young people that are 

going into the Job Corps are going to be safe. 

The other thing is the compounded drugs, 5 years now, Bernie 

Sanders and I and others had been working on the high price of 

drugs in the fraud schemes. I didn’t even know you all got into that 

kind of stuff. I would really like to follow up on that. 

Mr. Roth, we understand that the number of inspectors general 

received the phone calls from Trump officials on Friday, January 

13th, 2017. Some spoke directly with them, while others received 

voice mails, but the message was the same, the jobs were ‘‘temporary.’’ Mr. Roth, I understand that you received one of these 

phone calls. Can you tell us specifically who called you? Do you 

know? 

Mr. ROTH. Yes, I got a call from the head of DHS transition team 

about 7:15 that Friday night. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And can you tell us what that person said? 

Mr. ROTH. It’s along the lines of what it is that you summarized, 

which was that I would be allowed to stay through the change in 


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tran—administrations, but that that would be temporary in that he 

had assumed that I was already in the process of looking for another job. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Did the Trump official indicate they had any concerns about your performance? 

Mr. ROTH. No, they did not. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And how long is your current term supposed to 

go? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, I serve at the pleasure of the President, so I can 

be removed at any time by the President, with obviously 30 days’ 

notice to Congress. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so, were you surprised by the call? And 

what was your reaction? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, yes, I was surprised by the call given sort of the 

tradition that inspectors general aren’t removed from office typically or historically, so I immediately, of course, called Michael 

Horowitz and pulled him out of a hockey game on Friday night to 

report this information. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Was he playing or what? 

Mr. ROTH. It was a Capitals game so I certainly hope not. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Certainly not. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We have obtained a transcript from a voicemail 

left by a Trump official with another inspector general. The 

voicemail said, and I quote, ‘‘I’m calling on behalf of the Presidential transition team to inform you that you are being held over 

on a temporary basis to continue working in the capacity of the inspector general following the Inauguration,’’ end of quote. 

So that is also consistent, telling the IG that his position is only 

temporary. 

Mr. Horowitz, you are the head of the IG organizing body, 

CIGIE. Is that correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Can you please tell us about how you learned 

about these calls? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The first call I got was from Mr. Roth as I was 

sitting at the hockey game. Spoke to him from the game, then got 

word of two other IGs who had received similar, or had received 

calls that evening, I’m not sure when I knew exactly what they had 

heard. And we arranged a call for Saturday amongst several of us 

in the IG community, including the three IGs who got calls. Several 

additional individuals, Inspector General Buller, myself, vice chair 

of CIGIE, vice chair of the Leg committee to try to understand who 

got calls, who didn’t get calls, in part, because all three IGs reported that they were told that all IGs were going to be getting the 

call, but when we got on the call Saturday morning, more of us 

who were on the call had not gotten calls than had gotten calls. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I see. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. So we were trying to figure out what was going 

on here and different people—the three individuals who got the 

calls got very—got sort of core information, as well as some other 

information just from the dialogue back and forth. And so what we 

really tried to do that weekend, and it was a holiday weekend, it 

was the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, we set about trying 

to figure out how could we reach out to transition officials to underVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:34 Aug 15, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26357.TXT APRIL

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stand what was going on, given the calls three people got, the fact 

that the message was all IGs were going to get the call, but not 

all IGs general had gotten the call, at least at that point. And just 

trying to better understand where we were. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. How were the IGs feeling about these calls, if 

you know, what was the sense of concern? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think it is fair to say everybody was concerned 

if not knowing more as to what was the message here. Was this 

a message like Mr. Roth got about planning to move on? Was it 

some misunderstood—we just don’t know enough. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would you tell us—with the chair’s indulgence, 

would you tell us what happened over the next few days, and what 

did you do? What did others do? And how did you express this concern to the Trump team? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Certainly. To be clear, I learned a lot more Tuesday when we came back to work, because Tuesday morning was 

the monthly IG meeting, so all IGs got together 10 a.m. On Tuesday morning. I did not talk about what I do it over the weekend, 

until I got to Tuesday. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Uh-huh. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Until Monday, we learned of only the three calls. 

We reached out through the various context we each had on the 

call to people we thought who could try and connect us to other 

people to get to the Trump transition team. We didn’t have any 

clear lines into higher level Trump transition folks. We had contacts at our agency level transition team, but we were clearly looking to go beyond that. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Sitting here today, can you tell me how many 

IGs got the call or voicemail? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. By Tuesday morning, after the CIGIE meeting, 

I’m guessing—and I don’t have an exact number—I’m guessing it’s 

upwards of six to 10. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Can you survey that and get that information 

back to us, if you don’t mind? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Yeah. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And Mr. Horowitz, as I close, I understand that 

someone seemed to inform at least some of the IGs that a decision 

had been overruled by higher-level officials within the Trump team. 

Who informed you of that? And what were you told? And I’m just 

curious. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Yeah. So on Monday, I believe it was, we heard 

back from staff for this committee, majority staff for this committee 

that they had heard through their contacts with the transition 

team were their contacts, and the Senate Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs Committee contacts with the transition team 

that the call shouldn’t have been made; it was a lower-level decision that had not been vetted at a higher level. That there was no 

plan to remove all IGs, and that the IGs would be getting calls— 

the IGs that got calls would be getting calls to let them know those 

calls shouldn’t have been made. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you all have anything in writing saying that? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I don’t. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We’re going to try to see if we can get you something in writing. 


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Mr. HOROWITZ. If I could just add. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Please do. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. On Tuesday morning, that also on, I think Sunday or Monday, an IG had gotten a call from Mr. McGahn, who is 

now the White House counsel. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you know who that IG was? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The IG of the Federal Election Commission who 

knew Mr. McGahn, because he had been a member of the Commission at one point, providing her with the same message that we 

had heard, that I had heard on, I think it was Monday, from majority staff. I then got a call this past Friday from Mr. McGahn consistent with what he had told the IG at the FEC that he would be 

reaching out to me to essentially say the same thing to me that he 

had told her on that MLK holiday. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We’re going to try to get the IG something in 

writing, because I think it is very important that they have that 

document. When you come to people’s jobs and their families and 

their welfare, but more importantly, their morale and their security, I think it is important that they have a document saying that 

that is simply not the case, and we’ll work to make that happen. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence. I really appreciate it. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentleman from Texas, the new subcommittee chairman, Mr. Farenthold. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Chairman Chaffetz. 

And I want to shift to a little bit of dollars-and-cents questions 

here. Mr. Roth, I know that, in your statement, you draw attention 

to wastefulness in acquisition programs. It’s something we hear in 

Congress all the time, how government spends a whole lot more 

money than it should acquiring things and takes longer to deploy 

them and delivers less capability than promised. 

And, obviously, you can look within the Department of Homeland 

Security, the TSA, and their puffer machines, and warehouses full 

of equipment that either doesn’t work, doesn’t get deployed, or 

both. What all are y’all doing to reduce waste in acquisition? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, certainly, one of the things we’re doing is an increased emphasis on acquisition reform and acquisition auditing. 

