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45–951 CC 1998

OVERSIGHT OF INVESTIGATIVE PRACTICES OF

INSPECTORS GENERAL

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENT REFORM 

AND OVERSIGHT 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 24, 1997

Serial No. 105–71

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

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT 

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman 

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York 

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois 

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

STEPHEN HORN, California 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia 

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South 

Carolina 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

MICHAEL PAPPAS, New Jersey 

VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas 

BOB BARR, Georgia 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

TOM LANTOS, California 

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia 

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

GARY A. CONDIT, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, 

DC 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

JIM TURNER, Texas 

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

(Independent) 

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director 

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director 

WILLIAM MOSCHELLA, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian 

JUDITH MCCOY, Chief Clerk 

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia 

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida 

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South 

Carolina 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

MARK UNCAPHER, Counsel 

JOHN HYNES, Professional Staff Member 

ANDREA MILLER, Clerk 

MARK STEPHENSON, Minority Professional Staff Member 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on June 24, 1997 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of: 

Goss, Hon. Porter J., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Florida ............................................................................................................ 18

Hamilton, Hon. Lee H., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana ...................................................................................................... 8

Williams-Bridgers, Jacquelyn, Inspector General, Department of State; 

Eleanor Hill, Inspector General, Department of Defense, chair, PCIE 

Legislation Committee; Michael Bromwich, Inspector General, Department of Justice; Patrick E. McFarland, Inspector General, Office of 

Personnel Management, chair, PCIE Investigations Committee; Robert 

M. Bryant, Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of Investigations, Criminal Investigative Division, chair, PCIE Integrity Committee ................... 44

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: 

Bromwich, Michael, Inspector General, Department of Justice, prepared 

statement of ................................................................................................... 89

Bryant, Robert M., Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of Investigations, 

Criminal Investigative Division, chair, PCIE Integrity Committee, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 154

Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Illinois, prepared statement of ................................................................ 6

Goss, Hon. Porter J., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Florida: 

Letter dated June 3, 1997 ........................................................................ 19

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 26

Hamilton, Hon. Lee H., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 12

Hill, Eleanor, Inspector General, Department of Defense, chair, PCIE 

Legislation Committee, prepared statement of .......................................... 76

Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 3

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 34

McFarland, Patrick E., Inspector General, Office of Personnel Management, chair, PCIE Investigations Committee: 

Information concerning 1992 language ................................................... 203

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 109

Williams-Bridgers, Jacquelyn, Inspector General, Department of State: 

Copies of brochures ................................................................................... 193

Letter dated July 31, 1997 ....................................................................... 177

Memorandum of Understanding .............................................................. 46

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 64

Response to statement of Hon. Lee H. Hamilton ................................... 182

(1)

OVERSIGHT OF INVESTIGATIVE PRACTICES 

OF INSPECTORS GENERAL 

TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1997 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Horn, Davis of Virginia, Sununu, 

Maloney, and Davis of Illinois. 

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief counsel; 

Mark Uncapher, counsel; John Hynes, professional staff member; 

Andrea Miller, clerk; and Mark Stephenson, minority professional 

staff member. 

Mr. HORN. The Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology will come to order. 

Inspectors General serve to protect the integrity of Federal programs and resources. Through their audits and investigations, Inspectors General seek to determine whether program officers, contractors, Federal workers, grantees, and others are conforming 

with regulations and laws. 

The Offices of Inspectors General were established by the Inspector General Act of 1978. To carry out their responsibilities, the Offices of Inspectors General have broad investigative authority. They 

have access to documents relating to programs and operations 

within their area of responsibility. They have the ability to administer oaths, affirmations, or affidavits and the power of subpoena. 

Recently, questions have been raised about investigative techniques used by some Inspectors General. These concerns will be 

presented here today by Representative Hamilton, a very distinguished colleague, who is scheduled to testify on the first panel. We 

are fortunate to be joined by a talented group of witnesses who can 

help us examine the concerns and evaluate proposed changes. We 

will discuss standard investigative practices by Inspectors General, 

including types of investigations, cooperation with other law enforcement bodies, and arrest authority. We are particularly interested in communications with witnesses and witness access to 

counsel. 

As we engage in this discussion, it is worth observing that next 

year will mark the 20th anniversary of the Inspector General Act. 

We should seize this opportunity to broadly assess the act and reVerDate jul 14 2003 10:52 Dec 15, 2003 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HEARINGS\45951 45951
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assess it. Our focus today must be the investigations and law enforcement role of Inspectors General, but we also would be wise to 

step back and view the larger picture: How well is the Inspector 

General Act working? What strengths and weaknesses have been 

revealed during the past 19 years? What improvements could be 

made? 

We will hear from two panels today. First, Representatives Lee 

Hamilton of Indiana and Porter Goss of Florida will discuss their 

thoughts and actions on this issue. 

Second, we will hear from four Inspectors General, as well as the 

Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division of the 

FBI. Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers is Inspector General of the Department of State; Eleanor Hill is Inspector General, Department 

of Defense, and chair of the legislation committee of the President’s 

Council on Integrity and Efficiency; Michael Bromwich, who is Inspector General, Department of Justice; Patrick McFarland, who is 

Inspector General, Office of Personnel Management and chair of 

the Investigations Committee of the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency; Mr. Robert M. Bryant, Assistant Director of the 

Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Investigative Division, 

and chair of the Integrity Committee on the President’s Council on 

Integrity and Efficiency. We welcome all of our witnesses. 

We are delighted to see two of the most respected Members of 

the House before us. I believe we will start with Mr. Hamilton of 

Indiana. 

[The prepared statements of Hon. Stephen Horn and Hon. Danny 

K. Davis follow:]

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STATEMENT OF HON. LEE H. HAMILTON, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA 

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

I appreciate your extending an invitation to me to testify, and I 

want to say at the outset how pleased I am here to be with my 

friend and colleague, Congressman Goss. He and I tilted different 

ways on an amendment before the House the other day, but I think 

we basically approach this problem in the same manner, and recognize the difficulties of it. 

I am very pleased that your subcommittee has chosen to focus on 

this issue at this time. We had an amendment on the floor. I think 

it is not necessary for me to go into the details of that amendment, 

unless you invite me to do so. But let me talk more generally about 

the problem. 

I appreciate that there are different and expedient equities involved in balancing the effective and thorough investigative ability 

of the Inspectors General with fair process for individual employees 

who are the subject of these investigations. I think we can find that 

balance, but I don’t think we have it right now, at least not with 

respect to the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of 

State. 

I can speak here to what I understand of the investigative practices and operations of the Office of the Inspector General and the 

Department of State. I understand that the objective of your hearing is broader and you may want to look at the similarities that 

may exist or not exist with the Inspector General community 

across Washington; what problems, if any, may be specific or particularly acute in particular offices. 

We are dealing, of course, with a State Department authorization 

legislation. So my amendment was confined to the Department of 

State. I am aware of many complaints about the investigative conduct of that office. These complaints come from political appointees 

of both parties, as well as from career Foreign Service officers and 

civil service employees. 

It is not my intention to limit the IGs’ investigative authority. 

My provision was intended to provide individuals basic information 

in a timely manner, notice of basic rights, identification of who will 

be present at a formal interview, and an opportunity to talk to 

counsel. Without going into specific cases, and certainly not using 

names, let me just summarize a couple of these cases. 

In one case that has come to my attention, the Inspector General’s office, again at the State Department, carried out a hurried 

investigation of the individual’s actions, reached conclusions about 

the need for disciplinary action, referred the matter to the Department of Justice, and released its report to the press. 

At each step along the way, the individual under investigation 

was provided inadequate notice and opportunity to review and/or 

to respond to the serious allegations against that person. None of 

the allegations against that person were substantiated by the independent counsel’s review. 

In another case, again summarizing and not using any names, 

we had an individual who is placed under investigation and called 

to an interview as a target, without receiving advanced notice and 

where the prosecutor, rather than the IG, conducted the interview. 

9

That prosecutor also confirmed to the newspaper most sensitive to 

the individual in his position at the time that the individual was 

under criminal investigation. The spokesperson for the Inspector 

General seconded that confirmation, despite policy guidance that 

the Office of the Inspector General did not comment in any way on 

pending investigations. 

