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WATCHDOGS NEEDED: TOP GOVERNMENT 

INVESTIGATOR POSITIONS LEFT UNFILLED FOR 

YEARS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 3, 2015 

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

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Staff Director 

CHRISTOPHER R. HIXON, Chief Counsel 

GABRIELLE D’ADAMO SINGER, Deputy Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN. Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

KATHERINE C. SYBENGA, Minority Senior Counsel 

DEIRDRE G. ARMSTRONG, Minority Professional Staff Member 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 1 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 4 

Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 21 

Senator Baldwin ............................................................................................... 24 

Senator Ernst .................................................................................................... 25 

Senator Ayotte .................................................................................................. 28 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 37 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 39 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 2015 

Hon. Michael E. Horowitz, Chair, Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, and Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice ........ 7 

Danielle Brian, Executive Director, Project on Government Oversight .............. 9 

Daniel Z. Epstein, Executive Director, Cause of Action ....................................... 12 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Brian, Danielle: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 45 

Epstein, Daniel Z.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 61 

Horowitz, Hon. Michael E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 41 

APPENDIX 

Statements submitted for the Record from: 

The Institute of Internal Auditors .................................................................. 107 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General ............... 109 

Project on Government Oversight Response to Department of Veterans Affairs ....................................................................................................................... 114 

Response to post-hearing questions submitted by Mr. Horowitz ......................... 124 

(1) 

1The prepared statement of Chairman Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 37. 

WATCHDOGS NEEDED: TOP GOVERNMENT 

INVESTIGATOR POSITIONS LEFT UNFILLED 

FOR YEARS 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Lankford, Ayotte, Ernst, Sasse, Carper, McCaskill, Baldwin, Booker, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. This hearing will come to order. I ask unanimous consent to have my written opening statement entered into 

the record.1 No objection. I will do it when his back is turned to 

me. So ordered. 

I would like to spend a little bit more time than I normally do 

with some opening comments because this issue is pretty dear to 

my heart and I think all of our hearts. We always say the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is our favorite agency, but certainly the Offices of Inspectors General (OIG) are our favorite offices within these agencies and departments, particularly for this 

oversight Committee. It is just incredibly important to have permanent Inspectors General (IG) that are completely independent, that 

will provide Congress and the American public transparency, and 

that watchdog assignment, that responsibility for departments and 

agencies so that we have awareness of what is happening. It is the 

only way we are going to be able to improve the efficiency, the effectiveness, the accountability of government, is to have that type 

of transparency. 

My own initial involvement with the importance of Inspectors 

General really came after the Cartegena incident. Now, I come 

from the private sector. I have had independent financial auditors. 

I have had surveillance auditors with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification. These are some independent outside groups that provide that independent oversight. 

This is about as good as we can do within government, having, obviously government employees, but we need that independence and 

transparency. 
2 

After the Cartegena hearing where we had the Director of the 

Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, testifying before us, it was determined that we would have an inspection, an investigation conducted by the Inspector General’s office. 

My staff went down in a secure briefing to read the initial report. 

A couple months later, when that report was actually issued, we 

realized that there were parts of the report that were originally included in that that had been taken out of the report inappropriately, which led to a continuing investigation on the part of our 

Subcommittee to find out that there were some other problems 

with Charles Edwards and we issued a report supported by both 

sides. A couple days before we had a hearing with Mr. Charles Edwards, he resigned and went on to some other duty. 

The result of the lack of transparency, the lack of what I think 

would be reports with integrity based on what was happening within the Secret Service, the cultural problems with the Secret Service, the net result of that is we have not reformed the Secret Service. We are still continuing to have credibility issues within an 

agency that I think is incredibly important to have the utmost 

credibility. So that is one circumstance that was my first time certainly being made aware of how incredibly important it is to have 

a completely independent, completely transparent Office of Inspector General. And, of course, Charles Edwards, the problem with 

him is he was an Acting IG, and he was openly vying for the permanent IG position, so you have a natural conflict of interest right 

there, which I think was at the heart of that problem. 

Fast forward. We saw the revelations in Arizona in terms of the 

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system, people 

dying waiting to be given care. Now, that information was broken 

through news reports, not revealed to the public where it should 

have been revealed through the Office of Inspector General of the 

VA. 

In our own State, Senator Baldwin’s State and mine, further 

news reports revealed early this year that there are similar problems in the Tomah VA Health Care Center where, because of overprescription of opiate drugs, veterans died. And, in particular, the 

day I learned about it, early in January, on January 12 Candace 

Delis took her father, Thomas Baer, into the Tomah VA facility. He 

was a suffering stroke victim. He waited somewhere between 2 and 

3 hours, probably suffered a couple strokes. In the end, he was 

transported to Gundersen Lutheran La Crosse. He died a couple 

days later. He basically died of neglect. 

Now, had the Office of Inspector General been transparent, had 

the office not administratively closed a report that it had been 

working on a couple years, had that report been made public, what 

Candace Delis told me on the phone a few days after I learned of 

the incident, she said, ‘‘Senator, had I known that there were problems with the Tomah VA health care system, I never would have 

taken my father to that facility.’’ 

Now, what is really sad is Candace Delis and Thomas Baer lived 

in Marshfield, Wisconsin. A world-class health care facility resides 

in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Thomas Baer would have been alive had 

we had the type of transparency, the type of independence in the 
3 

Office of Inspector General within the VA system. I truly believe 

that. 

So these issues are not just theoretical. This is not just about, 

good government. People’s lives can be in the balance here. So 

these are incredibly important issues. 

The purpose of this hearing is really to, I think, first convey how 

important that independent and transparent function is of the Office of Inspector General; and then, second, to find out why this 

White House, this Administration, who claimed to be and wanted 

to be the most transparent Administration in history, has taken so 

long to fill so many positions of Inspectors General. Here are just 

a couple of examples. 

The State Department went 1,701 days without a permanent Inspector General. That is more than 41⁄2 years before that position 

was finally filled. 

The Interior Department is right now holding the current record: 

2,291 days, 61⁄4 years since we have had a permanent Inspector 

General within the Department of Interior (DOI). 

The Department of Labor (DOL) was pretty bad. Labor had 1,555 

days that position went vacant. That is more than 41⁄4 years. 

Now, let us just compare past Administrations. 

The Reagan Administration, the average days of vacancy was 

about 224 days. 

Under the first President Bush, it was about 337 days. 

Under Bill Clinton, 453 days average vacancy. 

Under the second President Bush, 280 days. 

Under President Obama, the average vacancy has been 613 days, 

12⁄3 years these positions have gone vacant, have not been filled. 

That is a problem. 

Now, again, we have a good panel here to describe and fulfill the 

first purpose of this hearing, which is describe how important it is 

for the Office of Inspector General to be independent and transparent. 

Unfortunately, we do not have the White House’s version of 

events, and let me just read a timeline in terms of our attempt to 

get the White House to give this Committee the information. 

On May 14, we first reached out to the White House about this 

hearing and invited Valerie Green, who is the Director of the Office 

of Presidential Personnel. That would be the person within the 

White House that could give us that answer: Why have these positions gone unfilled for so long? 

On May 19, we began discussions with the White House Counsel’s Office after the White House said it would not send Ms. 

Green. 

On May 22, we formally invited Ms. Green and offered the White 

House to send a designee from her office if it could not send Ms. 

Green. 

On May 27, the White House rejected the invitation and said it 

would only send Beth Cobert, whom we all like—I have a great 

deal of respect for Beth Cobert. We all do here on the Committee. 

But she is Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). She is not involved in these decisions 

in terms of these nominations. She is not in that Office of Presidential Personnel. She obviously has some tie-in with the Council 
4 

of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), but she 

would not be in the position to answer the questions that this Committee is trying to ascertain. 

On May 28, we again reiterated to the White House that Ms. 

Cobert is not an appropriate witness because she plays no part in 

the White House’s nomination process. We also highlighted a 2012 

House hearing in which an OMB witness testified on this matter, 

and they could not answer the members’ questions about the nomination process because they ‘‘have no role in that.’’ 

On May 28, we invited the former director of the office, Jonathan 

McBride, who is now working in the private sector at BlackRock. 

The White House told BlackRock and Mr. McBride that it does not 

want Mr. McBride to testify and asked him not to speak with us. 

On June 4, the Committee offered to accept a non-public briefing 

with the Office of Presidential Personnel in lieu of testimony today. 

Yesterday, Mr. McBride refused to testify and directed the Committee to speak to the White House. Also yesterday, the White 

House said it would not provide Members with a briefing, is not 

sending Ms. Green or anyone else from that office, and is refusing 

to allow the former director of that office to testify. 

This is very disappointing to this Committee. I think this is our 

responsibility to conduct this oversight, and we are not going to get 

the information from the White House, which is the second purpose 

of this hearing. So I think it is unfortunate, but I wanted to put 

that on the record. 

With that, I will turn it over to our Ranking Member, Senator 

Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining 

us today. We look forward to this important hearing. 

I take second place to no one with an appreciation for the important role that Inspectors General play in our government. In order 

for us to be effective in ferreting out waste and fraud in the Federal Government—there is still too much of it—this Committee 

needs to partner with our colleagues in the Senate, we need to 

partner with the Administration, the Executive Branch, we need to 

partner with GAO, we need to partner with the Inspectors General, 

we need to partner with all kinds of entities, nonprofit entities that 

are outside of the Federal Government, in order to find out how do 

we get better results for less money. 

Last Congress, if I am not mistaken, I sent a letter, along with 

Senator Tom Coburn, who was then our Ranking Member, to the 

Administration saying there are too many vacant positions, vacant 

for too long, of Inspectors General throughout our government, do 

something about it. 

I led a second effort, joined in this case by our Chairman, and 

joined I think by everybody on this Committee, as was the case 2 

or 3 years ago, writing to the same President with the same message: There are too many vacancies for too long a period of time 

for Inspectors General, do something about it. 

Well, I think in this case we have actually done something about 

it. Am I happy, am I satisfied with the progress that has been 

made? Not entirely. But let us keep this in mind: There are 72 In-
5 

spector General positions throughout our government, 33 of them 

require confirmation. There are today, I believe, seven vacancies in 

these Senate-confirmed positions. The Administration has put forth 

nominees for three of these seven positions, which means there are 

still four for which we need nominees. And my own view is that 

the way to get stuff done is not just to send letters to the President, to make phone calls not just to the President, but the Chief 

of Staff, the other folks who are advising the President, and to be 

unrelenting in doing this. 

The other thing, we have an obligation ourselves—we are not entirely pure as a Committee. We have seen situations where Members of this Committee literally have held up nominations for Inspectors General, not just for weeks, not just for months, but for 

even longer periods of time. So this is the pot to some extent calling the kettle black. But this Administration needs to do a better 

job. I believe that and I am sure every Member of this Committee 

believes that. 