So that’s one of the things that we really didn’t have a capability 

of, say, 3 years ago. And thanks to Congress appropriating additional funds for more FTEs, we’re able to actually focus on this 

issue more than we had before. So that’s one aspect of what we’re 

doing. 

The other aspect of what we are doing is to try to ensure legislation that will put guidelines in place for the Department of Homeland Security as to their major acquisitions, what they have to do, 

increased reporting, both to the IG as well as to Congress, to ensure that major acquisitions continue on track. 

But, really, our emphasis is on further auditing of these programs, including what we call life-cycle auditing, which is we don’t 

wait until all the money is spent and then we say, ‘‘Well, you just 

wasted $1 billion on an acquisition.’’ Rather, we go in sort of while 

the requirements, for example, are being developed and then later 

on during the course of the acquisition to ensure that it’s on track. 


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Mr. FARENTHOLD. You talk about billions of dollars. There has 

been 11 years and 1.5 billion spent on an IT system for the U.S. 

Citizenship and Immigration Services, and you’re still using a 

paper system there. And, actually, Homeland Security is one of the 

more tech-savvy agencies in the government. I mean, we see the 

same thing with a system—IT system in the VA. 

What’s the big stumbling block in the government to being able 

to use computers that every corporation and small business and 

middle school student are able to do? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, a couple things: One, the size and complexity of 

some of these projects are enormous. So when you’re talking about 

the immigration system, these are, you know, literally millions and 

millions of files. The tempo, the operational tempo of CIS is just 

enormous. And I’m certainly not apologizing for them or excusing 

what it is that they do, because they have a paper-based system 

that costs—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. You’ve got the airlines that do billions of 

transactions. You’ve got credit card companies that are able to do 

these transactions. You’ve got ExxonMobil, a global corporation 

that has a reasonable IT system, but the government can’t do it. 

Mr. ROTH. Right. Well, a couple things: One is that there was 

never a structure in place to do the acquisitions correctly. That was 

the first issue. Two, the expertise—that is, getting the personnel 

who actually understand these and have the ability to do the acquisition—I think, has been a challenge. And, thirdly, the acquisition 

process itself in the government is incredibly burdensome compared to, I think, private industry. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And I think we need to spend some time, Mr. 

Chairman, and will continue looking into how we reform that. 

And I want to give the other IGs here—I don’t think any of you 

guys’ agencies, with the exception of maybe Justice, has anywhere 

near the acquisition budget Homeland Security does. But are you 

seeing similar problems within acquisition of your department? I 

mean, we’ll just go down the line. We’ll start with you, Mr. Horowitz. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We are doing more and more contract audits, and 

we have nowhere near the contracting that DHS does, but we are 

seeing challenges at DOJ. We saw at the FBI when we looked at 

their efforts to move to a computer-based system for handling all 

their paperwork. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Peace Corps, Ms. Buller? 

Ms. BULLER. Peace Corps doesn’t have a large acquisition program, but the contracting function has always been a problem. It 

has been a management challenge for the past couple of years. The 

challenge at Peace Corps is more in line with the staff leaving 

every 2 to 3, 5 years. We have a 30-percent turnover rate in the 

Peace Corps per year. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And Mr. Dahl. 

Mr. DAHL. Similar to Mr. Horowitz, we’re finding problems with 

the contracting and the processes they’re using for contracting and 

the approaches they’re using. And we’ve issued an audit that we 

provided to this committee last year on using a time and materials 

contract long beyond its time and necessity. 


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Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. So, finally, I see I’m just about out 

of time. Mr. Horowitz, I would challenge you to work within your 

organization. What is most helpful to us in Congress are some concrete recommendations of what to fix, and I would like to put that 

on your whiteboard of things to do. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Absolutely, we will get you some. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. PALMER. [Presiding.] The chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from New York, Mrs. Maloney. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I’d like to thank all of the panelists and thank you for all 

of your hard work. And really to build on what Blake Farenthold 

was saying, you perform really valuable work in just the contracting area. It’s over $400 billion, the private contracts, and 

you’re overseeing this system and making sure that it works well. 

But, recently, the President came out with a hiring freeze, and 

there’s no time limit on it. So I’m just wondering how that is going 

to impact your ability to do your job, particularly when reports 

show that your job actually saves taxpayers money. 

The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency 

released a report to the President in 2015 that provided impressive 

cost savings that resulted from the work of IGs. For example, for 

every dollar invested in IGs, the report said the government has 

a potential saving of $14. That’s an incredible rate of return on investment. And I think that shows that freezing your departments, 

or freezing all of you, is really going to harm taxpayers. 

In 2015, the report explained that the Federal Government spent 

a total of approximately 2.7 billion on offices of IGs, which means 

that, from that investment, those offices saved our Federal Government approximately 35 billion. 

Mr. Buller, these are impressive numbers, correct? 

Or, anybody, do you want to comment on how the IGs have saved 

money for the taxpayers in the compounds that you have? And, 

also, what’s it going to be like to have this hiring freeze? I mean, 

do we have vacant IG posts now that are not filled? How many are 

not filled? Does anyone know? And what is the impact of this hiring freeze? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Just on the vacancies, there are nine vacancies 

of the 36, so 25 percent of the Presidentially appointed IG positions 

are vacant. There are two agency-level IG positions vacant, two 

agency-appointed IG positions that are vacant. And then the Architect of the Capitol position, which is a congressional position, is vacant. So there are 12 total vacancies right now in the IG community. 

In terms of the hiring freeze, it is a concern of ours. We were hit 

very hard during sequestration. It did impact our ability to do our 

work. We were pleased yesterday to see the guidance issued by 

OMB and OPM on the hiring freeze in the sense of acknowledging 

that IGs are agency heads for purposes of evaluating the exemptions, but that doesn’t solve the problem entirely, obviously. 

And so we’re looking forward to working with the incoming OMB 

Director, the incoming head of OPM, and figure—Congress as we 

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mately what will happen if we are reducing and cutting staff and 

limiting our ability to do our audits is the waste, fraud, and abuse 

that we root out regularly will be impacted. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Is there any place where all of the waste, fraud, 

and abuse is put together in one report of what the IGs have meant 

to the taxpayer? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We do an annual report to the President of the 

United States and post it publicly. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I’d like to see that annual report. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We will send it to you. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And I’d like to really suggest to my colleagues 

that we might look at some type of two-tiered approach in the hiring freeze; that, if it’s an agency that is making the government 

more efficient saving taxpayers’ dollars, as IGs do, then it should 

have an urgency of being filled and not left vacant. 

You mentioned Presidential IGs. What’s the difference between 

a Presidential-appointed IG and another IG? I thought all IGs were 

treated the same. They’re not? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. They’re the same under the statute in terms of 

protections. The difference is the 36 of the 73 IGs are nominated 

by the President and have to be confirmed by the Senate; 37 of the 

73 IGs are appointed by their agency heads. They don’t go through 

Senate confirmation. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. Is it tied to the agency? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It’s tied to the agency. 

Mrs. MALONEY. It’s tied to the agency. I’d like to see a list of 

which—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We can do that. 

Mrs. MALONEY. —for the committee. I think the committee would 

like to see which are Presidential and which are not. 