In another case involving a Foreign Service employee, the IG had 

the individual under investigation, a physician, called to a medical 

review board as a pretext to elicit information and later used 

against him the statements he made before the board. The IG’s office also devoted extensive staff and financial resources to overseas 

travel in the course of that investigation. In the end, the case was 

settled administratively with a de minimis financial penalty imposed on the individual. 

The pattern has been similar in other cases. For example, individuals will appear voluntarily for an interview with the IG staff, 

having no indication that there is an investigation of a criminal nature against them pending. They enter the room to find a criminal 

prosecutor from the Justice Department who will conduct the interview or, in several cases involving career officers, Virginia Department of Taxation Criminal Division representatives. They generally 

do not arrive for the scheduled interview with an attorney or even 

a union representative. 

There are several other cases which have been called to my attention, cases involving career officers and selective prosecution, 

varying methods of dealing with press requests and other aspects 

of the operation of the IG office at the State Department that have 

a dramatic effect on the lives of individuals under investigation. 

Several of them have been forced to incur thousands of dollars in 

legal bills just to clear their names. 

Criminal investigations and prosecutions involve a balance between the basic fair process for individuals under investigation and 

sufficient authority to investigate and prosecute criminal actions. 

Inspectors General are in a gray zone. They appear to view themselves as identical to Federal law enforcement agencies, but they 

are not prosecutors. They are not statutory law enforcement, although incrementally, through executive branch agreements and 

other means, they have gained broad investigative authority in recent years. So finding the appropriate balance in the IG context is 

a delicate task. 

Most State Department employees do not anticipate a criminal 

interview with prosecutors when they are asked to attend an IG 

meeting because they may come in contact with IG employees on 

a variety of administrative matters. In fact, over 80 percent of the 

State Department IG office is dedicated to noncriminal matters: 

Audits, administrative investigations, and Embassy inspections. 

Upon finding himself in an unanticipated criminal investigation, 

the employee may realize that he may insist that the interview be 

halted until he has an attorney present. In practice, individuals, 

and I think this is understandable, are often too intimidated at 

that point in the process to recall and/or to exercise their right to 

counsel, particularly when they are not specifically informed that 

such a right exists. They can reasonably think that if they do not 

cooperate, it could jeopardize their careers. 

10

So I see a problem when the State Department Inspector General 

sees her agents as equal in all respects to FBI agents in requirements for notice and other aspects carrying out interviews. It 

seems to me that if the prosecutor or police officer calls an individual for an interview, the average person should be alerted to 

bring his attorney. That is simply not the case with the IG. The 

average employee called to the IG’s office is not likely to bring 

counsel. Certainly if he is not informed of what is happening. 

In effect, the IG office gives cover to prosecutors on some occasions to expand on their normal investigative activities and authorities by allowing them to confront suspects without warning. I 

understand that the same IG seems to object to what she views as 

undue restrictions on her powers. I read her correspondence, as 

well as letters from other agencies’ Inspectors General. These letters describe my position as attempting to grant special rights to 

the State Department employees, setting a dangerous precedent, 

severely undermining the authority of the Inspectors General to 

carry out responsibilities. 

These are very strong words. I think these words seriously 

mischaracterize my intent and the impact of the provision I have 

proposed. I am not trying to restrict anybody’s investigation, and 

I do not understand how giving individuals basic protections in the 

process should impede investigations. All we are asking is fair 

process, a process that reflects the ordinary components of due 

process. 

My experience in leading investigations, the product of an investigation will be seen as credible and enduring only when the process that leads to it can be perceived as fair by all of the parties 

involved. 

Let me conclude. 

With respect to the Office of Inspector General at the Department of State, during the entire investigation, the IG gathers evidence for prosecution and receives guidance from prosecutors of 

what evidence to gather and how to structure the investigation. I 

do not seek to halt that practice. 

The IG conducts undercover investigations with the Justice Department. I am not trying to stop this kind of cooperative investigation within the guidelines that govern undercover investigations. 

Certain investigations and interviews involve national security 

matters for which the law already provides greater investigative 

freedoms. I do not intend to limit the U.S. Government’s ability to 

properly carry on intelligence investigations. 

I am very pleased that you are turning your attention to this 

issue. An individual who is the target of an IG criminal investigation should receive notice of what is happening before he or she 

walks into an interview where a prosecutor could be interrogating 

him or her. The individual should have that kind of basic information. 

The information pamphlet developed several years ago by the 

IG’s office is inadequate in content and in availability. It does not 

inform the employee of his or her rights, and it is not available in 

a timely manner. It needs significant updating and far better and 

more regular distribution to State, USIA, and ACDA employees. 

11

The press operations and policy of the State IG need a much closer look. I would hope that requiring a one-time report to Congress 

would be one way of ensuring such an internal review of policy 

guidance and practice. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. HORN. We thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Lee H. Hamilton follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Mr. Goss, the gentleman from Florida. 

STATEMENT OF HON. PORTER J. GOSS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

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

I, too, am very grateful that you have convened this hearing on 

this subject, and I am also very grateful to my colleague, Mr. Hamilton, for whom I have huge respect, as he knows. I have had the 

pleasure of working with him on what used to be the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is now the HIRC committee. I have served 

with him a number of times and circumstances, and I think that 

we are both here on the same issue. 

In addition to congratulating you for focusing in on this subject, 

I want to make sure that we, who live in a system of checks and 

balances, are doing our job of watching the watchdogs, because I 

think that is what this really is about. As chairman of the House 

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I rely very heavily on 

the IG not just at CIA, but at State, Justice, Defense, Energy and 

elsewhere, where there are intelligence matters. 

The reason obviously is that much of intelligence goes on behind 

the curtain and we have to be able to assure the American people 

that there are no excesses or improprieties happening there. We regard the IG’s as allies in that effort. 

Any time there is a possibility that we are going to pass a regulation or take an action here that might impede their ability to do 

the job to the greatest degree appropriate, I think it is very important that we look at that. And that is what we are doing today. 

I think we should look at it across the board, not just at one 

agency, and I know that Mr. Hamilton has come forward with a series of particulars on three cases. I am familiar with one of those 

cases quite well, but not as familiar with the other two cases. And 

I would ask that you would accept my full prepared statement 

which deals with those cases, which I will not go into now in the 

interest of time. 

I would also ask that you accept for the committee’s consideration the written correspondence which accompanies that, which, 

in fact, is the same as Mr. Hamilton referred to, conversations and 

letters that went back and forth over that. 

Mr. HORN. Without objection, they will all be put in the record 

at this point. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. HORN. As you know, your full statements are automatically 

submitted in the record. 

Mr. GOSS. I understand. 

The question of creating new rights also comes up here. You can 

interpret what was going on in a number of ways as you get into 

facts. I think that what we are looking for here is a consistent, predictable understanding between the IG and the people that the IG 

has oversight over, and I think that that can be worked out. 

I have not read the handbook or the brochure, and I don’t know 

how far it goes. My view is that Mr. Hamilton is right that if you 

are going to be confronted by the prosecutor, you probably should 

have some kind of clue that that is going to happen. On the other 

hand, I wouldn’t want that to happen in such a way that it would 

frustrate the ability of the IG to conduct an investigation, because 

if you go out and tell everybody that they are under suspicion of 

doing something wrong, it could foreclose serious, serious opportunities to catch wrongdoers. And I am familiar with enough cases 

that have gone on in intelligence and surrounding areas that I 

would be concerned about that. 

So that is the balancing act that I think we are both asking you 

to find today: What is the proper dimension of this broad investigative authority? And when you determine what it is, I hope it will 

apply to all IG’s or at least all IG’s that come across matters on 

my radar scope. 

That basically is the essence of what I wanted to say, Mr. Horn. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Porter J. Goss follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, let’s try to look at some of the pieces. We will 

take 10 minutes for each Member. We have three other Members 

with us. We are glad to see some of the vigorous people on the committee here this morning. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mr. Chairman, before you begin, I know 

that I am going to have to——

Mr. HORN. Insert the opening statements? 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Yes, I would like to. 