The idea of having a vacancy for the IG at the Department of 

Veterans Affairs for a year and a half, unacceptable. The idea of 

having a vacancy for the IG at the Department of the Interior for 

over 5 years, really unacceptable. And I am a thorn in the side of 

my friends in this Administration in making sure that we address 

these vacancies, and I am confident that we will, because I am not 

quitting. And I know the rest of you will not either. 

Let me just say this: Some of my colleagues know this is a 

shared responsibility, and our responsibilities include not just 

hounding the Administration to get us good folks, nominees for 

these positions, but when they do, for us to expedite processing the 

nominations. I have seen situations where we held up the thing for 

so long that somebody nominated for an IG position, I think living 

in California, they had looked and seen how long the process took 

to get the previous nominee who finally withdrew, and that nominee in California said, ‘‘I am not going to move my family to Washington, D.C., uproot my family and go through that kind of vetting 

process to see if I am going to get confirmed.’’ And they just backed 

out. So there is a shared responsibility here. 

A guy named Richard Skinner was the first Senate-confirmed Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

He explained the special authority that comes with Senate confirmation at a hearing that we held in this Committee about 2 

years ago. This is what he said, and this is a quote: 

‘‘With having acting people in place, what you are doing is running in place. . . . [Y]ou are not taking those risks necessary as 

a confirmed IG would to provide oversight . . . that is absolutely 

critical to the success of any program.’’ 

I think that is a powerful statement of how Senate confirmation 

enhances independence. 

We look forward to hearing from our witnesses today as we work 

together to find ways to not just reduce the number of vacancies 

in these key positions, but also to ensure they are filled with highly 

qualified candidates who will help us root out problems and save 

money for our taxpayers. 

Now, on the issue of asking the advisers to the President to come 

and testify before Senate committees, this is not a new subject. I 
6 

came here, elected at the same time that George W. Bush was 

elected President, and a number of times in his Administration, we 

sought to compel the President’s advisers to come and testify before 

Congressional committees. They chose not to do that. And the reason why, one of the reasons why is the view that if someone is an 

adviser—I am not talking about a Cabinet Secretary or a confirmed 

position, but somebody who is an adviser to the President, Presidents want that person to give their honest, unvarnished advice. 

This is what we heard before, from the previous Administration, 

and we heard from this one as well. If the person is expected to 

give the President advice on a particular issue and is going to be 

compelled to come here and testify, will that person be as inclined 

to give actually the frank, honest advice that a President needs? 

And the last Administration said, ‘‘We do not think so,’’ and frankly, neither does this one. 

Now, who did the President offer to send, who did the Administration offer to send? As the Chairman has said, the person he offered to send was Beth Cobert, whom we know and respect a great 

deal. She is one of the top people at OMB. And the reason why 

they offered to send her is that she serves as Executive Chair of 

the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. And 

not only that, she is somebody the President listens to, and she 

talks to him on a fairly regular basis. And she, as much as anybody, can deliver the message directly to him, directly to the President’s top aides, his Chief of Staff and other people, on a consistent 

basis, and say, ‘‘These vacancies have been in existence for too 

long. We need to do something about it.’’ That is why she would 

have been a good witness. 

So on that happy note, I am happy we are all here. Everybody 

agrees we need IGs, we need good ones, and we need them to be 

going to work today and every day. And let us just make sure that 

we all pull together in the same direction, and we will get that 

done. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

I do want to point out that I have certainly made a commitment 

to move nominations for this Administration as quickly as possible. 

I have already got a record with Russ Deyo. I worked pretty long 

and hard working the phones and working my colleagues to make 

sure we could release those holds. And we do have one nomination 

for an IG before this Committee, Carol Ochoa for the General Services Administration (GSA) IG position. She was nominated on 

March 11. This Committee received her required documents on 

May 11. We conducted a staff interview on May 20th—— 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Chairman, can I interrupt for just a second? 

Chairman JOHNSON. Sure. 

Senator CARPER. Finance has a markup right now. They are 

working on one of my bills that I have been working on. I need to 

run out for a quorum. I will be right back. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Dismissed. 

Senator CARPER. I apologize. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, again, we have been trying to work 

through this nomination as quickly as possible. Again, we received 
7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Horowitz appears in the Appendix on page 41. 

her required documentation May 11. We did the staff interview on 

May 20. We have scheduled her confirmation hearing for June 17, 

and we will do everything possible to get her confirmed as quickly 

as possible. So we certainly have that commitment. 

Again, I want to welcome the witnesses. Thank you for your 

thoughtful testimony. I have read it, and I am looking forward to 

your testimony and answers to our questions. It is the tradition of 

this Committee to swear in witnesses, so if you will all rise and 

raise your right hand. Do you swear the testimony you will give before this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 

but the truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do. 

Ms. BRIAN. I do. 

Mr. EPSTEIN. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Please be seated. 

Our first witness is Michael Horowitz. Inspector General Horowitz is the Inspector General for the Department of Justice (DOJ) 

and chairs the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. We refer to it as ‘‘CIGIE’’ because that is a lot easier to say. 

Prior to joining the Inspector General’s Office, Mr. Horowitz had a 

decorated career as a Federal prosecutor in the Criminal Division 

of the Department of Justice. Mr. Horowitz. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL E. HOROWITZ,1

CHAIR, COUNCIL OF THE INSPECTORS GENERAL ON INTEGRITY AND EFFICIENCY, AND INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

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

Carper, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me 

to testify today. This Committee has consistently provided strong 

bipartisan support for the work of Inspectors General, and I want 

to thank you for that support. 

In January, I was sworn in as the Chair of the Council of the 

Inspectors General, and one of our most important missions there 

is to provide, as the IG Act indicates and requires us to do, to recommend individuals for appointment as Inspectors General. And 

since the creation of the Council of Inspectors General in 2009, we 

have recommended over 100 individuals for Inspector General positions, and many of the candidates are now serving as Inspectors 

General. Indeed, I am one of those candidates that was recommended by the Council. 

To fulfill their responsibility, Inspectors General must be scrupulously independent, thorough, impartial, fair, and accountable to 

the public. Being able to make difficult and unpopular findings is 

part of the job description. Finding IG candidates who can fulfill 

all of these objectives can be a challenge, but it is critical to the 

IG selection process. 

In seeking to fulfill our responsibility to find candidates to recommend for IG vacancies, the Council of IGs has established an Inspector General Recommendation Panel. We seek to recruit candidates from both inside and outside the Inspector General community to apply for IG vacancies. Once received, applicants are re-
8 

ferred to the panel for review. The panel looks for certain core 

qualifications of applicants. And since the type of experience that 

is needed can cut across industries and sectors, the panel considers 

applicants from various professional backgrounds, including from 

the IG community, Federal, State, and local government agencies, 

and the private sector. After review, the panel determines which 

applicants to recommend for consideration. 

The Council of IGs, however, is not the only source of IG candidates. For example, interested individuals can contact the appointing authorities directly. Moreover, the appointing authorities 

are not required to accept or even act on the recommendations that 

we send them. 

Far too often, the process for selection and appointment of IG 

candidates takes too long. As of today, there are eight IG positions 

that remain vacant. As of the end of this month, all of these positions, with the exception of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 

Inspector General position, will have been vacant for over one year. 

At present, there are nominees pending for three of the positions: 

the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the GSA. I am 

very familiar with two of those nominees for FDIC IG and GSA IG 

because both of them currently work with me in the Department 

of Justice Office of the Inspector General. Their dedication and experience will make them outstanding Inspectors General, and I am 

hopeful they will join the Inspector General community shortly. 

On behalf of the Council of IGs, I would encourage swift action 

with respect to selecting IG candidates for the remaining IG positions and confirming them promptly so that we can have all of the 

positions filled. 

As this Committee has recognized previously, during the period 

of an IG vacancy, Acting Inspectors General and career staff can 

carry on the work of their offices, and they do it with the utmost 

of professionalism. Indeed, my office had an Acting Inspector General for 15 months prior to my confirmation, and she served with 

great distinction. However, a sustained absence of permanent leadership is not healthy for any office, particularly one entrusted with 

the important and challenging mission of an OIG. Moreover, no 

matter how able or experienced an Acting Inspector General may 

be, a permanent IG has the ability to exercise more authority in 

setting policies and procedures and, by virtue of the authority provided for in the IG Act, inevitably will be seen as having greater 

independence. As such, a timely process for addressing vacant IG 

positions is crucial. 

I can speak from my personal experience about the extended period of time it can take to identify and confirm an IG candidate. 

My predecessor, Glenn Fine, announced in November 2010 that he 

would be leaving the position in January 2011. I was not nominated until July 31, 2011, and I was not confirmed until March 29, 

2012. It was approximately one year from the time that I was contacted about the Inspector General position until the time that I 

was actually confirmed. I am particularly concerned, as the Chairman just mentioned a similar concern, that such a lengthy process 

could discourage strong candidates from seeking IG positions. 
9 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Brian appears in the Appendix on page 45. 

The Council of IGs will continue to encourage talented senior 

staff in the IG community to apply for vacant IG positions and to 

expand our recruitment efforts to find qualified candidates from 

outside the IG community. In addition, we will continue to seek to 

engage with the Office of Presidential Personnel to try to push for 

the prompt selection to fill establishment IG vacancies. And we will 

work with the leaders of the designated Federal entities that have 

IG positions to encourage them to seek input from the Council of 

IGs when an IG vacancy occurs. We will also continue to work with 

the Committee and its staff on these issues. 

The Council of IGs is committed to reviewing its practices and 

improving our contributions to the process to ensure that IG vacancies are promptly filled with outstanding candidates. 

Thank you, and I would be pleased to answer any questions the 

Committee may have. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Horowitz. 

Our next witness is Danielle Brian. Ms. Brian has been the Executive Director of the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), 

since 1993, leading the project to investigate fraud, waste, and 

abuse in the Federal Government and achieving a more accountable and ethical government. Ms. Brian. 

TESTIMONY OF DANIELLE BRIAN,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT 

Ms. BRIAN. Thank you so much, Chairman Johnson—I am sorry 

Ranking Member Carper is not here at the moment—and Members 

of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today and 

for this Committee’s longstanding and ongoing oversight of the IG 

system. 

POGO has worked for years to study and improve the IG system. 

We are seeing in the news this week additional examples of why 

good oversight by IGs is important. For example, it was the DHS 

IG that is now a permanent IG who ran the security tests bringing 

banned items into airports and found the Transportation Security 

Administration (TSA) failed 67 out of 70 tests, or 95 percent. This 

resulted in immediate reforms, including the reassignment of the 

TSA’s Acting Administrator. 