My time has expired, and I thank you very much for the work 

that you do for our country. I love the Peace Corps. Okay. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome. 

Mr. Horowitz, I know that you’ve opened up an investigation into 

the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email case. As part of that, are 

you going to look into aspects of the case such as why a grand jury 

was never impaneled? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have announced the initiation. And one thing 

I do want to make clear, as we tried to make clear in our announcement, it is not—it covers not only what the FBI did but 

what the Department did as well. And so—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. So some of the concerns that have had— 

and I know there have been concerns on all sides—why a grand 

jury was never impaneled, the unusual immunity agreements that 

were generated allowing some of the subjects of the investigation 

to actually appear for—as lawyers for Secretary Clinton, the Loretta Lynch-Bill Clinton infamous airport meeting, and why the Attorney General didn’t recuse herself—so all that could potentially be 

looked at? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. That was the purpose of trying to—— 


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Mr. DESANTIS. Because I think it was reported that you were 

only trying to look at the FBI. And so I’m comforted by that because I think they’re legitimate questions on all sides, but if you’re 

only going to focus on one thing when there were other questions— 

so that’s good. 

Mr. Roth, you’ve been very upfront about trying to root out some 

of the bribery and corruption involved in the agency, particularly 

with regards to immigration and border security. There was a big 

New York Times article that came out, I think, just at the end of 

last year. That’s going to be a focus of the administration with securing the southern border. 

So what is going on right now? Is there any update? Is this still 

a persistent problem? I know it has been a priority of yours. Is 

there anything we can do to try to address it? Because we spend 

all this time on trying to get the policy right, but if there’s problems with implementation and then there’s incentives for corruption, then that obviously is going to undermine everything we’re 

doing. 

Mr. ROTH. Right. I mean, this is definitely a high-risk area. Anytime that you have a Southwest border where you have, you know, 

the Mexican cartels with the kinds of resources and the kind of creativity that they have, certainly the sort of frontline defense is always going to be vulnerable. So there always has to be watchfulness, both by the agency itself, CBP, as well as Border Patrol and 

ICE, but also by us to oversee some of the overseers. 

We are, candidly, challenged by resources. We have 1 agent for 

every 2,000 employees and contractors, so it is an enormous challenge to be able to tackle this. I think—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. So more resources to your office could potentially 

save the taxpayer a greater amount of resources on the back end 

if they’re being employed successfully? 

Mr. ROTH. These individuals have keys to the kingdom. I mean 

literal keys to the gates that are on the Southwest border, so absolutely. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, we want to work with you on that because 

this is important. I want the border secured. But I don’t want to 

get into a situation where we’re putting a lot of effort in and then 

we’re being undermined. 

Mr. Dahl, you note in your testimony that the unemployment insurance program was the seventh highest amount of improper payments among all Federal—I think it was 3.5 billion, correct? Do 

you have any idea what the total number of improper payments for 

Federal Government-wide was for 2015? 

Mr. DAHL. For 2016, it was 144 billion, I believe, spread 

across—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. I think that’s right. My number, I have the 2015 

number: 136.7 billion. And then I think, since 2004, the cumulative 

amount of improper payments has been over $1 trillion. Does that 

sound accurate to you? 

Mr. DAHL. That’s correct. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So what tools can Congress provide that could aid 

in preventing some of these improper payments, because we talk 

about different waste in the government? There is a lot of waste. 

But these improper payments, I mean, that’s real, real significant 


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money. And we kind of do oversight over it, but I would like to get 

to a point where we’re doing something so that it doesn’t happen 

to begin with. So do you have any recommendations for us? 

Mr. DAHL. Certainly. I think one of the tools that we needed you 

provided us in the IG Empowerment Act, and that is relief from 

the Computer Matching Act that allows us now to take data in one 

agency and match it against data in another agency to provide investigative leads or even program integrity leads to the Department. And I think that’s going to help us a lot—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Have you seen results yet? 

Mr. DAHL. Well, we just got the authority, and so we’re exploring 

avenues to do that in my agency, and I know others are doing it 

as well. And I think that that will assist us. 

This is—you know, even for our unemployment insurance, improper payments, the level of improper payments has remained the 

same for years and even after we’ve done audits and multiple investigations. And I think sometimes the program fixes are what’s 

necessary, and some of the vulnerabilities in the programs need to 

be patched. And we’ve made recommendations to the Department 

to fix those, and I think with help from Congress in—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Do those require legislation, or can they be done 

by the agencies? 

Mr. DAHL. Both. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. Well, keep us posted. I’m getting out of 

time. But keep us posted on the implementation. We want to make 

sure that’s working. And then if the agency is not taking the action, if there’s things we can do here, I know the committee would 

be interested in helping you guys out. Thank you. 

Mr. DAHL. Thanks. 

Mr. PALMER. Before I go to the next member, I want to recognize 

myself for a followup on that in regard to the improper payments. 

Having looked into that—I think it was in 2015 where we had the 

$130-something billion in improper payments—60 billion of that 

were improper payments to hospitals related to Medicare. Are you 

looking into that? Is that something the IG’s Office is looking into? 

Mr. DAHL. Yeah. The IG’s Office from Health and Human Services, that is a primary mission that they have, and they are working on that. Dan Levinson, the IG, just spoke about that recently 

and the efforts that he’s making to beat down those numbers. And 

that is the primary driver for the improper payments, and yes. 

Mr. PALMER. There’s another 17 billion of improper payments related to Medicaid, which would involve the States as well. Are you 

looking into that? 

Mr. DAHL. And he is—his office is looking into that and spending 

a considerable amount of time on that issue. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, I want to thank you for your willingness to testify 

this morning, and thank you for all the work that you do and the 

people behind you, the work that they do. 

We have obtained what we believe is an email from the Trump 

team to their political officials ordering them to make a round of 

calls to their assigned agencies telling the IGs that their jobs are 


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only temporary. That’s up on the board. I don’t know if we could 

blow that up a little bit, but I’ll read it anyway for those who can’t 

read it off the screen. 

The email was sent on January 13, 2017, at 6:36 p.m. It is from 

someone on the Presidential transition team, and it is to the transition, quote, ‘‘team leads.’’ Mr. Horowitz, do you got any idea who 

the team leads are? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I am presuming it’s the agency teams, given what 

I understood happened over the weekend, but I’m—obviously don’t 

have any further insights. 

Mr. LYNCH. So the people that the transition team assigned to 

each department, each agency? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That would be my guess. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. The subject line also quotes ‘‘TONIGHT’’ in 

capital letters. I don’t know if that’s blocked out. It might be redacted, huh. Oh, no, no, no, it’s up there, on subject line, ‘‘TONIGHT,’’ in capital letters. 

And then it says this, and I’m going to quote from it, quote: 

‘‘Thank you for getting us the IG information earlier today so that 

we could vet. As a critical followup to that, could you please reach 

out tonight and inform’’—and ‘‘tonight’’ again is in bold—‘‘and inform the IGs in your respective agencies that they are being held 

over on a temporary basis. Please leave a message if you don’t 

reach them.’’ 