Mr. HORN. We will insert them after mine as read. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. All right. I know that I will have to leave. 

Mr. HORN. All right. Without objection. Sure. 

In terms of your opinion here, should investigators to the Offices 

of Inspector General be held to the same procedural standards as 

other Federal law enforcement investigators? Is there any difference here we can point out that investigators in an Office of Inspector General has that other investigators do not have, whether 

you take some of the agency services or the FBI, U.S. attorneys? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, Mr. Chairman, I don’t pretend to be any 

kind of expert on that, but I don’t think it is clear that the Office 

of the Inspector General, at the State Department or any other department, is the equivalent of the Federal law enforcement officers 

or of the FBI. And under any circumstances it doesn’t seem to me 

that an agency can take liberties with due process. 

I understand that investigations are very important, and I want 

to emphasize I do not want to cut down on investigative capabilities, but I don’t think it is correct to say that an Office of the Inspector General is equivalent to a Federal law enforcement agency. 

Now, maybe they would like to be, but I don’t think they are. 

Mr. HORN. Is there any reason that other Inspectors General 

should not have the same rules apply to them that Representative 

Hamilton is seeking to apply to the Department of State? Should 

it be all or nothing? 

Mr. GOSS. My view is it is very important that it be across the 

board. Because there is inevitably collaboration between agencies, 

an unevenness will create some working difficulties, if not perhaps 

frustrate the pursuit of justice in some of these cases. So I think 

it is extremely important that what you are doing here today looks 

at it generically. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, I certainly would agree with that. 

I want to emphasize the point that I think is obvious to everybody, 

and that is the amendment that I offered was offered in the context 

of a State Department authorization bill, and I have no experience 

with the Inspector General offices in other departments. But you 

would want uniformity. I think Mr. Goss is exactly right about 

that. 

Mr. HORN. Mr. Hamilton, in his testimony, mentioned that the 

rules in the Department of State were that you do not leak investigations to the press. Yet a member of the Inspector General staff 

did just that. What kind of punishment? Firing on the spot? 

Mr. GOSS. Let me put it this way: If I had my opportunity to correct one thing in this town and exact a penalty for it, it would be 

to stop the leakage that goes on. I am very sensitive to it in the 

responsibilities that I have. I know Mr. Hamilton is very responsive to this problem as well, because we have suffered the damage 

32

and it has hurt the U.S. interest. Irresponsible release of information, in fact, has caused the death of some American citizens in the 

employ of the U.S. Government serving their country. 

It is a very serious matter. It is a daily occurrence in this city. 

People apparently trade on those relationships with the press. I 

don’t know whether the leakage is worse in the executive branch 

or on the Hill. I am told it is worse in the executive branch. And 

I think that may be true. 

I think that there should be a very clear understanding that 

when you are out of bounds on privileged information, whether it 

is classified or in executive session or personnel matters that 

should not be released, tax information, any type of matter which 

is privileged. If that is leaked out and we catch the person, I would 

say yes, that would be a job to eliminating circumstance. I feel that 

strongly about it. 

Mr. HORN. Any comment on that, Mr. Hamilton? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Again, my focus on this is a very narrow one, and 

in the particular case that I have in mind here, the State Department IG’s office confirmed to State that the individual who was 

then a senior advisor on U.S. policy, that that individual was under 

investigation, and that her office had forwarded the matter to the 

Justice Department, even though her own office had not completed 

its own investigation. 

The Justice Department prosecutor, who had taken over the case, 

disclosed to a major newspaper that a criminal referral was sent 

over and I am investigating that, I am quoting him now precisely, 

and then when that prosecutor was questioned by the individual’s 

attorney as to why he would make such a statement to the press, 

he responded by saying, ‘‘you live by the leak, you die by the leak.’’

Now, this is grossly inappropriate behavior by the Inspector General or by the prosecutor. But I am not interested in prosecuting 

these people or penalizing them. I am interested in the future. And 

I think we need to write into the law basic protections for people 

under investigation. 

Mr. HORN. Since we have no caution light, I see in this hearing 

room, we will make it 11 minutes to a side. My last question is to 

Mr. Goss. 

If you walked into a room where the Inspector General has people from the U.S. attorney or the FBI or whatever, shouldn’t you 

be notified who is in that room and warned about possible criminal 

action? 

Mr. GOSS. I think that that would be very reasonable and very 

fair. The question of how much responsibility lies on the individual 

and what the individual is told that actually would motivate the 

individual to get into that room seems to me is part of that process, 

but I don’t believe in ambushes. I think that is a very bad idea. 

There are investigations, that is one thing, that may be done 

quietly or surreptitiously, but ambushing, certainly not, I would 

not agree that that is a good practice. 

I would like to add one point and a further thought with regard 

to the leaks. 

Part of the problem in dealing with leaks in this town is when 

you are in good faith doing your job and then somebody else leaks 

information and the press comes to you to say, what do you have 

33

to say about this, we have got information that your committee is 

doing this, et cetera, you know how difficult it is to protect your 

committee or your activity that you are doing. 

The right answer is, I can neither confirm nor deny that, but the 

tendency as human beings is, boy, you are so far wrong and that 

is outrageous somebody has leaked that, and I am afraid there is 

a little bit of distinction in human nature. When you are talking 

about leaks you have to look at the whole ripple across the pond. 

Mr. HORN. Thank you. I now yield to the ranking minority member, Mrs. Maloney of New York, 11 minutes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all may my opening statement be put in the record? 

Mr. HORN. Without objection, and anybody else’s can come in, all 

without objection. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney follows:]

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Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Hamilton, I understand it is not your intent 

to stop the Inspectors General from carrying out investigative activities such as reviewing records, interviewing witnesses, and conferring with the prosecutor. Nor, I understand, is it your intention 

to stop undercover investigations. Do I understand the position correctly? 

Mr. HAMILTON. You do understand it correctly. I have nothing in 

the amendment that I had that goes to the question of the power 

of investigation of the Inspector General. It simply goes to the 

question of the rights of the person who is under investigation. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Why do you think it is important for the State 

IG to provide notice to an individual of his or her right when they 

are going to be interviewed as the likely subject or target of a 

criminal investigation, especially since the FBI and Justice Department may not provide such notice? 

Mr. HAMILTON. To me, it is just a simple matter of fairness. 

Look, if you walk into a room without being notified that you are 

under investigation, and you are confronted with a prosecutor from 

the Department of Justice, it would scare you to death, most people. And I just think that is grossly unfair, Mrs. Maloney. If there 

is a criminal investigation going forward, a person has every right 

to know that so that he or she can come into that room with an 

attorney, prepared to respond or not respond as he, the person 

under investigation and the attorney, see fit. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to ask, really, Congressman Goss 

the same question that I asked Mr. Hamilton. Do you disagree with 

him on this point? 

Mr. GOSS. No, I don’t disagree at all. It is a question of fair play. 

There are a couple of different answers. 

Mrs. MALONEY. But only providing notice before going into the 

room, do you agree notice should be provided to an individual of 

his or her rights when they are going to be interviewed as a likely 

subject of a target of an investigation? 

Mr. GOSS. The answer is yes. I think that the individual should 

know what is going on. The question is, what his or her rights is 

is a very difficult issue here. We are talking about creating some 

new rights. Criminals do not have rights unless they are in custody 

or in a certain part of a pathway of due process has taken place. 

For instance, before we go through that gateway, and the question 

of whether you are going so far as to frustrate an investigation, an 

inquiry as it were, or whether or not you are providing due process, 

is one of the things that you are going to be examining. 

Right now, if you have your whits about you and you walk into 

a room and you see a bunch of people and an inquiry, let’s say you 

got into the room because you got a telephone call that said, please 

come to that room—it depends on who made the telephone call or 

you got a notice or however you got there—you know you are doing 

something. You may not have enough information about what it is. 

Well, you have the right to walk out. You can turn around and 

walk out and say, I don’t like this. Who are these people? You have 

that right. Those rights are there, and I think it is fine to make 

those rights known to the individuals if they get put in this kind 

of a position. 