Unfortunately, not all IG shops are doing such important work. 

Among the most pervasive threats to IG independence and effectiveness are the longstanding vacancies that have languished at IG 

offices throughout the Federal Government. Generally speaking, 

Acting IGs have several disadvantages over their permanent counterparts. As Mr. Horowitz was highlighting, one is that Acting IGs 

do not enjoy the same level of credibility because they have not 

gone through the vetting process. Two, Acting IGs are temporary 

by nature and have an incentive to curry favor with the agency 

head as a way of auditioning for the permanent appointment. And, 

three, Acting IGs are loath to address the most important and, at 

times, embarrassing problems that confront them. As a result, they 

become more lapdog than watchdog for the agency. 

Several years ago, POGO created a special Web page—Where 

Are All the Watchdogs?—to keep track of ongoing vacancies in the 
10 

IG system. IG vacancies under President Obama have lasted an average of 613 days, as the Chairman mentioned, nearly 2 years. The 

vast majority of that time has been spent waiting for the selection 

of a nominee by the President. 

IG positions can become vacant for a variety of reasons and in 

some instances might even be beneficial. For instance, POGO and 

other groups called on President Obama to remove Senate-confirmed Commerce IG Todd Zinser after a House probe found that 

Zinser and his deputies retaliated against whistleblowers and that 

he had hidden a previous case of whistleblower retaliation during 

his confirmation process. 

Whatever the reasons may be for a vacancy to begin or continue, 

the following examples show what can happen when an IG office 

languishes for too long under acting leadership. One OIG staffer 

told POGO, ‘‘The situation is akin to a plant that is left unwatered 

for years.’’ 

The Department of Veterans Affairs has now gone, as was mentioned, a year and a half without a permanent IG, and President 

Obama still has not offered a nominee. If there were a Federal 

agency more in crisis in my years of working in Washington than 

the VA, I cannot think of one. 

In the meantime, the IG’s office has been led in an acting capacity by Richard Griffin. Griffin’s independence and interactions with 

Department leaders have repeatedly come under scrutiny during 

his tenure as Acting IG, including POGO’s own run-ins with that 

office. 

Last year, after Griffin conferred with one of the VA’s top officials, the IG’s office added language to a draft report that undermined a whistleblower’s claims about veterans’ deaths and falsified 

wait lists, according to an e-mail released by the House Veterans’ 

Affairs Committee. 

In addition, Chairman Johnson, you and other Members of this 

Committee have rightfully raised your own concerns about the 

independence of the VA IG’s office and the need for permanent 

leadership. Incredibly, that office continues to defend its decision to 

withhold its findings from the public, stating that its reports were 

‘‘technically available if the public or Members of Congress submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.’’ This posture—which is, unfortunately, all too common among both acting 

and permanent IGs—creates the strong appearance that the VA’s 

watchdog is shielding the Department from Congressional and public scrutiny. 

At the Department of Homeland Security IG’s office, the tenure 

of Charles Edwards as Acting IG serves as a shining example of 

all that can go wrong when IG offices are headed for too long a 

time under acting leadership, as the Chairman mentioned. 

My written statement includes additional case studies of longstanding vacancies that threaten the independence of IG offices. At 

the Department of Defense, for example, the impact of then-Acting 

IG Lynne Halbrooks’ efforts to shield her agency from bad press 

are still being felt. Just yesterday, McClatchy papers reported that 

a Federal judge is investigating allegations that the Pentagon IG’s 

office under Halbrooks’ watch may have improperly destroyed ex-
11 

culpatory documents during a leak investigation of the National 

Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Thomas Drake. 

At the State Department, there was no permanent IG for the duration of Secretary Clinton’s tenure. This raises the obvious question as to whether someone at the agency would have blown the 

whistle on the Secretary’s refusal to use government e-mails had 

there been a real watchdog in place. 

In the early days of the Obama Administration, I was able to 

speak with senior officials in the White House to propose potential 

IG nominees. The last time I reached out on that subject, it appeared I was dealing with White House interns. My personal experience seems to reflect this Administration’s growing ambivalence 

toward IGs in general. We are pleased to see that the number of 

vacancies at Federal IG offices has dropped in recent years, but 

seven vacancies for Presidentially appointed IG positions is still too 

many, especially when two of those vacancies have languished for 

more than 1,000 days. 

In addition to filling the vacancies with strong permanent IGs, 

POGO has issued other recommendations to ensure that both acting and permanent IG watchdogs do not become subservient 

lapdogs. One of our biggest concerns is that the IG Act induces 

many OIGs to spend a significant amount of time chasing what we 

called ‘‘small-window projects’’ in order to boost their offices’ 

metrics in semiannual reports to Congress. POGO has started to 

explore how to revamp these ineffectual reporting requirements so 

that IG reports are more meaningful and reflective of the information that Congress and agencies actually need. 

I would also quickly warn you about the current move to shift 

the responsibility of overseeing Afghanistan reconstruction spending from Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction 

(SIGAR) John Sopko over to the Department of Defense (DOD) IG. 

Remember the problems you have been having with the VA IG requiring the public and Congress to file a FOIA request to get reports? The DOD IG is far worse. They mark their reports ‘‘For Official Use Only’’ as a matter of course. If you want to learn how you 

are spending money in Afghanistan, I would strongly encourage 

you to keep the SIGAR shop open. 

Thank you very much for inviting me to testify today. We look 

forward to working with the Committee to strengthen IG independence and to ensure that these essential offices function as aggressive watchdogs. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Brian. 

Our next witness is Daniel Epstein. Mr. Epstein is the Executive 

Director of Cause of Action, a government oversight group that 

works to root out waste and fraud in Federal agencies, including 

working to increase transparency and accountability. Mr. Epstein. 
12 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Epstein appears in the Appendix on page 61. 

TESTIMONY OF DANIEL Z. EPSTEIN,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

CAUSE OF ACTION 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Good morning, Chairman Johnson and Members of 

the Committee. 

Since its founding, Cause of Action has worked productively with 

IGs by sharing research that enhances their investigative efforts. 

In April 2012, agents from the Department of Energy (DOE) Inspector General Office informed my organization that they opened 

up an investigation into the misuse of funds by the International 

Humanities Center. 

In May 2014, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) OIG confirmed that an investigation was opened 

into whether HUD violated appropriations laws in promoting the 

Affordable Care Act. 

Most recently, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of 

Inspector General began an ‘‘open and ongoing investigation’’ into 

issues concerning lobbying with the Affordable Care Act funds. 

Sitting in Washington, the President’s decision not to fill certain 

IG vacancies may seem political. Consider the following agency 

issues during the current Administration that might have been embarrassing to the President. 

Earlier this year, it was revealed that former Secretary of State 

Hillary Clinton used a private e-mail server to conduct agency 

business. 

Last month, an audit revealed that civilian and military officials 

used Defense Department credit cards for gambling and escort 

services in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. 

The General Services Administration had its own scandal centered in Las Vegas. 

In 2013, this Committee investigated Acting DHS IG Charles Edwards, and the Department of Transportation (DOT) Inspector 

General at the direction of CIGIE later found him to have engaged 

in misconduct. 

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been plagued by scandal 

regarding medical care of veterans. The former Acting USAID IG 

removed findings from reports sent to this Committee. 

Fannie Mae, overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, 

suffered from financial conflicts of interest amongst its executives. 

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporate is currently in the 

crosshairs of Congress for a controversial program known as ‘‘Operation Choke Point.’’ And the Department of Labor was found by 

this Committee to have engaged in massive amounts of wasteful 

spending. 

The President did not submit nominations to the Senate for permanent IGs at any of these agencies—GSA, USAID, FDIC, FHFA, 

DHS, Defense, State, and Labor—until after he was elected to his 

second term. The President has still not nominated a permanent 

IG for Veterans Affairs or the Interior Department. 

Permanent IGs might have solved some or all of the systematic 

agency problems that led to these scandals, but investigating, publicizing, and remediating waste, fraud, and abuse by Federal agencies empowers Congress and the public and forces the President to 
13 

engage in uncomfortable decisions when an OIG uncovers misconduct amongst Presidential appointees; that is, the President is 

ultimately accountable for removing his appointees. 

This point can be further illustrated by highlighting an investigation conducted by this Committee. In 2013, HSGAC’s Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight conducted an 

investigation into then-Acting IG Charles Edwards. Mr. Edwards 

resigned just days before he was to testify before this Committee. 

However, the resignation from the IG’s office did not mean his separation from government employment. After taking administrative 

leave and resigning from the OIG, Charles Edwards was granted 

a transfer to DHS’ Office of Science and Technology Directorate. 

However, the IG Act states that when an Inspector General is removed from office or is transferred to another position or location 

within an establishment, the President shall communicate in writing the reasons for any such removal or transfer to both Houses of 

Congress not later than 30 days before the removal or transfer. 

The legislative history behind the 2008 IG Act amendments, 

which this Committee provided, says that the President is required 

to notify Congress for any removal or transfer to ensure that the 

IG was not removed or transferred for political reasons. It has 

never been made public whether the President ever communicated 

the reasons for Mr. Edwards’ transfer, but it is reasonable to infer 

no such communication by the President occurred. 

To be charitable, while it could be the case that the President 

may have ignored the statutory requirement to inform Congress before an IG was transferred, the President likely obtained legal advice that an Acting IG is not covered by this statutory requirement. 

But the fact that the President may have received such legal advice 

is precisely why the Inspector General vacancies should not remain 

unfilled, because it delegates too much discretion to the Executive 

to determine the scope of Acting IG authority. 

The problems associated with Acting IGs extends to the recent 

revelations at the State Department that former Secretary of State 

Hillary Clinton exclusively used a private e-mail system for official 

government business. During Mrs. Clinton’s entire tenure, the 

State Department Acting IG was Harold Geisel, an ambassador 

under former President Bill Clinton. As a career member of the 

Foreign Service, Mr. Geisel was prohibited by statute from becoming a permanent IG. In testimony before the House Committee on 

Foreign Affairs, the GAO criticized the appointment of Acting IGs 

at the State Department from career Foreign Service officers because of their inherent lack of independence and noted in particular that Mr. Geisel had 25 years in senior State Department positions. 

During Mrs. Clinton’s tenure, the White House never made any 

attempt to appoint a permanent IG, and Mr. Geisel served as the 

Acting IG for 5 years. In 2013, both the Chairman and Ranking 

Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs signed a joint 

letter sent to newly appointed Secretary of State John Kerry as 

well as another letter to President Obama, noting that the ‘‘gap of 

more than 1,840 days is the longest vacancy of any of the 73 Inspector General positions across the Federal Government.’’ 
14 

As part of my written testimony submitted to this Committee, 

my organization is releasing previously undisclosed records we obtained through FOIA requests submitted to the State Department 

OIG and the National Archives and Records Administration 

(NARA) for information pertaining to Secretary Clinton’s e-mails. 