Has anybody else seen this email before? Anybody? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I did see it sometime during that following week. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Mr. Roth, you say—— 

Mr. ROTH. After the fact, yes. 

Mr. DAHL. I did as well, after the fact. 

Ms. BULLER. I didn’t see it. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. All right. 

Mr. Horowitz, if this email is accurate, it indicates that there 

was a coordinated campaign to call multiple IGs. And from your 

previous testimony, this was not some junior rogue employee working out of a sub office. This is really very methodical that 6 to 10 

IGs got the call, that this thing went out, and then there’s another 

process in retraction. Do you agree? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I know what, you know, it says here and what— 

the calls that went out and then got—— 

Mr. LYNCH. Do you have any idea what the urgency was? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I have no idea. I was not one, by the way, who 

got a call, just—— 

Mr. LYNCH. Yeah. 

Well, Mr. Roth, do you have any idea what the urgency was? 

Mr. ROTH. I do not. I asked the team lead for DHS why this was 

happening, and he said he was simply passing on a message that 

he had gotten from his higher-ups. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. The email mentions vetting the IGs. Any idea 

what that would require? I mean, under the IG statute, you’re required to, you know, have certain skills: accounting, you know, 

legal background. Any idea what the vetting might require? 

Mr. DAHL. No idea. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Look, let me just get back to what Mr. 

Cummings talked about earlier. We’ve had a pattern of conduct 


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here on the part of the new administration. First, they try to eliminate the ethics office. They put a gag order on Federal employees. 

They put a hiring freeze on employees. Energy Department personnel, they want to do an inquisition on anybody who uses science 

in the conduct of their business. And this ban on all Muslims—now 

it has been backed off to a few countries. But even, you know, U.S. 

citizens who are Muslims and people who are here legally also fell 

under that. And then, after the fact, they go back. 

But the problem is that it has this chilling effect. And I know 

that each of you—and, look, you’ve all been up here before. You’re 

frequent flyers to this committee. We’ve seen your work. You do a 

great job. You know, when Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton set up 

this government, they put in checks and balances so that one person couldn’t screw it all up, and we’re going to test that system 

that they created over the next 4 years. 

We need you—look, you each—and a lot of people in the audience 

today, you each took an oath of office. You took an oath. You took 

an oath to uphold the Constitution. We need you to do your jobs. 

We need you to do your jobs, not just when it’s easy, but when 

you’ve got somebody pushing against you that might want something else. So we just ask you: Do your jobs. Do your jobs. Uphold 

the Constitution, and we’ll get through this. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair recognizes the gentleman from California, 

Mr. Issa, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Horowitz, good to see you again. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Good to see you. 

Mr. ISSA. I never had any doubt you’d be held over. 

Let me go through this. 

And, first, I want to say that I’m concerned that the transition 

team, now defunct, certainly could’ve done a better job in informing 

people who are—technically serve at the pleasure of the President 

that they were, in fact, going to be retained. And there’s plenty of 

examples of people who got almost to the Inauguration Day and 

kept saying, ‘‘Do I leave or do I stay?’’ And many of them are people that wanted to stay and the administration wanted to keep. 

But I want to be very, very crucial in getting to the bottom of 

this because it has been alleged that this was done to have some 

sort of a chilling effect. So I just want to go through a couple of 

questions to the extent that you know, and anyone else can pipe 

in if they have better knowledge. 

I’ve Google’d this individual, appears to be a very junior person, 

with nothing—nothing to show anything other than LinkedIn and 

Facebook, so I can’t find that this is a high-ranking person. Do you 

have any opinion about whether this was somebody who was to 

have a major position of authority, or it’s just someone sending 

this? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. To be honest, I have no idea who the person is 

or what their role was. 

Mr. ISSA. Right. And I only know what Google tells me in this 

case, so it appears as though this is somebody, quite frankly, who 

was put on the transition team like hundreds of other people. 


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The date on this is January 13, 2017. So is it fair to say that this 

person had no authority at that time because no one on the transition team had authority until January 20 legally? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Yeah. Again, part of the issue we had on that 

Friday night and Saturday and over the weekend was trying to figure out what this was and who it was from because, clearly, there 

were people giving the message, as you said, ‘‘You’re staying or 

you’re going.’’ 

Mr. ISSA. Right. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. And we didn’t know what this message was. 

Mr. ISSA. Were there any IGs terminated on January 20? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. No. 

Mr. ISSA. So 100 percent of the IG in place, both permanent and 

acting, were retained. Is that right? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We’re still here. 

Mr. ISSA. And that’s all tradition, basically. It’s not common for 

mass dismissals or even minor dismissals in the IG community historically, right? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Right, it hasn’t happened in the last four transitions. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. So, from an action standpoint, it was business 

as usual, but technically, there was a question of would you or 

wouldn’t you be held over. Is that correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, because of these calls, I, again, was not one 

to get them, so I’ll defer to others on that issue. 

Mr. ISSA. Right. Did all of you receive confirmation other than 

this that you would be retained? No. So how did you come to work 

the next day on January 21? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We just showed up. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, the Monday. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Right. 

Mr. ISSA. You just showed up, okay. 

You know, again, I want to say that we’re not going to let this 

sit here. I do want to know. Unfortunately, the one challenge I 

think we have is the transition team is now defunct, and we’re 

really looking toward the future. And to that future, have any of 

you begun working with new political appointees yet to try to listen 

whether they are going to support the continued work of the IG 

and perhaps even greater? 

Mr. Roth. 

Mr. ROTH. Yeah. 

Mr. ISSA. You have a boss, so how’s it going? 

Mr. ROTH. I do have a boss, and, in fact, I met with Secretary 

Kelly on that Thursday of that first week. And he announced his, 

you know, firm support of the IG concept and me personally, so—— 

Mr. ISSA. When he was at Central Command and so on, or 

Southern Command, he had a long history of using his IGs. 

Mr. ROTH. He appreciates the value that we add. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We obviously don’t have a new Attorney General. 

Mr. ISSA. You’re so close. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We do have some new leadership positions in the 

Office of Attorney General, Office of Deputy Attorney General, and 

I did meet with them last Friday and engaged with them on some 


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of the issues that were pending and some of the matters they were 

likely to be seeing soon from us. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. And just for the record and I think not just for 

you but for all of your colleagues, certainly, I would hope that every 

IG would feel very free to contact any member of this committee, 

including obviously the chairman, should there be anything that 

would resemble interference or inability to do the job. 

I have one final closing question. Since the implementation of the 

act of last year is fairly new, do any of you have current examples 

where you’re still not getting information covered by the ‘‘you get 

everything except’’ and the exceptions are supposed to be virtually 

zero? 

And I know—Mr. Horowitz—I want all of your answers—but I 

know you have had a history of being blocked particularly as to attorneys at the Department of Justice. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have had no issues whatsoever, and there has 

been a significant change in approach. 

Mr. ISSA. Excellent. Glad to hear it. 

Anyone else? 

Ms. BULLER. At Peace Corps, before the former Director left, she 

put out a joint communication with me basically saying that we 

have access to everything now, including—— 

Mr. ISSA. Especially the assaults and harassments and the actual 

rapes and so on that historically were a problem for you? 