36

Another thing that happens, and this is true in one of these 

cases and I don’t want to refer to specifics because I think you are 

dealing in a generic manner, but one of the things that happens 

is some of these cases are very celebrated. They are much discussed in the public. They are in the newspaper. There is no secret 

here that there is something going on, and for somebody to walk 

into a room who has been the subject of much newspaper discussion or a case that has been discussed in the newspaper and suddenly say, gee, I can’t believe the sky is falling, when the papers 

have been screaming for days, it seems to me that is a little disingenuous as opposed to somebody who is just ambushed outright, 

which I would be terribly opposed to. So it is hard to answer your 

question specifically. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to ask Mr. Hamilton, do you agree 

with Mr. Goss’ statement in his testimony that, one, our procedures 

for our IG’s should be consistent, predictable, clearly understandable, and applied across the board? Would you agree with that 

statement? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Then, Mr. Goss, what is confusing about this is 

that when you talk, you seem to agree. You seem to think that 

there shouldn’t be an ambush, that people should have notice, if it 

is truly, in fact, a criminal investigation. 

As one who worked in city and State government, in fact wrote 

the IG law for the city of New York, we were always taught in Government, elected or not, to cooperate with IG’s; they were the 

watchdogs on Government. 

Mr. GOSS. Absolutely. 

Mrs. MALONEY. It was not unusual for IG’s to call any employee 

in the city or State and ask for information about a particular problem. And it would not be unusual for a person to think that they 

were cooperating with making Government work better and not a 

target themselves. 

If there is a problem—IG’s often say there is a problem with the 

Parking Violations Bureau; do you know anything about it? I mean, 

I agree that you should provide notice, and you say you should provide notice. 

Mr. GOSS. Absolutely. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And I agree with you completely that it should 

be consistent, predictable, and understandable, and I don’t see how 

it can be consistent, predictable, and understandable unless you 

have clear guidance to employees that, No. 1, you are supposed to 

cooperate with IG’s, they are trying to make our Government work 

better; No. 2, if you are the subject of a criminal investigation, you 

will be so notified. I mean, I think that you have to let people know 

what is going on, and you agree with that. 

Mr. GOSS. Yes, I do. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So I don’t quite see where you two disagree. You 

probably said you need notice and he is saying you need notice. 

Mr. GOSS. It is really a question of how the process is carried out 

and what the circumstances of each case are, which is why this is 

going to be difficult to do. 

I think that if you are going to summon somebody in——

37

Mrs. MALONEY. But may I ask one question then. When you said 

you have to know each case is different. 

Mr. GOSS. Uh-huh. 

Mrs. MALONEY. But if you are going to change the rules for each 

case——

Mr. GOSS. No, we aren’t going to change the rules. 

Mrs. MALONEY. It won’t be consistent, predictable, and understandable, as you said. 

Mr. GOSS. I am not talking about changing the rules. I am talking about having consistency in the rules. I am very definitely talking about applying the same rules to different circumstances fairly, 

and the point is you have different circumstances. 

We are talking here about investigation, not prosecution, and 

that is the line that you are looking at. When you get into the prosecutorial area, then you are dealing with one set of circumstances. 

You start getting into Miranda and you have got custody and you 

have got rights and all kinds of different things. 

When you are going around doing an investigation, who stole the 

light bulb, who is putting light bulbs in their purse and walking 

out of here at night it is a very different thing. And I think the 

ground rule I would give on that is that you cannot ambush somebody. They need to know, obviously. 

Now, I don’t want to go so far as to say in order to stop the ambush, let’s add additional rights for employees of the Federal Government to protect them from the IG, rights that criminals do not 

have in criminal proceedings in terms of notice and warning. That 

is the difference. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Would you respond to this statement, Mr. Hamilton? Earlier, Mr. Goss said we share the same goal but it is a balancing act. Is there some balance that we could work out that 

would address the concerns that you have so eloquently put forward? 

And I must add that I am very sorry you are retiring from Congress. It is a loss, I think, to this body. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, the balance that has to be addressed is on 

the one hand, and Mr. Goss emphasized this, the power of the Inspector General to investigate, and that is a very important power. 

I don’t want to undermine that power. I know the importance of 

it, and I think the Inspectors General have to be able to carry out 

their responsibilities. They have very, very serious responsibilities. 

But on the other hand, you have to carry out those responsibilities 

with due regard for the rights and the privileges of an individual 

who may be the target of the investigation. So that is the balance 

that has to be struck. 

Now, let me say that when we drafted the amendment in the 

committee, the committee adopted it. It was defeated on the floor. 

I recognize that this is a kind of a first cut at drafting language 

here. I don’t pretend for a moment that we have the exact, correct 

language there, but we do convey, I think, the basic thought that 

we want to get across. And it is that balance that you now have 

the responsibility of trying to strike in legislative language. 

At the end of the day here, I suspect our Inspectors General are 

going to testify that they will emphasize not doing anything that 

38

will undercut their powers of investigation, and I don’t want to do 

that. 

I am just impressed with the fact of a person coming into a room 

and having a Federal prosecutor in that room, and that prosecutor 

is not there for fun and games. That prosecutor is there to do his 

or her job. His or her job is to see whether or not any criminal activity has taken place, and every statement that is made in that 

room is going to be noted by that prosecutor. Every word is going 

to be analyzed and weighed to see if a crime has been committed, 

and a person coming into that situation has every right to be put 

on alert that the games are over; that this is a serious business; 

that you are under investigation and anything you say can be held 

against you. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Goss, my time is up, but would you agree 

with his final statement that there should be notice if there is a 

Federal prosecutor in the room? 

Mr. GOSS. Yes, I would, absolutely. 

Mrs. MALONEY. OK, thank you. 

Mr. GOSS. I think that is appropriate. 

Mr. HORN. Thank you, gentlelady. I now yield to the gentleman 

from New Hampshire, Mr. Sununu. 

Mr. SUNUNU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to continue the discussion a little bit about notice, 

and there does seem to be quite a bit of agreement between the two 

of you. I am looking at a—I think it is a State Department pamphlet on the OIG process. And I assume this is provided to all 

State Department employees. And I just wanted to talk about the 

issue of employee rights, notification, and better understand how 

this may be different than what you may be proposing, Congressman Hamilton. 

It says, when interviewed, the State Department employee has 

the right to be advised whether you are the subject of a criminal 

investigation, whether you are being interviewed simply as a witness, informed of the nature of the inquiry, told whether this could 

lead to criminal or civil action, advised of your Federal constitutional rights, et cetera, allowed to furnish a voluntary statement. 

And I hope they will provide you with a copy of it. 

It is pretty straightforward, and I would assume it is provided 

as a part of the employee’s orientation. That does seem like a pretty clear notice, at least of the provision in your proposed amendment that would give employees the information detailing their 

right to counsel, right to the policies, and the priorities of the OIG’s 

office. 

My question is: How is what you had proposed with regard to information different than this notice of rights that seems to be or 

at least should be provided as a matter of course to State Department employees currently? 

Mr. HAMILTON. I have not examined that manual carefully, but 

there is a big difference in—look, this manual is given to a State 

Department employee, presumably, when they become a State Department employee. My impression is that it is not made available 

to them on a regular basis repeatedly over and over again. And I 

understand that they themselves are dissatisfied with it and are 

now in the process of redrafting it, and I commend them for that. 

39

The sentence you read to me sounds fine. But, of course, it is one 

thing to put it in a manual; it is another thing to implement it. 

And in the cases that I am aware of, I don’t think it was implemented. 

Now, they may say, well, this was available when he became a 

Foreign Service officer or whatever, but that might be years prior 

to an investigation by the OIG. The problem I have is not so much 

the language, certainly not the language you cited, but how it is 

carried out and how it is implemented, I think. 

Mr. SUNUNU. Did your amendment call for a certain period of 

timeliness or certain period of presentation to the employees? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Let’s see. I think we said that the Inspector General will make all best efforts to provide the employee with notice 

of a full range of his or her rights, including the right to retain 

counsel and the right to remain silent, as well as the identification 

of those attending the interview. 

I think you probably raise a good point. The timeliness of that 

information might very well be a part of any such amendment. It 

is one thing to be told of it when you became a Foreign Service officer 15 years ago. It is another thing to be told of these rights just 

before you walk into that room. And what is important, seems to 

me, is that you be told those rights just before you walk into that 

room. 