The OIG claimed that there were no responsive documents from 

Mr. Geisel’s time. NARA, however, confirmed that responsive OIG 

records existed, though it claimed exemptions over such documents. 

Other records produced by NARA show that as early as 2012, 

NARA officials were concerned that Mrs. Clinton might alienate 

Federal records from government control. Despite this (and the obligation imposed on NARA by the Federal Records Act), there is no 

indication that NARA ever notified the Department of Justice or 

Congress about the possible alienation or destruction of Federal 

records or sought to use the law enforcement powers to retrieve 

Secretary Clinton’s records. To the contrary, NARA publicly commended the State Department for its record management practices. 

Given NARA’s 2012 concerns and its opportunities to cure Hillary Clinton’s alienation of records, it either was aware of the State 

Department’s intentional failure to preserve Mrs. Clinton’s e-mails 

or was extremely negligent in its efforts to monitor senior officials’ 

e-mails. It is an unfortunate coincidence that Hillary Clinton’s email abuses occurred when the State Department and the National 

Archives both lacked permanent IGs. 

Many of the scandals I have discussed would have been 

foreseeably avoided or timely remedied had these agencies had permanent independent IGs. Unlike other Federal officials appointed 

by the President, IGs partner with Congressional oversight committees and public interest organizations in order to oversee their 

resident Federal agencies. This creates unique incentives for IGs to 

be politically accountable to Congress in ways that other Presidential appointees may not be, which serves a democratic purpose 

rendered impossible when no Senate confirmation takes place or 

when the Acting IG’s legitimacy is challenged, as is often the case. 

I thank the Committee for the opportunity to testify on these important issues. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Epstein. 

I would like to start with you, as long as you raised the issue 

about the FOIA request through NARA and the Office of Inspector 

General for the State Department. You say that with your FOIA 

request you found out that NARA said there were responsive documents that were not supplied by the State Department to your 

FOIA request? 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Yes, that is correct. Actually, it is one of the exhibits that I submitted with the written testimony. We actually 

FOIA’d for very similar things to the State Department OIG and 

to NARA, which was quite simply we wanted any records and communications about their investigations into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail 

use. The time period was from January 2009 to the present. The 

current OIG responded that there were no responsive records. We 

have a document from NARA that says there is a communication 

with the State Department OIG, but they withheld it under an exemption known as B–5, which is deliberative process. 
15 

Chairman JOHNSON. So you know there were responsive documents, but you have not gotten those responsive documents. 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Yes, the likelihood is—we have filed an appeal. We 

would likely have to litigate that question, and I can tell you from 

the perspective of good government groups, litigation usually does 

not prove fruitful for getting transparency. It is a last resort type 

of thing. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, again, thank you for your work 

on that, and this Committee will certainly followup on that. 

Mr. Horowitz, CIGIE has since 2009 recommended about 114 potential IGs for those vacancies, correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That is correct. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Do you know what happens to those? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Once we make a recommendation, we do not 

know what the process is thereafter. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Do you know how many of those 114 potential nominees have actually been selected by the Administration 

and appointed? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. As I sit here, I do not know the number off the 

top of my head. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But the bottom line is that certainly CIGIE 

believes there are a lot of potentially qualified Inspectors General 

for this Administration to appoint. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Right, that is correct. And it has certainly been 

far less than 100 that have been selected, so there are still many 

candidates available. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Now, I believe the maximum number of 

days that somebody can serve as an Acting IG is 210 days, correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That is my understanding. 

Chairman JOHNSON. How many Acting IGs right now have exceeded that? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, as I mentioned, seven of the eight vacancies 

exceed one year—or will exceed one year. That is certainly more 

than 210 days. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So how does the Administration get around 

that statutory requirement? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, what has happened is the Acting IGs, 

which are often the Deputy Inspectors General, simply fall back to 

be the Deputy Inspector General, and there is no Acting and there 

is no confirmed IG. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So it is really form over substance. They all 

of a sudden change your title from Acting IG and they become a 

Deputy IG again, and they serve as an Acting IG. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Someone needs to make some decisions within 

the office, so that is what ends up happening. 

Chairman JOHNSON. That is certainly one of the areas that we 

need to find some reform on. There has to be some enforcement 

mechanism for that statutory requirement. Is that basically your 

understanding? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Somebody needs to make some decisions with regard to that. Certainly the best way to do it is to get nominees 

pending and confirmed. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. I have a lot of questions. Hopefully we 

will have time for a second round. 
16 

Senator CARPER. You are the Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I know. [Laughter.] 

We have a lot of people—I am in charge. 

Ms. Brian, in being briefed for this hearing, I did find out something rather disturbing, that the office of POGO had been ransacked, broken into is probably the best—can you describe what 

happened there? 

Ms. BRIAN. Yes, sir. It was a few months ago when staff came 

to POGO for work that morning and found that one of the filing 

cabinets had clearly been tried to be jimmied open, and at that 

time we had not had quite the physical security that we now have 

established in our offices. We called the police for them to investigate, and we are in sort of a typical Washington office building 

where we are not the only office in that building, and none of the 

other offices in that building had been burgled, nor had there been 

anything else in town, according to the police, in that particular 

area. And so the police concluded that it was because of the kind 

of work that we do, that it was an information gathering—there 

were also some desks that clearly materials had been moved 

around on the desks. So it was clearly someone who was trying to 

find something that was in our office. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Was there any information missing that you 

are aware of? 

Ms. BRIAN. It is one of those things what we do not know. So it 

was not clear to us what was taken, if anything, or if it was just 

photographs that were taken, for example, of our desks. We were 

able to establish that our servers had not been violated, but certainly because of that we have significantly ramped up physical security and cybersecurity for our office. 

Chairman JOHNSON. In your testimony you talked about Acting 

IGs auditioning for the permanent IG slot. That is certainly what 

we saw as a real problem with Charles Edwards. Can you just describe what happens there, the type of department or agency capture of that Acting IG and how damaging that is to independence 

and transparency? 

Ms. BRIAN. Yes, well, I certainly have been actually lobbied by 

Acting IGs specifically asking for our support in their efforts to become permanent IGs, so I have witnessed it firsthand. And what 

happened, of course, because IGs are dual-hatted, they both report 

to the Congress but also to the head of an agency. And because the 

head of any IG’s agency has significant say in who is the appointee 

to be the IG, what we see is that those Acting IGs over and over 

again try to curry favor with the head of that agency in order to 

get that appointment. And what that means is making sure that 

they are not only not doing hard-hitting, independent work while 

they are in charge of the Inspector General’s office, but often we 

are also finding that they are deliberately trying to cover up bad 

news that should be revealed, as you mentioned you saw with the 

VA IG. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, in other words, they may decide not to 

pursue a particular investigation; they may in a report doctor or 

certainly not have as hard-hitting a report, maybe remove things 

at the request of the different agencies, which is what we saw with 
17 

Charles Edwards. Is that the type of specific activity you are talking about? 

Ms. BRIAN. Oh, yes. I can give you another specific example with 

the Department of Defense IG where there was actually quite an 

extraordinary investigation where at the time CIA Director Leon 

Panetta had improperly released information about the identities of 

the people involved in the ‘‘Zero Dark Thirty’’ raid to film makers, 

and he had then moved over to become the Secretary of Defense. 

The then-Acting IG for DOD was responsible for the investigation 

into the allegation of that release of information and what happened. 

We were leaked a draft IG report that had been sitting in the 

DOD IG for over a year that identified the fact that Secretary Panetta as well as other senior staff had, in fact, released highly classified information, and that report was being squelched. So we released it, and within a month that Acting Pentagon IG released a 

scrubbed version of that report where there was no mention of Mr. 

Panetta. And he was, of course, someone who would have been 

helpful in Ms. Halbrooks’ getting the permanent position had she 

gotten what she was working toward. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, thank you for your work. Senator 

Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for coming 

and going. I am going to be doing it here again in just a minute. 

One of the issues that our Committee has worked on for years, 

Dr. Coburn and I and other Members of the Committee, deals with 

improper payments. And as you know well, improper payments add 

up to a lot of money. The Federal budget deficit, which about 6 

years ago peaked at $1.4 trillion, it has come down; it is closer to 

$400 billion today, still way too much. But of that, about a quarter 

of that, $125 billion, according to GAO last year, was the amount 

of our improper payments, mistaken payments, accounting errors, 

in some cases fraud, $125 billion. That is a quarter of our budget 

deficit. And we were marking up legislation in Finance to address 

that further, hopefully to enable us to better recover monies that 

have been improperly paid. So I apologize for having to slip out for 

that, but it was a good mission, and I think a successful one. 

I want to give my first question to you, Ms. Brain—I want to call 

you ‘‘Brain.’’ I have your name on my brain. 

Ms. BRIAN. Thank you for the compliment. [Laughter.] 

Mr. CARPER. I was telling her earlier I have a good friend whose 

last name is Brain, Chuck Brain. So we have a good time with his 

name. I am sure we will have one with yours as well. But thanks 

for bringing your brains, all of you bringing your brains today and 

your hard work to this hearing. 

But, Ms. Brian, in your testimony, you discuss the threat to independence that longstanding vacancies in IG positions across our 

government can create. Just take a minute and talk to us about the 

effect, please, on the rank-and-file employees in those IG offices 

and what kind of impact it has on their work, just in a practical 

way. Thank you. 

Ms. BRIAN. Thank you, Senator Carper, also for your work on improper payments. 

Senator CARPER. You bet. Labor of love. 
18 

Ms. BRIAN. It is really boring but important. 

Senator CARPER. Tom Coburn, if you are out there listening—and 

I know you are—I am still doing the Lord’s work. 

Ms. BRIAN. Yes, I think that is a great question, because what 

you have are career staff who have given their lives to the mission 

of rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse at their agencies, and as I 

mentioned in my testimony, one staffer described the lack of leadership in their office as being like a plant that is left unwatered 

for years. The demise of morale in the office is significant. When 

you not only have a lack of leadership but a real sense that the 

leadership is often in cases of these longstanding IGs that we have 

spoken about that are in acting capacity, almost working counter 

to the purposes of the agency. So they are among the big victims 

of these vacancies. They are the people who have given decades 

often to investigations and audits, and their work is either ignored 

or slowed to a terrible pace, or in some cases as we described, actually just held up because it is too embarrassing for the agency. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Does anybody else have a view on that, just very briefly? You do 

not have to, but OK, thanks. 

[No response.] 

Thank you, ma’am. 