Ms. BULLER. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Dahl. 

Mr. DAHL. We’ve made significant progress in overcoming some 

of the delays that we were experiencing in getting access to 

records. 

Mr. ISSA. Excellent. Well, the committee has done good work. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I yield back. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our 

panel. 

My friend from California wants to minimize what just occurred, 

and I understand that from his point of view. But there’s nothing 

trivial about getting six or seven phone calls to individual inspectors general—including yourself, Mr. Roth—from a transition team 

on the eve of the inauguration all but warning you you’re going to 

be replaced or could be. And then we saw the redacted document, 

and I’d love to have some Republican support in making sure that 

those redactions are removed and we get the actual full document, 

but—— 

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentleman—the chairman—or the ranking 

member indicated he would make it available to us. He has that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Good. 

Mr. Horowitz, you’re the head of CIGIE. I assume you took that 

seriously, and you saw the gravity of the issue. There was nothing 

minimal or trivial about these communications to your colleagues. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Absolutely took it very seriously. That’s why we 

worked all weekend—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. 


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Mr. HOROWITZ. —on the holiday weekend making calls. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And I assume the source of your alarm wasn’t 

just the personal careers of your colleagues, though that’s of concern, but the overall impact of those communications in terms of 

the potential for politicization of the IG Office itself. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think it’s fair to say that all of us, including 

those who got the calls, were concerned not just about their own 

positions but about the institution itself. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. And so you saw a potential threat. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And although the President has the power, because half of your colleagues serve at-will, in a sense—they serve 

at the pleasure of the President and subject to Senate confirmation—I will read to you the author of the Inspector General Act of 

1978, a former colleague, Representative L.H. Fountain. And he 

said: ‘‘It was never intended, however, that the inspectors general 

be automatically replaced on a wholesale basis without regard to 

their individual merits whenever there is a change in administration,’’ unquote. 

Now, I know originalists don’t want to pay any attention to legislative history, but the rest of us mere mortals, especially those of 

us who write the laws up here, actually do pay attention to the intent behind legislation and the words accompanying the introduction or passage of legislation, especially by the author of the legislation. 

Would you agree with that sentiment? Is that your understanding, Mr. Horowitz, that it was never intended to have a 

wholesale replacement even though the power technically certainly 

is there with the President? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I would and would note that the only time that 

had occurred, which was in 1981—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Ronald Reagan. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. —President Reagan removed and then un-removed several IGs, this committee, or the Committee on Government Operations it was then called, issued a unanimous report 

stating—for almost precisely the words that you’ve just quoted, 

Congressman. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. So there’s actually history here, 

going back to 36 years, in terms of trying to make sure we’re not 

politicizing or wholesale removing and replacing inspectors general 

because of the concern about perception and about independence of 

office. Is that correct, Mr. Horowitz? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I didn’t mean to stop you. I think you were going 

to say something. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. No. I just note what is important to us on this 

issue is the bipartisan unanimous support for IG independents—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yep. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. —and that principle. Because everybody, I think, 

who knows the work we do understands that’s the foundation on 

our work. If we don’t have—if we’re not independent, we cannot do 

what we’re—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. That’s right. 

Speaking of which, as the head of CIGIE, a terrible acronym—— 


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Mr. HOROWITZ. I use Council of IGs to try and get away from it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Only the Federal Government could come up 

with something like that, CIGIE. I go to a CIGIE meeting. We had 

a cocktail hour at CIGIE. I mean, anyway. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. No, no, no, we don’t do that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, no, I know you don’t. I thought I’d give you 

the opportunity so you could deny that. 

So one of the concerns I have, as you know, Mr. Horowitz, is 

that, exactly this: IGs have to be above partisanship, have to be 

perceived as independent and objective, cannot be tainted with 

anything. And when there is a concern it goes, unfortunately, from 

my point of view, there’s very little accountability for anyone other 

than, I suppose, an agency head or the President with respect to 

IGs. 

And I wonder if you could just comment on, what are we doing 

to try to make the process when there is a concern or complaint 

filed, the process more transparent, more thorough, more robust, 

and people are held accountable? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. So, on that point, and I know we’ve had discussions in the past about the integrity committee and its operations 

and working on that, many of the changes that are in the IG Empowerment Act address those issues and the concerns that this 

committee had, other members have, and we are actually right now 

in the process of trying to make those changes. 

And I’ll just mention, one of the issues that have come up, in 

order for some of the responsibilities to be transferred from the 

FBI, which had been the chair, to the CIGIE and the IG on the 

committee, which is now the chair, is we need to get certain regulations cleared so that we can create Privacy Act notices and all the 

things that we have to do. And we’re trying to understand how the 

regulatory freeze will impact our ability to do that. 

So we’re trying to move forward in that regard and look forward 

to having further discussions with you about these issues. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from North 

Carolina, Mr. Meadows, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank each of you for your work. 

And to the at-large IG community, thank you so much for the 

work that you do. I can tell you that, from my side of the aisle, I 

am going to be vigilant in making sure that your work continues 

on regardless of who is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We have 

your back. We believe in your independence, and anything that is 

out there to the contrary will be fought vigorously in a bipartisan 

way. And I know that my good friend from Virginia and I both 

agree on this particular aspect. 

That being said, I want to make sure that it is clear that, to my 

knowledge, we have had no request to replace any IG, that there 

is a 30-day notice that has to be given to Congress, and there are 

zero IGs that have been noticed to Congress. Do you understand 

that, Mr. Horowitz? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do. And I also appreciated the call I got from 

Mr. McGahn on Friday making that point to me personally. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I’m—at the very highest levels of this administration, I have had a very comforting assurance that the work that the 


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IGs do and have done—is not to say that the work that you’ve 

done, whether it’s reports—I’m one of those guys that will stay up 

late and read your reports and read the footnotes. 

And Mr. Roth and I have talked a couple of times on some of the 

reports that he and his team have done. And so let’s not discount 

the work that we’ve done in the past, assuming that the recommendations have been there, just because it’s a new administration. I think it’s important that we still follow up on those things. 

And so here would be my request of each one of you: As we look 

at the IP—the IG Empowerment Act, what I would like is, what 

are the two things that are creating barriers for its full implementation as—and I know we’re very early in the process. But what 

are the two barriers that you’re seeing either technically or legislatively or administratively in terms of actually implementing that? 

And then, as we start to get that, you know, anything that has 

a good intention also has components that perhaps are a byproduct 

that were not intended. Two areas that perhaps would be in a followup bill that could maybe either clarify or make life a little easier. Are all of you willing to get with the committee on that? All 

right. 

So if I were to classify the anxiety level for some in the IG community, would you classify it as—on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 

being most anxious, would you say that it’s greater than 5? Mr. 

Horowitz. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think it’s fair to say, now having been the chair 

of the council for a couple years, I think we’re always anxious as 

a group. It’s a group that has 73 very different opinions on everything, and I think you get 73 people coming up with different numbers. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. What can Members of Congress do in 

a bipartisan way to assure the IG community that not only we 

value their work but that we certainly do not want anything to 

stand in the way of you doing your work? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think the key part is a hearing like today for 

us, coming here and hearing bipartisan support for our work, the 

efforts to reach out to the incoming administration, including individual agency heads, to make sure they understand, so not just this 

committee but the other authorizing and oversight committees 

doing the same with each agency, making them clear. 