Mr. SUNUNU. Well, I would certainly agree that implementation 

is an enormous part of the success of the process. It is easy enough 

to come up with good language. 

My personal opinion would be that best effort doesn’t necessarily 

provide the driving force, that we would want to make sure that 

this is being provided to State Department employees in a timely 

manner. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Sununu——

Mr. SUNUNU. And I hope what you say is correct and I hope they 

are updating it. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think you are right about the phrase ‘‘best efforts.’’ That was actually an accommodation I made to the Inspector General at their request in the committee in order to soften it 

a little bit. But I am not entirely satisfied with that language, either. 

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Goss, any comment about the language or is 

there any familiarity that you have with the OIG process, the kind 

of information that is at least currently provided to State Department employees? 

Mr. GOSS. Most of what I have filed away in my mind is either 

from personal experience or from talking to colleagues or former 

colleagues when I worked in the executive branch of Government. 

I am not familiar with this piece of paper, and I don’t want to characterize that I am. 

But I do know that when I was inducted into the Federal Government certain things stand very stark in my mind today. One is, 

I go to jail if I violate the National Security Act. Those kinds of 

things were made abundantly clear to me, that I had an extra responsibility—I had the extraordinary privilege of knowing the Nation’s secrets. I had the extraordinary responsibility of protecting 

them. 

40

And this is an area there that is a little specialized to what is 

going on here, as a general background. If we are worried about 

the disappearing light bulbs and the parking places and that type 

of in-house administrative minor malfeasance and those kinds of 

things, which the IG also does, that is one set of affairs. But if we 

are talking about the national security of the people, who are well 

aware that they are dealing with important matters, it seems to 

me that they have a different level of cognizance required of what 

it is they are about. That is why I think it is going to be very hard 

to make a generalized statement. 

When you are conducting an investigation of what point in the 

investigation do you go from we think we have got enough to go 

forward to we are not sure we have enough to go forward, where 

does that line come in the investigation? When does the investigation get to the point where you turn it over to a prosecutor? I don’t 

know all of those little details or all of the provisions that are set 

out under the various agencies, each one. 

I can tell you my experience with each agency is that the IG’s 

are doing a good job. Yes, there are complaints. The IG’s are very 

unpopular, just like serving on the Ethics Committee in the House, 

sometimes it is very unpopular. It isn’t fun. But they have a job 

to do. 

And I have heard a few complaints, and I think that Mr. Hamilton is on to something in this area of letting people fairly know, 

and the problem I think you all have is letting people fairly know 

what is going on without frustrating an investigation. When does 

fairly know become tipping off somebody who is getting away with 

something so they are going to be able to cover their tracks? That 

is really the problem I have. 

Mr. SUNUNU. Could I ask you both to comment on—I guess 

building on that, your point that this can be a pretty strong system—comment on what does work about the system. What are the 

stronger aspects of this system and maybe the aspects that we 

ought to be most conscious about encouraging and supporting? 

Mr. GOSS. Well, I will take a shot right off the bat and tell you 

that I am very satisfied that these folks in the IG offices are very 

conscientious allies in going after wrongdoing that is brought to 

their attention. I think there are many, many pluses in what they 

accomplish. 

I can think of some very, very high profile matters in the intelligence community where we have relied on the IG’s to make reports to us, and we have looked at those reports very carefully, and 

we have generally been quite satisfied with the very thoughtful 

work they have done without any prejudice for or against their own 

agency. It seems to me to be very evenhanded. 

I think it is a check and balance process that was wisely put in, 

that does work. I have worked under it in part. I have seen the results of it in part. And I think it is appropriate to have these hearings to make sure there are never excesses. Always you have to 

keep doing that to make sure that the power doesn’t get too great, 

and I think that these pauses to look at that are very appropriate. 

But I would say there are many more pluses than there are 

minuses in the system, and I will tell you that I think we would 

be very much diminished in our oversight capability on the Hill 

41

without the working cooperation of the IG’s in the executive agencies. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Sununu, I am focusing on a very narrow 

problem, and the problem is what I consider to be insensitivity to 

the rights of employees at the Department of State. That is my universe here. I agree with Mr. Goss’ comments, the Inspectors General’s offices play a very important role in our Government, and so 

far as I know they do a good job. I think I have had occasion to 

rely on them on a number of occasions. 

I am not critical of the operations of Inspectors General, or their 

function. I think it is terribly important. 

I am simply saying that in the cases I know about there was an 

insensitivity to the rights of individuals in the Department of 

State, and I moved to try to correct that. 

I don’t know what happens in the Department of Commerce or 

the Department of Transportation or anything else. I am not familiar with that. 

Mr. SUNUNU. I appreciate that. 

One final question with regard to those rights and with some relation to the leaking that was talked about earlier, which is probably one of the grossest examples of a violation of those rights, 

there is the political appointee structure, where 28 of these IG’s are 

political appointees, does that tend to strengthen an individual’s 

ability to or willingness to stand firmly in support of those individual rights; does it intend to prevent leaking; does it intend to 

give the IG a little bit more independence in pursuing some of the 

issues of wrongdoing, or do you find the same degree of independence whether they are a political appointee or not? 

Mr. HAMILTON. The cases with which I am familiar involve both 

political appointees and civil service, Foreign Service officers. I am 

not aware of any difference. 

Mr. GOSS. I would agree with that. I don’t pay any attention to 

whether they are political appointees or not. I pay attention to 

whether they have done a good job. Frankly, I couldn’t tell you who 

is a political appointee and who isn’t. It works that well. 

Mr. SUNUNU. Good. Thank you. 

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentleman. 

Let me ask a few questions that relate to pamphlets I have in 

front of me, from the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department 

of State. And we will pursue with the Inspector General as to the 

circumstance these are given out. I suspect, as was suggested here, 

that these are probably 1 of 50 leaflets you are given when you are 

a new employee of the Department of State. A new employee is 

probably worried more about the health plan at that point, than 

they are about the Office of Inspector General’s investigative process. 

Would you gentlemen agree that not only should it be given 

when the new employee comes on board, but also prior to coming 

into the room if they are being asked to speak to a particular subject? They might know it before they come in. How do you feel, Mr. 

Goss? 

Mr. GOSS. It depends on who is in the room. Again, this goes 

right back to these same guidelines. Certainly, if there are a bunch 

of prosecutors and, you know, you have got people in the room 

42

other than just sitting down with the IG’s person having a one-onone with the employee trying to find something out or get a clue. 

I think there is a difference here between legitimate fact-finding 

and the ambush. And I would say, yes, I would think it is appropriate. If it escalates to the point that there are going to be some 

people in the room and these are the people who are there, and we 

are notifying you of this, and we advise you to read this pamphlet, 

it seems to me that there are procedures there. They don’t necessarily go to rights. They go to procedures. 

And I imagine every agency has got a somewhat different administrative code and they have somewhat different procedures. And I 

think it is very important that the employee know. If there is a degree of seriousness that is being attached to the matter, I think the 

employee has a right to know it. My concern is that it not be done 

in a way that would frustrate an investigation of, you know, who 

is stealing the light bulbs or whatever it is. You don’t want to tip 

them off. So it is that fine line you are looking for. 

Mr. HORN. Well, in other words, you wouldn’t tell them the nature of the investigation in advance. You would tell them there is 

an investigation and provide some basic due process considerations? 

Mr. GOSS. Sure. If you will read, and I am sure you have, but 

if you look at my statement, it very clearly goes into the question 

of what rights are already there and what is custodial and what 

is noncustodial, whether we are dealing with criminal, when Miranda comes in, all of those kinds of things and the remedies that 

are already in the law. I think every employee needs to be reminded of those things at any time. 

But to tell you the truth, if you were to say, would you come up 

to room 10 this afternoon at 2 and, by the way, read this for your 

rights, I think I would start to worry a little bit. 

Now, the question is: Does that mean that before you get to that 

point the IG should be going and saying, look, we think there is 

a problem here or not? And I think that is a question that Mrs. 