A followup question, this would be for you Michael. I understand 

that CIGIE plays a role in helping to identify qualified candidates 

to fill IG positions. How does that process work? In what ways do 

you think it could be improved to help better identify qualified candidates? Do we have any role in that at all? Thank you. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. So we have set up an IG candidate panel that is 

currently chaired by the IG at the Federal Election Commission, 

and the responsibility of the panel is to speak to vacancies when 

they occur so that people within the IG community and outside the 

IG community are aware of them, encourage people to apply, seek 

to have strong candidates apply for those positions. 

When they get the applications, often it is not necessarily for a 

specific IG vacancy but for an IG position generally. They will look 

at it. The panel will review it. They will consider the various characteristics that we believe make a strong IG, some of which I 

talked about in my opening statement. They will then recommend 

those candidates that they have looked at, that they believe meet 

those qualifications, to the White House, and at that point, as I 

mentioned earlier, we are not further involved or consulted on 

those candidates. They go to the White House for review. 

I think one of the things that we have talked about and one of 

the things that I think we could do more of getting the word out 

beyond the IG community and beyond the Federal Government to 

State and local government agencies who have—there are a number of very strong oversight organizations, obviously, in State and 

local government. 

I was in the private law firm world, before coming back to the 

government, for 10 years working with corporate compliance officers, ethics officers. There a vast majority, as the Chairman mentioned earlier, of very highly qualified candidates in the private 

sector who do many of the same things we do with a very different 
19 

structure and very different responsibilities. But we could be doing 

more to reach out to them, I think. 

Senator CARPER. Good. When I was Governor, I was nominated 

by President Clinton to be on the Amtrak Board of Directors, and 

I had to go through a vetting process. I had been a naval flight officer (NFO) with top secret clearance, and I was a Governor for a 

number of years, and I went through a vetting process that was 

just, I thought, deplorable. It took forever, a lot of time, energy, 

and I thought, my God, just to be on the Amtrak Board? They 

should pay me to do that. 

One of the reasons why it is hard to get people who want to do 

these jobs—they are important jobs, they are hard jobs, and you 

are on the point of the spear in many cases, and some important 

issues. But the vetting process can just take forever. We do not 

treat people very well through that process sometimes, and we 

have to do better. 

I appreciate your answer and your ideas, and I would ask for the 

record if Danielle and Daniel if you all have some points to add to 

what Michael has said on that point, how do we get more people 

who are well qualified wanting to do these jobs, that would be helpful. 

Maybe one more, if I could, just real briefly. Mr. Horowitz, does 

CIGIE start vetting candidates—and you may have said this—only 

when there is a vacancy? Just come back to this. Or does CIGIE 

continuously vet candidates who would be willing to serve as an IG 

at any agency? I think you said that. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. We run the process continuously. So even if there 

were no vacancies, we would still collect applications because we 

know with 72 IGs there is going to be turnover. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Last, when a Presidentially appointed IG 

steps down or is removed, there is broad awareness of the vacancy, 

and at least certain amount of public pressure to fill it, but I am 

concerned that there may be less attention and urgency with respect to the IGs appointed by an agency head. Ms. Brian, would 

you take a minute and tell us, can you discuss the different dynamics for these vacancies and whether you share those concerns? 

Thank you. 

Ms. BRIAN. Thank you, Senator Carper. Actually, my colleague 

has a copy of the website that POGO maintains—Where Are All 

the Watchdogs?—where we actually track both Presidential and 

agency-appointed nominees and vacancies. So we maintain all of 

them together. 

There is a whole separate question about agency IG appointments and whether they have the same kind of independence as 

Presidential appointments. We think it is sort of a nuanced question. We are not necessarily opposed to the fact that there are 

some—particularly because they are often boards rather than single heads of agencies that the IGs are responsive to. So, of course, 

there is—a couple of the current vacancies are agency appointments, but they do not tend to be as longstanding as the Presidential appointments. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks. The Chairman and I have an interest in—we think we have too many Senate-confirmed positions 

in the government, and that may be a view held by some others 
20 

here as well, and we have an interest in further reducing the number that have to come before us, because we think we are oftentimes in the Senate an impediment to getting people who want to 

serve and actually into positions where they can serve. So if anyone 

is interested in maybe joining that cause, you are welcome to. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Senator McCaskill—I know this is a real issue dear to her heart. 

She worked very closely with me as Chairman of that Subcommittee that was investigating Charles Edwards. It was right 

before that hearing of our Committee that Charles Edwards was 

transferred. But she has another meeting she has to go to, and I 

am going to let her ask a quick question. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. Very briefly, love you, POGO. 

Thank you. 

Second, yes or no, Mr. Horowitz: Do you believe all IGs’ salaries 

should be public? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Are they now? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. No. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And I just want to go on the record that I 

will not rest, I will not stop until we know every salary of every 

IG in our government. It is a scandal. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Can I just briefly—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Sure. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Senator, we have done the followup that you 

asked us to do at the last hearing. It is actually an extraordinarily—I have learned, I am sure you are aware, it is an extraordinarily complicated issue actually. There are, as it turns out, multiple pay scales for IGs across a number of titles within the Federal 

Code, including, in fact, as I learned, Presidential appointees have 

different pay levels. 

So, for example, those of us who were appointed in 2012 and 

2013 are frozen at the pay scale that was in existence then because 

of the appropriations act that did not include the 1-percent pay 

raise for us, but newer IGs appointed in 2014 are under the current pay scale. So as I have learned, they are actually paid more 

than the IGs appointed in 2012 and 2013. 

So it has taken us some time, actually, to understand some of 

these nuances, and we—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Mr. Horowitz, let me interrupt you for a 

minute. I get all that. But there are IGs in this system that do not 

want their salaries public because they are making an obscene 

amount of money in a very tiny agency. They do not want to say 

what their salaries are because they know we are going to go crazy 

when we hear it, and so will the American people. 

So that is why they are recalcitrant about telling you how much 

they make. I know there are these different pay scales, and I want 

to address that. But, if those people who are making $300,000 a 

year as an IG in a tiny agency, think they are going to be able to 

hide that much longer, they are wrong. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. No, and, Senator, what I was getting to is the 

reason it has taken us the time to get all the material together as 

well as you asked about what kind of work folks are doing, we now 
21 

have that together. We have reached out to your staff. We are 

going to be meeting I think in 2 weeks. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Great. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I was just trying to give you the background as 

to why it has taken—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. I understand. I just did not want you to 

think I lost my passion. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I knew that was not the case. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I sense she is kind of waning a little bit. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. BRIAN. I want to thank you for the love, Senator McCaskill. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Lankford. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. 

Mr. Horowitz, thanks for being here, and for all of you as well, 

and what you are doing on this. Let me ask, has the Council recommended names for Interior for the IG? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do not know whether we have specifically. I 

would have to go back and ask, because it has been a couple of 

years—— 

Senator LANKFORD. It has been years that it has been open, so— 

and I believe my question is: Is there an urgency within the Council to say this has been open for years, we have to feed them names 

because it is open? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I am somewhat speculating here. I am guessing 

we have made recommendations for that position, but I can go back 

and check. 

Senator LANKFORD. I would like to know on Interior, on VA, on 

Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank, and on CIA specifically if there are 

names that have been recommended. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. And my understanding on—since they occurred 

while I was Chair, VA and CIA I know the answer is yes. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK, but what about Ex-Im Bank? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I have to go back and check on the other ones. 

Ex-Im Bank has a nominee now, so I would have to go back and 

see what happened earlier. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. The Chairman brought up this issue 

about the 210 days. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I am sorry. Let me correct myself. Ex-Im Bank 

does not have a nominee. I was thinking of USAID. 

Senator LANKFORD. At all? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. At all. I will go back and check. 

Senator LANKFORD. That is what I had heard as well, and obviously Ex-Im Bank is in the spotlight right now, and there have 

been multiple issues that have happened around it. 

My question is on the 210-day limit before the Acting has no relevance and all the law and all the issues that are there. I get that. 

What incentives can be built into—this builds on what the Chairman was saying—to provide incentives that we have someone at 

least nominated before that time period? There has to be some sort 

of incentive that can be built in and some ideas that are out there 

so that we do not have Acting for 2, 3 years or to have really a 

Deputy to take this one. 
22 

Ms. BRIAN. Well, Senator Lankford, the issue is complicated in 

that it is a Presidential appointment, and there is sort of the separation of powers issue. 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. 

Ms. BRIAN. So I would encourage the Congress to remember that 

you are the holders of the purse strings and you have other ways 

of making the Executive Branch pay attention. You cannot force 

the Executive Branch perhaps to make an appointment, but you 

can get their attention by not doing things they would like you to 

do until they do make those appointments. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. So let me ask a question that is a purely 

speculative question. Why would there not be a nomination for an 

Inspector General in an agency? We have competent people that 

are being suggested. We have lots of Americans that are willing to 

be able to serve. Why would there not be a nomination for an Inspector General? 

Ms. BRIAN. Well, as you said, it is clearly a speculative answer, 

but there is no doubt that Inspectors General who do their job well 

are often bringing bad news to the fore, and they are often not popular with their agency or the Executive Branch because they are 

often the bearers of bad news, and so that is an obvious disincentive to—— 

Senator LANKFORD. I am not sure they are the bearer of bad 

news. They are just the bearer of news, period, of what is going on. 

So my assumption is for the IG their job is not to go find bad news. 

It is just to find any news, what is happening right, what is happening wrong. It is a transparency piece on it, and my question is: 

Why would we not want to have transparency in certain agencies? 

Ms. BRIAN. Well, there is no question that what you are saying 

is correct. You are asking what would be the incentive not to appoint one—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Correct. 

Ms. BRIAN [continuing]. And that was why I answered—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Because they can also bring bad news. 

Ms. BRIAN. Correct. 

Senator LANKFORD. Correct. 

Mr. Epstein, were you going to say something on that as well? 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Yes, I mean, I would say, No. 1, it is clear that 

President Obama has nominated IGs as early as 2009, and he has 

nominated IGs as recently as this year, and I think that if you just 

look at the incentives of the President, it is not just a question of 

news at all. It is also if there are issues at the agencies, appointing 

an IG who is effective and permanent is going to reveal findings 

and ultimately if the President, especially as this Committee 

knows, you have someone like Charles Edwards who himself as the 

Acting IG was engaged in misconduct, that could make the nominating President look bad. And so I think there might be political 

reasons. 