I think you have my assurance, and I think all of our assurances 

by coming here, that we stand united in fighting for the underlying 

principle of independence in this act. And we didn’t spend years— 

certainly Kathy and I,—fighting our agencies on access issues, the 

FBI and DEA, testifying probably 15-plus times, taking on those 

agencies because they weren’t giving us access, to sort of hide and 

not come forward if there’s efforts to push back. So we’ll continue 

to let you know if we can’t do our work. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So, real quickly, a yes or no answer, do I have 

your commitment to keep politics out of any analysis that you or 

your group does? And I’m going to go down the—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Absolutely. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Ms. Buller. 

Ms. BULLER. Absolutely. 

Mr. DAHL. Yes. 


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Mr. ROTH. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you. 

The chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from New Jersey, 

Mrs. Watson Coleman. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you very much, and good morning to you. And I am sorry that I missed the beginning of the testimony, but I am delighted to see you here. And I want you to know 

that we support the work that you need to do, the resources that 

you need to do it, and the independence that you need to do it. 

I have a couple of questions. I’d like to actually speak to Mr. 

Horowitz for a moment. Mr. Horowitz, on November the 4th, Ranking Member Cummings and House Judiciary Committee Ranking 

Member Conyers sent you a letter after one of President Trump’s 

closest and most vocal campaign advisers, Rudy Giuliani, acknowledged that he had obtained leaked information several days before 

FBI Director Comey’s now infamous letter to Congress about discovering potentially relevant emails. 

Two days before Director Comey’s letter, Mr. Giuliani stated, and 

I quote: ‘‘We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should 

turn this around.’’ He also stated that, and I quote, ‘‘a pretty big 

surprise’’ was coming in 2 days, previewing when Director Comey 

sent his letter to Congress. 

During a followup interview, Mr. Giuliani confirmed this information and openly bragged about it. He stated, and I quote: ‘‘Did 

I hear about it? You darn right I heard about it.’’ 

I understand that you can’t speak to the specifics of your ongoing 

work at this point, but I want to ask some basic questions about 

the review’s parameters. A, there is a review taking place, I guess? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. We announced it on January 12. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Can you confirm that this review includes the allegations that 

the Department of Justice or the FBI personnel provided information directly or indirectly to outside sources? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Our announcement did say that we would look at 

the allegations that FBI employees and department employees improperly disclosed nonpublic information, and we will further define the scope of that as we now go forward and look at the issues. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Horowitz. 

Now, Mr. Giuliani has subsequently said he did not get any information directly from active agents. But, obviously, as a general 

matter, if active agents give information to someone who shouldn’t 

have it and those people then transfer it, that’s just as bad. If you 

learn that information about the FBI’s investigation was leaked to 

former FBI agents who then potentially funneled it to others, I assume that you would need to speak with those former FBI agents 

as well. 

So my question to you is, do you have the authority to interview 

individuals outside the government if you deem that to be necessary? And can you assure us that the review of these allegations 

in particular will be thorough and follow the facts wherever they 

lead? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. On the latter, I can certainly assure you it will 

be a thorough and fulsome review. On the former, we do not have 


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the authority to compel individuals who are no longer Justice Department employees to speak with us. We had hoped to have that 

authority. The IG Empowerment Act, that the chair, the ranking 

member, this committee supported, had that authority. It got removed at the last minute, over the objections of the Justice Department, on the Senate side, and the final version did not include 

that. We do hope to get that authority, but at this point, we do not 

have that authority. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So then would you take the information 

that you have and the need that you would have to interview individuals no longer with government to some other element in the 

Justice Department and ask that it be pursued there, or is there 

no other avenue? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The only avenue for us is to make a voluntary 

request, and if individuals are willing to speak with us, we will 

have that opportunity; if individuals are unwilling to speak with 

us, there is no further way for us to compel them to speak with 

us—— 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. — even if they have the most relevant information possible. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Shortly after your announcement, Director Comey stated that he 

was grateful for the review and that the FBI will cooperate fully. 

Inspector Horowitz, will you let this committee know immediately 

if the FBI’s cooperation is anything other than full and complete? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Absolutely. And to date, we have gotten very 

strong cooperation. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair thanks the gentlewoman. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Ross. 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you, Chairman. 

And I want to thank the panel, as my colleagues on both sides 

of the aisle have, and recognize you for your dedication, the dignity 

and objectivity of your work, and hope that we can continue to be 

very supportive of you. 

Mr. Horowitz, to follow up on what my colleague Mrs. Watson 

Coleman was talking about, with regard to your investigative powers, oversight is so important. But holding oversight accountable is 

also so important that due process is necessary. And I think what 

you’re speaking of is the deposition or testimony subpoena—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Right. 

Mr. ROSS. —power that you do not have. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Right. 

Mr. ROSS. So, when you present a case to the DOJ and they say, 

‘‘Well, there’s just insufficient evidence to go before grand jury,’’ or, 

‘‘We don’t think a criminal act has been committed,’’ and yet you 

know or you feel confident that it may have but you’ve been shorted, I think, your investigative powers, so, without regard to an appropriation, what would you consider to be the most important 

tools that you would need to have? Subpoena testimony? Subpoena 

duces tecum testimony? What other things procedurally would be 


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necessary in order to complete your case so that due process can 

ensue? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have authority to subpoena documents. 

Mr. ROSS. Records, right. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. The key is getting the subpoena authority to testify individuals who either are former employees or employees of 

contractors or grant recipients, because we’re pursuing various misconduct. 

Mr. ROSS. And right now you don’t. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. And right now we don’t. 

Mr. ROSS. So they either submit voluntarily to an interview—and 

once they have counsel, that will never happen—or you just try to 

build a substantial case through voluntary witnesses who are third 

and fourth degree in the process. Is that—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That’s correct. The only other option is, if it’s 

strong enough and the Justice Department decides to open a grand 

jury investigation, the prosecutor can then issue grand jury subpoenas, but you need to get to that point. 

Mr. ROSS. Right, you need to get to that point. 

Okay. Let me ask the panel collectively, and we’ll go through 

here, one of the issues that I’ve had a big concern about is official 

time, time spent by Federal workers when they’re on the clock, but 

they’re doing union activities. I filed a bill for the last several sessions wanting a report from OPM of official time spent by Federal 

workers. Is this something that either one of you have done or have 

had a request to do in your duties? And I’ll start with you, Mr. 

Horowitz. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We have not had that request made of us. The 

only component in the—I think the only component in the Department with the union, the BOP has a union, but most of the other 

parts of the Justice Department do not have—are not union. 

Mr. ROSS. Is that something that you would do if you were requested to do? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. What I’d like to do is consider the issue, talk with 

my auditors about it, and try and understand better what it would 

entail for us. 

Mr. ROSS. They’ve done it in the—OPM has produced it in the 

past, but they don’t do it routinely, and so that’s my issue. 