Maloney asked me. Can you have consistent rules and so forth in 

the regulations? The answer is yes. How you apply those rules case 

by case is where I think you are getting into difficulties here, and 

this piece of paper, which I think is the same thing you are looking 

at there, is sort of part of that process of how you apply it fairly. 

And I don’t know all the words in this and I don’t know whether 

it works fairly. That is something I am sure that you are going to 

make a judgment on. 

Mr. HORN. Mr. Hamilton. 

Mr. HAMILTON. The amendment that I put forward in the committee is confined to the circumstance of a person who an employee 

who is a likely subject or target of a criminal investigation. That 

is the case I am aiming at here. That seems to me to be a serious 

problem. 

So if a person is a target or a subject of a criminal investigation, 

I think they should have a full range of their rights available to 

them. And in my way of thinking that means they ought to know 

what they are getting into before they walk into that room. They 

ought to be notified of it. 

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, may I——

43

Mr. HAMILTON. And who is going to be there. 

Mr. GOSS. Excuse me. I am not disagreeing with Mr. Hamilton 

on that point. Again, I think that is a where-are-you-in-the-case 

question. 

But the point that I have to make there that is so very important, and I can think of some big cases, and I think you can, too, 

if you just think back of headlines in the past couple of years, 

where if that happens and if we are not coordinated and we are 

dealing across the board of several agencies, I think you can foresee a situation where you might have Justice, State, DOD, or some 

of the other agencies’ IG’s involved in a case that goes over jurisdictional lines because of activities involved, let’s say, things overseas. 

For instance, where we are not always sure whether it is law enforcement or intelligence or State Department or what. I can foresee the need to have coordination between all of the interested IG’s, 

especially in matters involving national security; something like 

leaking information on a defense system to a foreign diplomat and 

having the equipment delivered in a way that violates U.S. laws 

would probably get four or five different criminal aspects, activities 

to this with overlapping jurisdictions, and if you changed the rules 

for one IG and that one IG has to do something that messes up the 

investigation for those other agencies, you have created a problem. 

We have that problem right now in the separation of powers, 

where it is usually resolved between the Hill and downtown when 

we have to have an investigation of one of our colleagues. It is a 

very difficult problem. You can imagine how that is compounded 

when you are dealing with many agencies. That is why it is so important that you be consistent across the board and that everybody 

understands what the rules are. 

Mr. HORN. On this employee pamphlet, when one enters any 

Federal organization or immediately before they are asked to go 

into the room, should there be a signed statement on file by the 

employee that I have read it? Or is it just worthless? 

Mr. GOSS. I suppose it is nice to have, but I don’t think it works 

very well. 

Mr. HORN. We are going to save some trees this morning; is that 

it? 

Mr. GOSS. I have signed an awful lot of pieces of paper in my 

life, and I bet you have too, and I don’t think I could recall them 

all. 

Mr. HORN. Well, just to know that at least they were given it so 

they don’t go in and say nobody ever told me. 

Mr. GOSS. I have signed a lot of papers that I have forgotten 

about it, and if I saw them again I might forget that I had seen 

them, too. It depends on what you are trying to protect there. I 

don’t think that is solving your problem. 

Mr. HORN. You mean you don’t recollect? 

Mr. GOSS. I have no recollection. 

Mr. HORN. Great. The disease is spreading to the legislative 

branch. 

OK. Any other comments of wisdom from you two very wise gentlemen? 

Mr. GOSS. I just thank you for what you are doing. 

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

44

Mr. HORN. All right. Thank you for coming. I appreciate it. 

Mr. HORN. Our next panel and our last panel has five Inspectors 

General, Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers of State; Eleanor Hill of Defense; Michael Bromwich of Justice; Patrick McFarland, Office of 

Personnel Management; and Mr. Robert Bryant, the Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with the Criminal Investigative Division and chair of the PCIE Integrity Committee. 

I think most of you know that this committee has a tradition 

here of not swearing Members of Congress, because once they tell 

us something that is wrong we just never talk to them anymore. 

But outside witnesses, are asked to take the oath. So if you will 

stand and raise your right hand. We will add minister the usual 

oath. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. HORN. All five witnesses have affirmed, the clerk will note. 

Why don’t we begin with the Honorable Jacquelyn WilliamsBridgers, Inspector General of the Department of State. 

STATEMENTS OF JACQUELYN WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS, INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF STATE; ELEANOR HILL, INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, CHAIR, 

PCIE LEGISLATION COMMITTEE; MICHAEL BROMWICH, INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; PATRICK E. 

McFARLAND, INSPECTOR GENERAL, OFFICE OF PERSONNEL 

MANAGEMENT, CHAIR, PCIE INVESTIGATIONS COMMITTEE; 

ROBERT M. BRYANT, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIONS, CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION, CHAIR, PCIE INTEGRITY COMMITTEE 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss 

with you OIG investigative practices. This hearing is particularly 

timely, given the recent debate in the House about the due process 

rights of subjects of criminal investigations in my office. It is imperative, as the distinguished panel members just mentioned, that 

all of us involved in the pursuit of law enforcement balance our 

mandates to conduct independent and objective criminal investigations with the need to scrupulously protect the due process rights 

of the American citizens. 

Congress created the Office of Inspector General to prevent and 

detect fraud, waste, and mismanagement through the conduct of 

audits, inspections, and investigations. These responsibilities require a proactive engagement as well as a reactive engagement in 

the conduct of our business. A proactive engagement is particularly 

important in the investigations area, to assure that employees are 

aware and mindful of the OIG role and responsibility and their 

rights and obligations when interfacing with OIG. 

My office devotes significant attention to the discussion of the 

OIG investigative process. In numerous department training 

courses, including Ambassadorial training programs, as well as 

every Foreign Service and civil service introductory course. 

OIG also authors and publishes the Department’s Guidebook for 

Ethical Conduct. In the conduct of criminal investigations, any investigation that we conduct operates under the same guidelines 

and our investigators exercise the very same authorities as all 

45

other Federal law enforcement entities, such as the FBI, DEA, and 

INS. 

Just 2 years ago, the Department of Justice selected our office as 

one of seven OIG’s to be extended full law enforcement authority 

under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Justice Department. This selection was based on our unblemished record of exercising full law enforcement authority pursuant to special deputation requests. Under this MOU, our 35 criminal investigators are 

authorized to effect arrests, to execute search warrants, and to utilize other sensitive law enforcement techniques which may be required in an investigation. 

When conducting——

Mr. HORN. Could we have that document at this point in the 

record? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Absolutely. I will submit it for the 

record. 

Mr. HORN. Without objection, it will be included. Thank you. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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45951.024
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45951.025
48


45951.026
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45951.027
50


45951.028
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45951.029
52


45951.030
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45951.031
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45951.032
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45951.033
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45951.034
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45951.035
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45951.036
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45951.037
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45951.038
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45951.039
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Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. When conducting investigations, the 

law requires that IG’s report expeditiously to the Attorney General 

when we have reasonable grounds to believe there has been a violation of Federal criminal law. In keeping with this mandate, our 

office coordinates early with DOJ on all criminal investigations. 

Justice then assumes a supervisory role in the conduct of investigations. 

Nearly 100 percent of our cases at the start are criminal investigations. Assistant U.S. attorneys, therefore, provide guidance because they are most familiar with the varying and unique prosecutive thresholds in their districts. Once a criminal investigation is 

either prosecuted or declined for prosecution, there will often be an 

administrative phase to the investigation. This administrative 

phase may require further investigation to gather necessary evidence for referral to the Department of State, for example, for disciplinary action, or to the Department of Justice for civil remedy. 

Now, allow me briefly to comment on the issue of due process, 

which has been the focus of much of the discussion this morning. 

Due process is defined by the Constitution and is constantly interpreted by the courts. The recent House debate considered an 

amendment to law that would provide special privileges to a very 

narrow spectrum of American citizens: Employees of the Department of State, USIA and ACDA privileges that included notification of certain rights that do not extend to any other American citizen. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to assure you that my office provides the 

full range of warnings and assurances to individuals subject to investigation in accordance with Federal case law and DOJ guidelines. What this means is that during the custodial interviews, 

meaning when we are about to effect an arrest of the subject of an 

investigation, we advise the subject of their right to remain silent 

and their right to retain counsel. During noncustodial employee 

interviews, certain warnings are administered depending on the 

circumstances existing at that time. 