I also think that when we look at the question of how do you 

hold certain IGs accountable, there is—as my organization was told 

by the previous Chairwoman of CIGIE, CIGIE told us in a letter 

that it has no allocations or resources to conduct audits, investigations, or evaluations. Apparently—and I think IG Horowitz could 

probably talk more about this—at least for the Integrity Committee 
23 

of CIGIE, that is all done by the Federal Bureau of Investigations 

(FBI). And so, if you look at the case of Charles Edwards, there 

was not a report by CIGIE until after he had already resigned. If 

you look at Charles Edwards’ own investigations, the Mayorkas 

issue with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), 

the Cartagena issues with Secret Service members, these were all 

investigations that went on for a number of years, and I think 

what you see as a problem with Acting IGs is, as Ms. Brian has 

indicated, they want to curry favor with the President, they want 

to curry favor with the agency heads, and so they have an incentive 

not just to avoid investigations but to delay investigations. 

Senator LANKFORD. Mr. Horowitz, for the Inspectors General, 

when they are going to do a long-term look of a real investigation, 

whether they have a tip, whether they have inside information, 

whatever it may be, who chooses what investigations they take on 

and what they choose to report on? Who makes that decision? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, in my office it would be me consulting with 

the leaders of my divisions based on their recommendations. 

Senator LANKFORD. So how is that different for an Acting IG? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That would still occur in terms of a process, I 

think, for—— 

Senator LANKFORD. But how long does a report take? If you are 

going to do a more lengthy investigation—I know it varies from 

place to place, but how long does that take? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. They can take 6 months to more than a year, depending upon the complexity of it. Our Fast and Furious report, for 

example, took 18 months. 

Senator LANKFORD. Have you got all the documents you need for 

that yet, by the way? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. For that one we do at this point. For others we 

do not. And I appreciate your support on that issue. 

Senator LANKFORD. There is still plenty to do on that as well. My 

question is then with an Acting IG, if they do not know how long 

they are going to be there, do they take on the larger reports that 

are more lengthy? Or do they typically skip those? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, I think that is the challenge for an Acting 

IG, whether they are seeking the job or not, is the unknown of how 

long is that position going to be vacant. The longer it goes, the 

more decisions they have to make. You cannot delay decisions indefinitely. And that is precisely the challenge, Senator, what you 

have outlined, which is, Do we undertake a long-term review that 

could impact resources, that might be inconsistent with what the 

permanent IG will want to do? 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Lankford. Senator 

Baldwin. 
24 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really want to 

thank you for holding this very important hearing. Thank you to 

the witnesses for sharing your very valuable insight on this. 

As the Chairman mentioned in his opening comments, we have 

had a real opportunity to see in Tomah, Wisconsin, the role of the 

Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General and 

how critical it is in auditing and evaluating VA programs, conducting health care inspections, reviewing medical center operations, and investigating allegations of serious violations of policies 

and procedures by high-ranking members of the Department. The 

failings of the VA and the VA Office of Inspector General in Tomah 

come against the backdrop of a year of incredibly challenging problems for the VA. While I personally believe that the overwhelming 

majority of VA and VA OIG employees strive every day to deliver 

for our veterans, they need stable leadership. That is why I have 

called on the President to nominate a permanent Inspector General 

for the VA. 

I would also point out that not only do the IGs provide information to the agencies and the President, they also provide incredibly 

important information when Congress needs to exercise greater 

oversight or pass further legislation. And if this information is not 

fully transparent, if it is not fully accessible, if it not fully objective, 

it impacts our ability to do our jobs. 

This Committee has done some important work in advancing an 

IG reform bill, and I was pleased to co-author provisions in the bill 

with Senator Johnson that refer specifically to what we were seeing 

in Tomah. 

I just have a few questions, and, frankly, they are mostly to dig 

deeper into questions you have already been asked to specify information that I would like to receive either today or in followup. 

First, following up on some of the Chairman’s questions of you, 

Mr. Horowitz, I want to get a greater sense of how often appointing 

authorities act on your recommendations versus alternative routes. 

There are other ways that potential nominees can come to the attention of appointing authorities, including the President of the 

United States. And so I would like to know, on a more granular 

level, how often the President acts on recommendations made by 

the panel, and also if you ever receive feedback from the appointing 

authority on the recommendations and the individuals that you 

send. I know you said earlier that you do not have those numbers 

with you, so I would certainly take them in followup to this hearing. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Absolutely, and I will do that. 

And on the feedback issue, my understanding is we generally do 

not get feedback. It is simply a one-way passing of information generally, here are the recommended candidates, not an explanation 

back as to why some were not picked, for example. 

Senator BALDWIN. All right. Also in follow-up to a previous question, can you share the number of candidates for the VA Inspector 

General vacancy that have been forwarded from the Council to the 

Office of Presidential Personnel? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I will follow up on that. 

Senator BALDWIN. Do you have that with you today? 
25 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do not know off the top of my head. I know 

there are some. I just do not know the number specifically. 

Senator BALDWIN. OK. And, if you would, I would be interested 

to know when those resumes and names were forwarded. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I will follow up. 

Senator BALDWIN. I would like to know how long that information and those ideas have been before the President. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. And, of course, as I mentioned, Senator, there 

will be individuals recommended generally for IG positions that 

will have been there when that vacancy occurred January 1, 2014. 

So in our view, those are individuals we send to have strong experience and abilities across the board and can fill positions generally. 

So there will be both candidates we would say would be available 

generally, and then I will followup on specific candidates. 

Senator BALDWIN. Each of you in your testimony gave some considerable thought to why Acting IGs are perhaps seen as less credible in the eyes of agency leaders, Members of Congress, and the 

public, as well as why they might lack sufficient independence. I 

heard Ms. Brian elaborate on that a little bit, and I wonder, Mr. 

Horowitz, if you could elaborate a little bit more on your concerns 

of having Acting Directors of long duration. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, I think there are several issues that come 

with that. One we have talked about briefly, which is decisions that 

have to be made about long-term hiring, long-term policies, longterm practices. Those are difficult decisions for an acting head of 

any agency. I was in a U.S. Attorney’s Office, I was in the Criminal 

Division when transitions occurred between Administrations. Those 

were difficult times for even the acting heads of those organizations 

to make those kinds of decisions. 

And with regard to Inspectors General, these are obviously very 

challenging, difficult jobs for a variety of reasons, and there is an 

enormous amount of protection and from the statute, the IG Act, 

that goes to Inspectors General with regard to removal. That does 

not apply to anybody else. Everybody else is a career employee in 

the organization that is under career civil service laws. But for me, 

in a Presidentially confirmed position, there is only one person in 

the entire government who can act and remove me, and that is the 

President of the United States. And that provides a significant 

amount of protection and independence and for me to exercise that 

independence. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thanks, Senator Baldwin. Senator Ernst. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate you 

holding this hearing. This has been an issue ongoing for, I think, 

quite a while now, and before I do get to my questions, I just would 

like to make a few remarks as to this issue. This is very important 

to me, and particularly with the avenue that I am going to take, 

particularly to our veterans. 

I have been concerned our veterans are not receiving the highest 

quality of mental health care at many VA facilities, and tragically, 

in February, Iraq and Army veteran Richard Miles of Des Moines, 

Iowa, committed suicide. And I was deeply troubled by reports from 
26 

his family, from his friends, and both local and national media outlets which claimed that Richard may not have received adequate 

mental health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

That led me to ask the Inspector General to look into Central 

Iowa VA’s mental health care programs, the care that Richard received for his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and their 

management of his particular case. That was in February. It is now 

June. And this has been so deeply troubling to me. 

I would note that the Office of the VA IG has told me on multiple 

occasions that they would get the report to me. Again, I requested 

this report in February. It is now June. They told me they would 

have the results to me first in April, and after receiving no response, we reached out again, and then they said, ‘‘We will have 

it to you in May.’’ We reached out again at the beginning of this 

week, still have not received an answer. 

So it is very frustrating and absolutely unacceptable that it has 

taken so long. We have many veterans that seek assistance with 

our VA systems, whether it is for mental health care or other types 

of care. Especially with our mental health care, we need to ensure 

that they are receiving timely and adequate care, and in this case 

I have no idea whether that happened or not because we have not 

gotten a response. 

So as a Senator, I do have the responsibility to ensure that those 

veterans are receiving adequate care and that we are living up to 

the promises that we have made to these veterans as a Nation. 

So the VA and its IG need to come forward with information that 

will provide Iowa veterans a better understanding of the adequacy 

and management of their mental health care and those programs. 

So while I am in a position right now that I can no longer do 

anything for Richard, I am in a position where I can do something 

for many of our other veterans that are seeking mental health care 

to help with these invisible wounds. And this could be of any era 

of veteran. But the only way that we can do this is to ensure that 

we have efficient and motivated IGs, and especially one in the VA 

that can be held accountable. 

Thank you for listening to that, but with that, I would also like 

to ask a couple of questions. 

Mr. Horowitz, you wrote in your testimony that one of the Council of IGs’ most important responsibilities is to submit recommendations of individuals to the appropriate appointing authority. Would 

you recommend Mr. Griffin to be the IG for the VA? Have you had 

any discussions with the White House on a formal nomination 

process for the VA IG spot? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I have had conversations, and my understanding 

is the Chair of the panel and the panel itself that we have set up 

has also had discussions in the sense of recommending candidates 

for the position. When I say ‘‘discussions,’’ again, they are usually 

one-way discussions. It is us recommending candidates to them. 

Senator ERNST. And have you seen any responses, particularly 

with Mr. Griffin? Is he a candidate for the position? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I do not know if he is a candidate, and I have 

not gotten feedback on where things are as to the candidates we 

have recommended. 
27 

Senator ERNST. OK. And therein lies some of the problems, I 

think, that maybe recommendations are made, but they are not 

acted on. That I am not sure of. I just know that the VA does need 

an IG and somebody that will be responsive to these types of situations. 

Also, Mr. Horowitz, and, of course, Ms. Brian and Mr. Epstein, 

last year former White House Deputy Chief of Staff and now the 

VA Chief of Staff, Rob Nabors, said that the VA was crippled by 

a corrosive culture and poor leadership, which negatively impacts 

the delivery of care at VA. And considering this White House report, VA scandals with systemic wait time falsification—we could 

go on and on. And it is on the GAO’s high-risk list. In your opinion, 

why hasn’t the White House prioritized nominating and getting 

through the Senate a full-time IG? Are there areas we need to consider? 

Ms. BRIAN. I just cannot speak to why they have not prioritized 

it. It seems so obvious to me that it should be a priority. And in 

my written testimony I gave some examples of how we have had 

our own experiences, a very negative experience with the Acting 

IG. So I would hope that they find someone else to fill the position. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you. 

Mr. EPSTEIN. I cannot speak specifically about the President’s 

state of mind, but I think there are two things that might shed 

some light on some of those questions you asked. The first is—and 

I would be happy to kind of submit an additional statement on 

this. The President, I believe, under the Vacancies Act, could—he 

has done so with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). He 

could put an IG into a position which would not have to be past 

that 210-day timeline and then would not have to be a Deputy. So 

I think the President has—is ready, willing, and able—maybe not 

willing but has the ability to put someone there. And so it is a 

question of the pressure to do that. Why do you do that for certain 

boards that may be politically beneficial, but you do not do that 

when it comes to Inspectors General. 