Ms. Buller. 

Ms. BULLER. We’ve never done one nor have we had a request 

to do it. 

Mr. ROSS. Do you think it’s important? Do you think that it’s 

something—I mean, I don’t know to what degree do you have union 

workers with the Peace Corps—— 

Ms. BULLER. Peace Corps does have a union, but I would have 

to check once again, as Mr. Horowitz would, to see what—how 

strong the union is and the number of members and whether or not 

there would be—— 

Mr. ROSS. I mean, in some cases, that’s their full-time job is to 

be the union representative, and then they’re being paid on official 

time to be doing that. And I just think that’s a significant event 

that ought to be monitored and reported to the taxpayers. 

Mr. Dahl. 


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Mr. DAHL. We have not received your request specifically to look 

at that either. 

Mr. ROSS. And in order to have you pursue that request, what 

would—who would it have to come from? Would it have to come 

from the administration? Would it have to come from this committee? Would it—— 

Mr. DAHL. Various sources. The committee could ask us to look 

at it. And it’s something that, if we would determine that it’s a risk 

for the Department and it’s a problem, we would initiate it on our 

own. 

Mr. ROSS. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

Mr. Roth, any—— 

Mr. ROTH. Same answer. We have not looked at that. I mean, we 

do have a number of Federal employee unions and Customs and 

Border Patrol, the Border Patrol—— 

Mr. ROSS. But nobody has ever made a request on you—— 

Mr. ROTH. We have not, and we have not looked at it independently. 

Mr. ROSS. Okay. I appreciate it. 

That’s all I have. I yield back. Thank you. 

Mrs. DEMINGS. Mr. Chair. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from 

Florida, Mrs. Demings—— 

Mrs. DEMINGS. Thank you so much. 

Mr. PALMER. —for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. DEMINGS. First of all, I want to thank all of you for being 

here with us. And I apologize if we’ve already covered this since I 

was late coming into the room. I believe I heard you say, Mr. Horowitz, that you do not have the subpoena power to require retired 

FBI agents to come and testify. But could you possibly ask the 

chairman of this committee to subpoena a retired FBI employee? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We wouldn’t—and I don’t think—we wouldn’t go 

and do that. But by way of example, when we were unable in our 

Fast and Furious review to interview the former U.S. attorney who 

had resigned, we could not get the evidence. We actually came to 

this committee which had the—had subpoenaed the individual, and 

the committee agreed to share with us the testimony it had done 

of the individual’s testimony. So that is an avenue we’ve used. It’s 

obviously not the preferred avenue. And that only occurred because 

we were on parallel tracks with our investigations. That normally 

will not be the case. 

Mrs. DEMINGS. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from the 

District of Columbia, Ms. Norton. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I have a question regarding what appear to be violations already 

of an act that this committee has championed, Whistleblower Protection Act. Indeed, I note, ironically, that, this afternoon, we’re 

having a hearing on 5 years of the Whistleblower Protection Act. 

That was passed unanimously by this committee, yet I note that 

there have been disturbing signs of the Trump administration trying to silence dissent among employees of the Federal Government. 

Several agencies—I note EPA and HHS in particular—have received gag orders that employees could not communicate with the 


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public. Amazingly—and I’m going to ask the chairman if this committee would look into reports that employees could not even talk 

to Congress. Now, these orders appear to clearly violate the whistleblower laws. Are any of you currently investigating or planning 

to look into nondisclosure policies or directives issued by your agencies? 

Mr. ROTH. We are. We’ve had some issues with whistleblowers, 

for example, notifying us of potential retaliation as a result of giving us information or giving someone else information. They ultimately settle their case for whatever they get from the agency. The 

agency then requires basically a gag order, so then we’re unable to 

interview those whistleblowers. 

Because, again, our whistleblower retaliation investigations have 

two purposes: One is, of course, to make the whistleblower whole. 

But the other is to determine whether discipline needs to be imposed on whoever it was that did the retaliation. 

So I think that’s a defect in the system that we have at DHS, 

and we’re going to be looking at that and potentially writing a report about that. 

Ms. NORTON. Yes. 

Any of the rest of you had any such experience? 

Mr. Horowitz. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We don’t have anything going on now, but obviously, we have authority over FBI whistleblower provisions, and we 

obviously now, in light of recent legislation, authority over whistleblower retaliation cases involving contractors and grant recipients. 

And we are seeing more and more of them, and we’re handling 

them as they come in. 

And these are important matters, and it’s important for new 

leadership in the agency to understand the scope of the whistleblower protections, the whistleblower laws. I think it’s very important for incoming officials, particularly those who haven’t been in 

the government before or have experience with Federal whistleblower laws to understand the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in the MacLean case in 2015 because that was a case that has 

very—could have a very significant impact. And even after it was 

released by the court in 2015, we found instances where some components within the Department of Justice didn’t appreciate the impact of it, and we had to explain to them why it limited actions 

they might want to have taken against individuals who spoke out 

publicly. 

Ms. NORTON. Yes, Ms. Buller. 

Ms. BULLER. At the Peace Corps, we actively investigate any allegations of whistleblower retaliation. We’ve had several cases in 

the past, and we continue to aggressively pursue any allegation of 

whistleblower—— 

Ms. NORTON. Can I ask if any of these instances you have indicated are recent? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We continue to get complaints in. I wouldn’t say 

we have anything like what you’ve mentioned at DOJ at this point 

that have made news at other agencies. 

Ms. NORTON. Yeah. Because the EPA and the HHS got these specific—got these specific orders. Now, they could chill people, and 

I’m sure there are Federal employees that are chilled to the bone. 


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But look, for example, there’s an official channel at the State Department. It’s a dissent channel. It has been there for a very long 

time. And some State Department officials expressed their dissent 

on one of the President’s executive orders, and the public affairs officer came forward and said they should either get with the program or they should go. 

Shouldn’t Federal employees be concerned about such comments 

and their potential impact of using official channels, like whistleblower channels, if these fairly high-level State Department people 

were essentially told to shut up or get out? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I’ll just say: It’s certainly a concern for me, and 

I know for the IG community as a whole, to ensure that there is 

no chilling effect on whistleblowers coming forward. 

Ms. NORTON. So how can you do that? How can you assure? How 

can you make employees know that—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, one of the ways we do it is through our 

ombuds programs that Congress helped create. It’s very important 

for us to not only train employees within the Department but to 

train new employees joining the Department on the scope of the 

whistleblower laws and make sure they understand that individuals are allowed to come forward when they reasonably believe 

there are violations of laws, rules, or regulations, and they cannot 

be—there cannot be a personnel action, which is very broadly defined in the law, taken against them. People need to get whistleblower training upon coming into agencies, and the IG community 

needs to be working with their agencies to make sure that occurs. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. We’ll talk to you, Mr. Dahl, for a second. 

Is that okay? 

The Federal Employees’ Compensation Act program spending on compounded drugs rose dramatically from $2 million, I think, in 

2011 to $200 million in 2016. And I think it’s anticipated to double 

again last year when the final numbers are in. Have you looked 

into that issue at all? 