Circumstances that might dictate which warning is given varied 

but could depend on factors as to whether or not the case has been 

declined for criminal prosecution by DOJ and upon the guidance 

provided us by the Federal prosecutor. The legislation discussed in 

the House debate would also have required identification of all individuals attending an OIG interview. 

We generally provide advanced notice to subjects of an investigation when scheduling interviews if such notice would not compromise the integrity of the investigation. An advanced notice requirement, as suggested in the former amendment, would preclude 

the possibility of State OIG engaging in any type of undercover investigation. Further, an individual who is provided advanced notice 

of an interview or who is told at an early stage of an investigation 

that FBI or DEA, for example, would participate may use such information to determine either our strategy or possible identities of 

informants or other witnesses against them. This is a serious concern as more of our passport and visa process—visa investigations 

cross the line into narcotics violations or more serious criminal violations of law. 

63

Finally, such advanced notice may also foster the opportunities 

for the subjects to destroy incriminating evidence, fabricate evidence, or attempt to improperly influence the testimony of cooperating witnesses. 

Other law enforcement entities not constrained with the requirements, as suggested in the former amendment, might simply 

choose not to become involved with State OIG criminal investigations. This would be unfortunate since between 30 and 40 percent 

of our criminal investigations are conducted jointly with other law 

enforcement entities. 

Last, OIG is committed to and goes to great lengths to protect 

the privacy of individuals who are subjects or witnesses in connection with our investigations. Indeed, the integrity of our investigative process requires that we not disclose the details of pending investigations. Therefore, our policy is not to comment publicly about 

open investigations. 

Any comment made by OIG regarding pending criminal matters 

is closely coordinated with and approved by the Department of Justice. In the case referred to by the earlier panel, I must reiterate, 

Mr. Chairman, there was no unauthorized release of information to 

the public by my office. 

In conclusion, I am committed to protecting the Secretary of 

State’s ability to pursue the foreign policy objectives free of impediments of fraud, waste, and abuse, as the Congress intended, and 

as the American taxpayer deserves. 

I thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I 

would be glad to entertain any questions that you or members of 

the subcommittee might have at any point. 

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much. We are going to wait 

until after the testimony of everybody on the panel before we open 

it to questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Williams-Bridgers follows:]

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Mr. HORN. The Honorable Eleanor Hill is the Inspector General 

of the Department of Defense, and chair of the Legislation Committee of the PCIE. Ms. Hill. 

Ms. HILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. 

Let me, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to testify here 

today and also to commend you for the subcommittee’s attention to 

issues which really directly affect not only the Inspectors General 

but the entire Federal law enforcement community. 

I have a written statement, which I would like to submit for the 

record, and in the interest of time, I would just briefly like to emphasize a few points. 

Mr. HORN. The whole statement shall automatically go in just 

after I introduced you, without objection. 

Ms. HILL. Thank you. 

As you know, the Congress vested the Inspectors General with 

broad authority to not only audit and investigate, but also to advise 

their departments on how best to prevent and control fraud and 

abuse in the future. Our investigative role fully complements and 

enhances our ability to work for constructive change in Government. 

The Federal law enforcement community, of which the IG’s are 

a part, today faces perhaps a more diverse and more challenging 

array of criminal activity and criminal threats than ever before. 

The public interest in identifying and combating those threats is 

unquestioned. Law enforcement’s task is to effectively investigate 

that criminal activity while carefully and continually balancing the 

public’s interest against the need to recognize and protect the 

rights of the individual. 

My own experience tells me that while that is clearly a difficult 

task, it is not impossible. It requires professionalism, competence, 

a sense of fairness, and unwaivering respect for the rule of law. All 

of those are qualities which we strive for at the DOD IG. 

I want to take a few minutes to talk about the Defense Criminal 

Investigative Service, which I go into in great length in the statement, commonly known as DCIS, which is the criminal investigative arm of the DOD IG. One of the things that Congressman Hamilton raised this morning that concerned me was his statement that 

the IG’s are really not members of the Federal law enforcement 

community. I would certainly take issue with that: at the DOD IG, 

while we have many auditors, and a separate section on administrative investigations, we have DCIS, which I think is recognized 

throughout the Federal law enforcement community as a member 

of that community. It has a proven track record in Federal law enforcement. I should add DCIS works closely and jointly on many 

cases with the FBI, the Postal Inspection Service, the Customs 

Service, and many other members of the Federal law enforcement 

community, in addition to the other Inspectors General. So we certainly would differ on that point, I think, with Mr. Hamilton. 

DCIS is currently staffed with over 350 criminal investigators, 

and I stress they are only criminal investigators. There are 1,811 

Federal criminal law enforcement officers. They have 50 field offices throughout the United States. We also have one office overseas in Germany. 

73

DCIS has compiled an impressive track record of professionalism 

and competence in criminal investigations, particularly in procurement fraud, which is its main area of emphasis. Since 1981, it has 

conducted investigations resulting in 4,000 criminal indictments 

and $3.8 billion in recoveries to the Government. DCIS currently 

has more than 1,700 ongoing investigations. Again I stress this is 

not the entire IG’s office, this is just our criminal investigations 

section. 

DCIS has prioritized its work in critical areas, particularly product substitution; contract accounting fraud; subcontractor kickbacks; health care fraud, which is a huge area at the Defense Department; property disposal; and environmental crime, to name but 

a few. 

The ability of DCIS to conduct professional and competent investigations is directly related to its training program, which is comparable to training programs at all major Federal law enforcement 

agencies. As outlined in the statement, this includes three required 

programs of instruction at the Federal Law Enforcement Training 

Center, as well as additional specialized and advanced courses in 

areas of particular interest to DCIS. 

Regarding law enforcement authority, which was mentioned by 

Ms. Bridgers this morning, while DCIS currently lacks statutory 

law enforcement authority to arrest civilians, it has been granted 

that authority under a special blanket deputation from the Department of Justice since 1991. That deputation predated and is separate from the 1995 deputation agreement between the Department 

of Justice and several other IG’s, which Ms. Bridgers referred to a 

moment ago. 

DCIS has traditionally worked closely with both the Justice Department and the FBI, encouraged by a long-standing Memorandum of Understanding between Justice and the Defense Department which covers the investigation and prosecution of criminal 

matters over which both departments have jurisdiction. 

Since deputized in 1991, DCIS agents have made 500 civilian arrests and served 800 search warrants. The fact that the Justice Department has annually approved the deputation since 1991 attests 

to DCIS’s need for this authority as well as its ability to exercise 

that authority properly. 

As a result, this year both the Justice Department and the FBI 

have endorsed DOD’s request for statutory law enforcement authority for DCIS. That authority is now contained in both the 

House and Senate versions of this year’s defense authorization bill, 

as reported by the authorizing committees to the floor. We believe 

the legislation is necessary and appropriate and we are hopeful 

that it will be enacted in the final authorization bill. 

My statement sets forth in detail DCIS policies on interviews and 

rights advisement, all of which are emphasized to our agents in 

course training as well as in written policy manuals. The policies 

are intended to comply with all applicable statutory and case law 

requirements. I note that we are probably unique among the statutory IG’s in that we routinely interview not only civilians, but also 

military members, and, therefore, we comply in their case with the 

Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

74

On the question of interviews, and we go into it in great length 

in our statement, I do want to emphasize to the committee that 

DCIS, when they interview a suspect in a criminal case, and again 

we are talking about criminal cases, clearly identifies themselves 

at the beginning of the interview as a member of DCIS. In and of 

itself this tells the individual it is a criminal investigation because 

the name of the service is the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. So there is no question if you are interviewed by DCIS that it 

is potentially a criminal case and we feel that that is good notice. 

We think that’s well-known in the Department and they are advised of their rights, as Ms. Bridgers pointed out, in keeping with 

statutory requirements. 