I think the other thing is a lot of what has been discussed is the 

fact that there may be delays in appointments through that vetting 

process. But as part of that vetting process, whether it is the Office 

of Presidential Personnel or the President’s Counsel, they get background checks on nominees from the FBI. So one thing that if my 

organization tried to do this, we would be stonewalled, but hopefully the Senate would not be, is the Senate could request information, whether the records are kept confidential, but the number of 

records are not, of how many background checks were done for potential nominees to the Department of Veterans Affairs, how many 

background checks were done for potential nominees to the ExportImport Bank. Then you can determine how, in fact, willing was the 

President to consider nominations. If you cannot get the facts from 

CIGIE, you can get information concerning how many potential 

nominees were actually considered, and that could give some kind 

of sunlight to whether the President took seriously the need to actually put a permanent Inspector General to prevent a lot of these 

problems that you discussed at Veterans Affairs. 
28 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. And 

I would say that of all of the IG positions that are vacant, this one 

literally has lives riding on it. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I totally agree. I made that same point. Obviously, one of the purposes of this hearing is to put that pressure 

on the White House to get somebody appointed, or certainly nominated, and hopefully the Senate would quickly confirm that individual. So hopefully the outcome of this hearing will be that nomination. Senator Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you, Chairman. I want to thank Senator 

Ernst for her questions, and I just have to say this is dumbfounding. President, if you are listening, the fact that since December 2013 we have not had a permanent Inspector General in the 

VA, I mean, I cannot tell you—what happened in Iowa, what happened in Arizona, what happened in Wisconsin, what is happening 

in New Hampshire, we spent a lot of time on the floor last summer 

trying to come up with a reform bill, and now we are trying to hold 

the VA accountable to actually give veterans choice with private 

care. In my State, we just had a huge forum the other day on problems that we are having in even having the VA implement this 

law. And the President of the United States has not nominated 

since December 2013 a permanent Inspector General. To me this 

is something that I would think every American, Democrat, Republican, Independent, would care about. And of all the priorities that 

the President could have, I mean, Mr. Epstein, you mentioned it. 

He used the Vacancies Act to fill the NLRB. Well, we are talking 

about veterans who are suffering, veterans who have died, and I 

think there is—whatever we can do, Mr. Chairman. 

But, Mr. President, if you care about our veterans—Mr. Horowitz, CIGIE has submitted a proposal of someone, as I understand. 

It is not on your end. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That is correct. 

Senator AYOTTE. CIGIE has submitted recommendations of an 

individual or individuals who could serve in this position. Correct? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. That is correct. 

Senator AYOTTE. So it is in the President’s lap right now, and it 

seems like our veterans deserve action on this immediately by the 

President of the United States. And I did not come here today to 

make this speech, but in listening to all this, I just cannot believe 

it, that this would be vacant since December 2013, of all the things 

that we are trying to get right for those who have done so much 

for our Nation. 

So that said, I was very interested, Ms. Brian, in terms of you 

said you have had some serious concerns with the current Acting 

right now at VA. Could you help us with what those are? 

Ms. BRIAN. Sure. Well, in addition to your own Committee having had your direct engagement and concerns with—and also the 

House having concerns about the operations of that shop, we 

shared all of the Senators’ concerns when news of the failings of 

the Veterans Affairs Department was coming forward, and we at 

POGO thought, ‘‘What can we do to sort of help shed light on how 

could this be sort of systemically a problem across the agency?’’ 
29 

And so we worked with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and launched a website that said if you work inside the VA, 

could you let us know what is your sense of what is happening so 

we could have a better understanding of what could be done to fix 

the agency. And, incredibly, we had 800 people come forward. I 

mean, it was an astounding number of people, and I think it is important to recognize in this case, this shows how many people there 

are who work inside the system, who care deeply about the mission 

of the VA, who were taking risk by coming forward and saying, ‘‘I 

am a doctor at this facility,’’ ‘‘I am a tech at this facility,’’ ‘‘This is 

what I am seeing.’’ They came forward to give us a sense so that 

we could help them do something about it. 

Within weeks, we were contacted by the VA IG who asked us for 

the names of the people who had come to us, and we said, ‘‘Well, 

of course, we are not going to give you the names of the people who 

are coming to us, but we are very happy to work with you to give 

you a sense of what we are learning.’’ We were then immediately 

met at the door with a subpoena from the Acting VA IG demanding 

the identities of the whistleblowers who were coming forward to try 

to help fix their agency. 

So POGO remains unwilling to abide by that subpoena, but for 

us it was indicative of the flawed priorities of that office, that it 

was more important to them to sort of identify who the whistleblowers are than it was to encourage anyone to help try to figure 

out what the problems are. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, let me just commend POGO for refusing 

to comply with that subpoena, because when people come forward 

as whistleblowers, the notion that the VA would be more focused 

on identifying the whistleblowers versus the underlying problems 

I think just demonstrates Exhibit A of what we are dealing with 

and why it is so critical that we actually get a permanent IG with 

this agency. And you think about all the things that we do, our veterans, they have served our country, they have put their lives on 

the line, they have done so much, and you would think that that 

would be the one area we would prioritize. It is not a partisan 

issue. 

I wanted to followup, Mr. Horowitz, in terms of this idea—and 

I heard from listening to Mr. Epstein and Ms. Brian, this idea of 

a conflict, it sounds, when we have an Acting IG. It seems like they 

are put in the situation where the Acting IG has to curry favor 

with the agency head, or there is a potential that that could happen, and that creates these challenges that obviously undermine 

what the purposes of what CIGIE and the IGs are trying to accomplish. 

Can you comment on that? And, also, in your role, do you feel 

you have sufficient authority to have oversight over these Acting 

IGs to be able to take proper action if you think that one of them 

is not performing the way that you believe they should? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. So with regard to the first question, Senator, I 

think one of the challenges for any Acting IG, no matter how good 

they are, is that perception that they are the acting individual. 

They do not come with all the protections that I do as a confirmed 

IG with the IG Act’s independence that comes with it, and that is 
30 

a challenge, I think, for an Acting IG no matter how strong they 

are. 

As I said before, I had somebody serving as an Acting for 15 

months before I arrived. She did an outstanding job. But that is always going to be the perception, both within the organization and 

external to the organization, because nobody knows: Are they getting the job? If they are not interested in the job, when is the person who is getting the job coming in? All that uncertainty that is 

there exists. 

With regard to the second issue, CIGIE by statute—I do not have 

authority over the other IGs—or Acting IGs, for that matter. They 

have independence—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So who is the watchdog on that? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, if there are allegations of wrongdoing, that 

would go to the Integrity Committee, which is chaired by the FBI, 

and we have had discussions with the Committee, this Committee 

and on the House side, about concerns that have existed with regard to the Integrity Committee. But they would be the ones that 

would get any referrals of complaints about misconduct-related 

issues over Acting IGs. The Chair of CIGIE is not empowered to 

do anything with—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Ms. Brian, I know you wanted to comment. 

Ms. BRIAN. I just wanted to add to Mr. Horowitz, but, of course, 

the Congress is also the watchdog, and the Congress has often done 

a terrific job at playing that role of doing—the staff doing great investigations into problems with the IG office. 

Senator AYOTTE. So I know that my time is up, but last Congress, we were so worried, myself, Senator Boozman, and Senator 

Shaheen, we actually introduced a piece of legislation that if the 

positions were not filled within 210 days, the vacancy under the 

law, that the authority to fill would then be transferred to Congress, and that would eliminate this sort of idea that maybe the 

Executive Branch has a disincentive to have real rigorous oversight. And I think that is something that we should revisit and 

consider looking at some other model to make sure that we actually 

get these things filled and also that we think about this idea of a 

potential conflict. So I thank all of you for being here. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ayotte, for your passion 

on this issue. I think you missed my opening comments about the 

Tomah VA and the daughter of Thomas Baer, who told me over the 

phone that if she had only known—in other words, if the Office of 

Inspector General had only issued a report so the public understood the problems of the Tomah VA, she never would have taken 

her father where he basically died of neglect in that facility. So 

these are issues of life and death, and thank you for your passion 

on this. 

Mr. Horowitz, we obviously have, this Committee, I have had 

some real problems with the VA Acting Inspector General, Mr. 

Griffin. Because of the Tomah VA situation, we have been trying 

to get information, trying to get the case file. It was revealed in a 

news report that there are 140 different inspections and investigations where reports have been issued that have not been made public. We could not get the case file. We could not get the communications, even though we worked with the Office of Inspector General 
31 

for a number of months. We finally had to take the extraordinary 

step of issuing a subpoena. 

Now, we have the power to issue that subpoena. I wish we have 

not had to do that. We issued that subpoena on April 29, looking 

for a response by May 13. We have received some response, but not 

complete responsiveness. 

I want to just ask you, because I am actually kind of shocked 

that the Office of Inspector General subpoenaed the offices of 

POGO. Do Offices of Inspectors General have that power to subpoena a group like POGO? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Under the IG Act, Inspectors General have authority to issue documentary subpoenas to outside organizations. I 

do not know the facts of—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Do you think that is an appropriate subpoena to that group, looking to find out who the whistleblowers 

are? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I would not in my position consider issuing a subpoena to any organization to look for information about whistleblowers. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Has CIGIE opened up an investigation in 

the Integrity Committee against this Office of Inspector General? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I would have to reach out to the Integrity Committee, because that is chaired by the FBI by statute. It is not—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I would ask that you check into that for me. 

Mr. Epstein. 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Yes, I would actually respectfully disagree with IG 

Horowitz. I actually do not think the VA OIG under the Inspector 

General Act has any authority to subpoena any outside entity that 

has no purpose that deals with Federal program administration. 

Subpoenaing an organization that is out there protecting whistleblowers and conducting oversight over the Federal Government has 

nothing to do with a programmatic function. It is clearly ultra vires 

under the Inspector General Act. 

Chairman JOHNSON. From my standpoint, I think one of the primary roles of the Offices of Inspectors General is to investigate 

cases where the agencies and departments are retaliating against 

whistleblowers. I mean, whistleblowers are really kind of—shining 

the sunlight that whistleblowers bring to Congress and bring to the 

public, it is about the only way we can reform and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government. And so we offer those whistleblower protections so that we encourage those people to come 

forward. 

When the Office of Inspector General—and that is, of course, 

what happened with Charles Edwards. I think that is probably the 

most egregious problem with the Inspector General Charles Edwards. He was retaliating against people that were issuing reports 

that he did not like. 