Mr. DAHL. Yes, we have, Congressman. And we have multiple investigations around the country. We’re working with other OIGs, 

including Postal Service OIG that’s been very active on this issue, 

and VA OIG, HHS OIG, and the Department of Defense OIG. In 

addition, we have an audit that we’re doing right now of the rising 

cost of compounding and why that occurred and what the Department is doing to manage those costs. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Do you feel you can comment on it now, or you 

don’t want to comment yet? I mean, going up from $2 million to 

$600 million in 5 years is kind of a dramatic thing. 

Mr. DAHL. Right. You know, it looks like that it didn’t increase 

as much in 2016 as was expected, but the increase was still substantial enough that we are working with the Department to recommend programmatic fixes. They sent out a letter of medical necessity that require providers to complete now in—before they can 

prescribe compounded medications, and that appears to have had 

some ameliorative effect on the cost of compounded drugs. 


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But we are—this is a very big risk that we’re concerned about, 

and we’re also concerned about the fact that the FECA program 

didn’t see this coming until very recently. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Maybe this is an example of what you 

were talking about. There’s apparently a tube of cream we’re paying $32,000 or—a case for, $32,000 with a compound found in wine 

that isn’t even approved by the FDA. Do you want to comment on 

that? 

Mr. DAHL. Well, in our investigations, we have found several of 

these pain creams that are used as topical creams, and the cost 

that we’re getting billed for, that FECA is being billed for, is exorbitant, tens of thousands of dollars for one prescription. And we’re 

finding in many of our investigations that the patients didn’t know 

that they were receiving this, didn’t ask for it, or didn’t ask for it 

to be refilled. 

Mr. DAHL. And so we are concerned about that, that’s one of the 

avenues we’re pursuing in our investigations. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Good. Going to pursue. Do you think there are 

any kickbacks involved there? 

Mr. DAHL. There are. We have found kickback schemes in many 

of our investigations where the prescribing pharmacies are paying 

kickbacks to doctors, but the dispensing pharmacies are paying 

kickbacks to the doctors to prescribe these medications. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Any States that particularly involved in this, or 

parts of the country which have more sleazy practices going on? 

Mr. DAHL. I don’t want to comment on what parts of the country 

might be sleazy, but we—our finding that these are grouped in certain geographic locations. We have investigations around the country, but many concentrated in Texas, in California, in Florida, and 

other States. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. An example, a tube of cream, what condition would you have that they prescribe this for? 

Mr. DAHL. If they had surgery, and they have pain from the surgery, or they have a back disability that they would be going to the 

doctor for. There are also creams that are prescribed for reducing 

scar tissue from—following up on surgery. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. $32,000 a tube? 

Mr. DAHL. That was for one of the medications, I think the Postal Service OIG found that. And we found multiple examples of— 

as I said, tens of thousands of dollars. 

Now, I want to note that there are certain patients and certain 

compounding medications that are—that have found to be beneficial. We’re concerned about the ones that, as you pointed out, are 

not approved by the FDA, and may be provided to patients who 

don’t have the medical necessity to have those. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. $32,000 for a prescription, one tube and it might 

not do anything. Hmm? Kind of amazing. Well, that’s why we’re on 

OGR, we can just have hearings every day. We may have a whole 

hearing on that later. 

Thank you very much for giving me my 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALMER. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize myself for 

5 minutes. I would like to get the panel’s views on a couple of questions regarding the referral of criminal matters to the Department 

of Justice. Over the last 4 years, what’s your estimate of how long 


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it took the DOJ to generally respond to your criminal referrals? Mr. 

Horowitz, we’ll start with you. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I don’t have any numbers sort of handy or available. I will say, we get fairly prompt attention from the Department, and the prosecutors we work with regularly when we do go 

to them with cases. 

Mr. PALMER. Ms. Buller, was that your experience? 

Mr. BULLER. Yes, the Peace Corps is a little different, because we 

also have usually complicated questions involving jurisdiction, so 

sometimes it takes a while to work through those. 

Mr. PALMER. Mr. Dahl. 

Mr. DAHL. Like Mr. Horowitz, we get prompt attention from the 

U.S. Attorney’s offices and from are the Department of Justice in 

our criminal referrals. We made 277 last year, and we had 322 convictions last year. And so we feel like across the country, we get 

great support from our work. 

Mr. PALMER. Mr. Roth. 

Mr. ROTH. DOJ is highly decentralized with 94 different U.S. attorney’s offices. I would concur with Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Dahl 

that it is generally good, but there are some areas in which sometimes a little extra attention needs to be paid, but I don’t foresee 

this as a systemic issue. 

Mr. PALMER. Do you have pending referrals left over from the 

last administration? The nods work on TV, but—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Yes. 

Ms. BULLER. Yes. 

Mr. PALMER. —unless the camera is on you, so let the record 

show the panel all said yes. 

How many are over a year old? Do you have any that are over 

a year old? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I don’t think so. I can go back and check. Like 

I said, as a general matter, it’s a fairly prompt response for us. 

Ms. BULLER. I don’t believe we have any over a year old either. 

Mr. DAHL. I don’t believe we have one over a year, but we will 

check. 

Mr. ROTH. Likewise, that would be an extreme case. 

Mr. PALMER. Let me ask you something, does the Inspector General’s office have jurisdiction over a case in which a Federal agency 

violated an international treaty? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think if one of the department components violated a treaty, we presumably would have the authority to look at. 

It would have to be a Department of Justice component, though. 

And we’d probably partner with the State Department IG if it was 

an international treaty, given their expertise. 

Mr. PALMER. But you could make that referral to the Department 

of Justice? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. If we found issues with regard to an allegation 

of misconduct related to a set of laws, including the treaty, yes, we 

would be able to do that. I can’t think of a situation where that’s 

arisen for us. So that we have, as you know, done work with DEA 

agents overseas and the Department does have overseas representatives. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you. Coming back to you, Mr. Horowitz, according to the website, there are 11 vacancies in the Federal agenVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:34 Aug 15, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26357.TXT APRIL

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cy IG offices. We covered this a little bit. These offices are being 

led by acting IGs. Do you see a benefit for having a permanent inspector general rather than an inspector general in an acting capacity? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I have testified to this before. We have and had 

extraordinarily committed and dedicated acting IGs filling these 

roles. I had the experience of coming in. My agency had a vacancy 

for 15 months before I arrived. And my deputy IG did an extraordinary job in the middle of the access fights, by the way, leading 

our office. She did a great job. But there is an ability to get things 

done that is present when you have confirmed leadership. Certainly, in the presidentially appointed Senate-confirmed positions, 

but also the agency-level positions. There is an authority that goes 

with this and a presence, and an ability to fight for issues that I 

think is important to have when you are dealing with agency leadership, that they know that you have the position full-time, and 

you’re not just—you’re not sitting there waiting for the successor 

to show up. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, as each—many of the members on the committee have already expressed, we’re very grateful for the work you 

do. We respect you and appreciate you. I would like to thank the 

witnesses for taking the time to appear before us today and for the 

members for their questions. 

If there is no further business, without objection, the committee 

stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

Æ 


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