So, Ms. Brian, you talked about in your testimony that Richard 

Griffin, his office had undermined whistleblowers. Can you describe 

that a little bit more? 

Ms. BRIAN. Well, as soon as the subpoena occurred, we felt it was 

our responsibility to alert people who were contacting us that such 

an inquiry had taken place and that we certainly intended not to 

comply with it. But as you can imagine—and there was some won-
32 

derful support from former Senator Coburn also who wrote to them 

demanding an explanation of why they were doing this. 

But the bottom line was it creates a chilling effect because now 

you have people who thought, OK, well, this is a safe place to go, 

and we are doing everything that we can to protect their identity, 

but to think that there is an office that has the capacity—whether 

they do or not, they were trying to exercise the capacity to identify 

who the people were who were coming to us. It had a terrible 

chilling effect. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And, again, was that the only purpose of 

that subpoena? Is there any other justification for the subpoena 

you received from the Office of Inspector General for Veterans Affairs? 

Ms. BRIAN. You would have to ask them, but I think the fact that 

we said we are very happy to work with them to identify what information we were getting without revealing identifying details of 

who the people were, and they were not interested in any conversations of that kind. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Can anybody, any of the three witnesses, 

speak to other instances of this type of retaliation against whistleblowers or retaliation within the Offices of Inspectors General? We 

obviously saw it with Charles Edwards. We are seeing it here, I 

think, with the Office of Inspector General at the VA. Are there 

other instances of this? Is this widespread, or is this really an 

anomaly? 

Ms. BRIAN. Well, Senator, as I mentioned in my oral testimony, 

there is currently a case involving—and this is actually a confirmed 

IG at the Commerce Department, who has been found through 

House investigations to have retaliated against whistleblowers. 

And as it turned out, it has only recently become clear that Todd 

Zinser had withheld evidence that, in fact, he had been found to 

have retaliated previously against whistleblowers from the confirmation process. And so we have sort of a current case where you 

have someone who is a sitting IG where that has taken place, and 

that actually—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Is he still in that position? 

Ms. BRIAN. Yes, he is. And we have asked the President to remove him. So that is something that I think is also worth noting. 

When you mentioned earlier—of course, we all feel a great urgency 

in filling the vacancy, for example, at the VA IG, but once there 

is a nominee, I really would encourage the Congress, and the Senate in particular, to take the role of confirmation very seriously. 

That is part of why you need to not have such a lengthy process 

before the nomination, because you need to give the Congress time 

to do a thorough vetting as well. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, this Committee is dedicated to that. 

Mr. Epstein, I do not want the moment to pass, because I know 

you have done an awful lot of work with the State Department’s 

Office of Inspector General in terms of how they may or may not 

have responded to the revelation that Secretary Clinton was storing probably official e-mails on a private server. Can you just give 

us your thoughts in terms of how a permanent Inspector General 

should have responded to knowledge that Secretary Clinton was, I 

believe, violating State Department protocols and policies? 
33 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Well, Senator, we know for a fact, based off NARA’s 

response to the same inquiry we sent to the OIG, that the OIG has 

records in its possession concerning whether Hillary Clinton was 

complying with the Federal Records Act. And I think in this case, 

Harold Geisel, you know, from a lot of work that has been made 

public by others, was viewed even by GAO as having a conflict of 

interest. So I think what a permanent IG would have done is 

avoided that conflict of interest that we have all discussed and actually been able to get that information public in a report. 

We know that Mr. Linick, who is now the IG, has been very active in doing thorough reports about e-mail record preservation at 

the State Department, and that is something that had he been in 

place earlier, we may have had a lot of these problems avoided. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Are you aware whether Mr. Geisel was 

aware of Secretary Clinton’s violation of the policies? 

Mr. EPSTEIN. From the records that my organization has received, we know that there is a substantial likelihood that at the 

time he was the Acting IG at the State Department, there were 

records or communications in his possession that were shared with 

the National Archives concerning Hillary Clinton’s record preservation, but I can only speculate as to whether he was directly involved or whether it was others in his office. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. But, again, you do not have the documented evidence of that. All you know is that there were some documents or a document that was responsive to a FOIA request that 

you simply cannot get hold of? 

Mr. EPSTEIN. Yes, the National Archives has said that those 

records are subject to deliberative process. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Thank you. 

Senator Carper—oh, go ahead. 

Ms. BRIAN. Mr. Chairman, I am sorry. I realized there is another 

example that I made a quick reference to in my oral testimony of 

a current retaliation case. Yesterday it was reported by McClatchy 

newspapers that a Federal judge is investigating allegations that 

the then-Acting IG of the Department of Defense destroyed documents during the high-profile leak investigation of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. We have seen the letter to the Federal 

judge, and the Federal magistrate has sent to the Public Integrity 

Section of the Justice Department, requesting that they look into 

this matter. And the two people who were referred, one was the 

then-Acting Inspector General Lynne Halbrooks, who has just retired, but also the current General Counsel of the DOD IG, Henry 

Shelley. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you for that. Mr. Horowitz, I 

think your Integrity Section is going to be somewhat busy here. 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. I want to turn away from Hillary Clinton for a 

moment and get back on track here just a little bit. The situation 

we have here is we still have too many IG vacancies. I am troubled 

by the fact that there has not been a Senate-confirmed IG at Interior for over 5 years and concerned why there has not been a Senate-confirmed IG at the Veterans Administration for more than a 

year. And I have been worked hard, along with my colleagues here, 

to make sure that that is brought to the attention of the adminis-
34 

tration, including the very top of the administration, so we can get 

some action. And we are seeing some action, and we need to see 

some more. So I hope that will remain the focus of what we are 

about here today. We are wasting too much money in this government. Any big organization wastes money. And we do not have it 

to spare, so we need to redouble our efforts. 

I have maybe one question for Mr. Horowitz and then another 

one, if I can, for Ms. Brian. They are short questions. Hopefully, 

short answers. 

Mr. Horowitz, as you have talked with some of the highly qualified candidates who have been considering going through this process to fill a vacancy, has the difficulty of navigating the process and 

the length of time it takes impacted their decisions to put themselves forward as a candidate? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. It has certainly made them ask themselves the 

question about the process, and, frankly, I had that situation myself, having spent a year going through this process and at a time 

when I was at a law firm and people wondering, am I leaving, am 

I staying. Fortunately, I live and lived in the D.C. area, so I did 

not also have the problem of wondering what was I going to do 

with my family, were they going to have to move, were we going 

to move in the middle of a school year, et cetera. Those are very 

difficult issues for any nominee to have to sit and wait and wonder. 

Senator CARPER. I remember turning to my wife, when I was trying to—I mentioned earlier I had been nominated by President 

Clinton to serve on the Amtrak Board, and I had to go through all 

this vetting, which I just thought was crazy. And I remember turning to my wife at some point in time and saying, ‘‘There is no way 

I am going to finish doing this. This is just way too much.’’ And 

she calmed me down, and so I ended up serving, and I am glad 

that I did. But, boy, what a pain. 

Ms. Brian, a question for you. I know you know many of the potential candidates for becoming Inspectors General. Do you think 

the way the process works or does not work is a barrier for some 

who we would be lucky to have as IGs in our agencies? 

Ms. BRIAN. I certainly do think that the current process is a barrier, and by that, what I mean is that it is sort of a black hole, and 

I think more transparency, at least for those who have been nominated or think they might be nominated, would be very helpful to 

encouraging people to serve. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

The other thing I want to say in closing, I finished my active 

duty tour in the Navy in the middle of 1973, moved to Delaware 

to get an MBA from the University of Delaware. The first week I 

was at Delaware, September 1973, I got in my Volkswagen 

Karmann Ghia with a rebuilt engine, and I drove up the Kirkwood 

Highway from the University of Delaware to the VA hospital. I had 

in hand my DD–214, which indicated I was eligible for certain benefits. And I got to the hospital, it turned out I was eligible for some 

dental benefits, and I met a young dentist who was going to examine me and figure out what, if any, work needed to be done. I will 

never forget what he said to me then. He was just out of dental 

school, and I think he was there for a short tour before he actually 

went off to practice on his own. And he said, ‘‘Mr. Carper, you need 
35 

to know this.’’ He said, ‘‘This is not a very good hospital. They do 

not do very good work here. The morale is not good.’’ It turn out 

they had 16-bed wards, had a pharmacy that was messed up. They 

did not do outpatient surgery, and they had a bad reputation. And 

he said it was well deserved. 

That was the fall of 1973. I was elected State treasurer 3 years 

later, to Congress 6 years after that, and I have spent since 1983 

trying to make sure that the quality of care at that hospital and 

the two outpatient clinics in central and southern Delaware provide 

exceptional care for our veterans. I am very proud of the work that 

they do. Can they do better? Sure. We can all do better. And they 

are under the gun to do better, and I expect them to, and they expect to. 

As it turned out, if you go back 6 years ago, across the country 

we had reports of as many as 100,000 people dying in hospitals because of mistakes—not VA hospitals, not VA outpatient clinics, but 

hospitals writ large across the country. And somebody said, ‘‘We 

have to do something about that.’’ And we have been doing something about that in this country. And whether someone is dying in 

a VA hospital in Delaware or your States or Wisconsin or any other 

place, one death is too many, especially if it is a death caused by 

a mistake or inappropriate attention or care. And we have to bear 

down on them and continue to. 

But this has been a problem, writ large, for health care delivery 

in this country for some time, and we are doing better, writ large, 

across the country. And, clearly, we have room for improvement in 

the VA system, and I am committed—I know our Chairman is and 

certainly Senator Baldwin—to make sure that we do that across 

the country. 

To the extent we can do better by our veterans through a better 

watchdog at VA, I want to make sure that we do that, and I am 

committed to making sure that we fill that position soon. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

I want to thank all the witnesses. You took a lot of time and prepared some very thoughtful testimony. We appreciate your answers 

to our questions. 

I think in terms of the two purposes of this hearing, we have certainly fulfilled the first. I think we certainly understand how important these positions of permanent Inspector General are. These 

people have to have integrity. They need to be totally accountable 

and completely transparent. That is absolutely necessary. 

Unfortunately, we really did not find out why these vacancies 

have gone on so long. We will continue to work with the White 

House to try and determine and get that answer. We will continue 

to work with the White House and apply pressure on them to get 

these appointments made, particularly with the VA. And, Mr. 

Horowitz, I really count on you working with the CIGIE to take a 

look at the Integrity Section here and investigate some of these 

issues that have been raised during this hearing. And this Committee also will—we are dedicated to move quickly on the nomination of Ms. Ochoa for the Inspector General for the GSA. 
36 

With that, let me just say the hearing record will remain open 

for another 15 days until June 18 at 5 p.m. for the submission of 

statements and questions for the record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
(37) 

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