And I think, of course, our concern with the Hamilton amendment—although I have great respect for Congressman Hamilton, I 

know his amendment is well intended—I think we feel that it 

would, in fact, create special rights that do not currently exist, not 

only for other people that may be interviewed by the IG. In DCIS’s 

case we not only interview employees, we interview civilians, for 

example, defense contractors. So you would be creating a special 

class of rights not only for people interviewed by DOD but only 

part of the people interviewed by DOD. 

Although this hearing is focused on criminal investigations, I 

should point out that the DOD IG, unlike some other IG offices, 

does have a separate component which is responsible for administrative noncriminal inquiries. That office operates separately from 

DCIS and has its own core of investigators. It is charged with conducting investigations and overseeing investigations by the military 

departments in the area of whistle-blower reprisal. It also conducts 

or oversees investigations of noncriminal misconduct against senior 

officials, meaning political appointees as well as military officers of 

grade 7 and above. In 1996, that office investigated or oversighted 

500 such administrative cases, including 145 that we conducted inhouse at the DOD IG. 

Despite the Department’s downsizing, that caseload is increasing. 

We anticipate a record 700 inquiries will be opened in 1997. 

Finally, I note that while we have the statutory authority to do 

so, given the current resources, the DOD IG cannot realistically 

conduct or directly oversee every investigation that concerns the 

Department of Defense. I want to point this out only to show that 

when we talk about investigations at the Department of Defense, 

we are talking about a huge universe of which we are a small part, 

just in terms of numbers. 

There are approximately today 800,000 civilian employees at 

DOD. There are 1.5 million active duty military members, and 

there are another 1.5 million ready Guard and Reserve, all of 

whom can send complaints, ask for investigations, or be the subjects of investigations. 

In addition to the DOD IG, there are roughly 8,000 investigators, 

inspectors, and auditors just in the military departments and another 4,500 auditors in the Defense Contract Audit Agency. So if 

you are going to create certain investigative rights for people who 

are interviewed by the DOD IG at the Defense Department, you 

would be creating another controversy because you would be giving 

people special rights in those DOD investigations and not in others. 

75

In closing, I want to reiterate that we do recognize and appreciate the critically important role that investigations must play in 

our society. We also understand that those who investigate exercise 

considerable power and that with that power, and clearly because 

of it, they also bear a heavy responsibility. 

We believe our record reflects the importance we place on competence, integrity, and fairness in investigations. I can assure you 

that we will make every effort to continue to meet those standards 

in the future. Thank you. 

Mr. HORN. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hill follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Our next witness is the Honorable Michael Bromwich, 

Inspector General of the Department of Justice. Mr. Bromwich. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to testify at this important hearing. 

I will try to address some of the issues that have already come 

up in the hearing, mindful of your statement that our prepared 

statements will be introduced for the record. 

I think that predictably this has become already a more broadranging discussion of the investigative practices and procedures of 

the entire Inspector General community rather than just focusing 

on the amendment that was originally introduced to address alleged State Department improprieties and I think that’s all to the 

good. I think that, and I believe, as Congressman Hamilton pointed 

out, the Inspector General Act has now been in effect for 20 years. 

My organization was added in the 1988 amendments. So we have 

been functioning for about half that period. But I think it is entirely appropriate that this subcommittee and other committees of 

Congress take a look at our investigative practices and procedures, 

because I think the question of who is overseeing the overseers is 

a very important one. And I think that my colleagues join me in 

encouraging and welcoming the congressional oversight. 

I also hope it is the beginning of a continuing discussion on the 

work that we do, because as I think you have already heard from 

Inspectors General Williams-Bridgers and Hill, we do some very 

important work and sometimes I think we have not done an adequate job of educating the Congress or the public about all the 

work that we do. We don’t do primarily light bulb and parking 

spaces investigations. The bulk of our work is on very serious matters. 

You have heard Inspector General Hill describe some of the very 

serious procurement and other kinds of defense fraud matters that 

her office investigates. The general run of my investigations division caseload, Mr. Chairman, is smuggling contraband into Federal 

correctional facilities, drug smuggling across the border, and widespread immigration document fraud affecting the security of our 

Nation’s boundaries and the integrity of our immigration system. 

So, in fact, I think you will find unanimity on this panel that, 

in fact, we all consider our investigators to be Federal law enforcement agents. They are trained to be that. They act as though they 

are that and indeed they are that. 

What we try to do in structuring our investigative practices and 

procedures is to model ourselves as closely as possible according to 

what the established law enforcement agencies do. Most of the procedures that are in our investigative manual have been adapted 

from what the Federal Bureau of Investigation does, from what the 

Drug Enforcement Administration does, and so forth. We do that 

because we think that they have spent a lot of time thinking about 

what is both good investigative practice and what is fair to the witnesses and the subjects that are interviewed in investigations. Although we are obviously prepared to consider changes that might 

be necessary, we think that’s a good and important starting point. 

I think we are fortunate this morning to have Mr. Bryant from 

the FBI here so that to the extent you have any questions about 

the policies, procedures, and practices we follow, I think he can 

87

help us in identifying the reasons why those procedures are necessary in order to conduct good, powerful, and credible criminal investigations. 

I think it is at all times an important job that we have to balance 

the important investigative equities that we have—the prerogatives 

that we have—to try to make sure that waste, fraud, and abuse are 

identified, and to a significant extent deterred. But we must at all 

times be mindful of protecting the rights of our agencies’ employees, and we, at the Justice Department, certainly seek to do that 

and think we do a good job of doing that. 

I fully agree with Congressman Hamilton, who I admire at least 

as much as Inspector General Hill does, that it is a matter of credibility; that we need to conduct investigations in ways that are fair 

and are perceived to be fair in order for our investigative results 

to be credible and in order for our agencies to have the respect 

within our respective departments that we need in order to do our 

jobs effectively. 

A couple of other thoughts before I close, Mr. Chairman. It was 

stressed, I believe, by Mr. Goss that in addressing the issues of 

fairness and notice to people who are participating in interviews 

and who are the people who are being interviewed, it is important 

to take a look at what kinds of notice could, in fact, tip people off 

in advance to the nature or the kind of investigation. You don’t 

want to tip people off in advance to enable them to shred documents, coach other witnesses, and so forth. So in many cases the 

reasons for not disclosing in advance to a witness the subject of the 

interview is precisely to address those concerns about preserving 

the integrity of the investigation. That being said, we do have a 

practice, in virtually every case, that as the interview commences, 

in addition to providing any warnings that the witness is entitled 

to, depending on whether it is a custodial or noncustodial situation, 

we do attempt to describe exactly what the scope of the interview 

is; the subjects that are going to be discussed during the interview, 

and we underline and emphasize the voluntariness of the interview. Obviously, if the person is under arrest, it is a custodial situation, that goes by the boards. But if it is not——

Mr. HORN. Just for the record, would you mind defining ‘‘custodial’’ because most of the people who read this hearing transcript 

or are sitting back in the audience may not know. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Custodial is somebody who, in fact, is under arrest, has already been placed under arrest or is, in fact, not free 

to leave, so even if they have not yet formally been placed under 

arrest, they will not be permitted to leave that room without being 

arrested. That is a custodial situation and that is what I mean 

when I talk about custodial circumstances. 

Mr. HORN. And how often really do you run into that situation? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Not that often. I would be guessing if I gave you 

a percentage of our interviews that are custodial or quasi custodial. 

Mr. HORN. Probably 5 percent? 

Mr. BROMWICH. It is probably more than that because we do try 

to interview people after we have arrested them. Those would all 

be custodial interviews and we arrest a number of people. 

But I think that’s really not the prime focus of this hearing, as 

I understand it. It really is dealing with agency employees who are 

88

in something other than a custodial situation, either they are simply witnesses who are being asked for information or they are the 

subject or target of a criminal or administrative investigation but 

they are not in custody. Nor is there any immediate intention to 

take them into custody. 

As to those people, Mr. Chairman, we stress at the beginning of 

the interview, and the witness signs a form that says so, that they 

are free to leave at any time. 

Mr. HORN. And that is all your interviews, you do that? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes, except those that are custodial and they already know that they have been taken into custody. 

Mr. HORN. All right. 

Mr. BROMWICH. So they are aware that they are free to leave, 

and through that warning they know that, in fact, this is a voluntary interview. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening remarks. I welcome 

any questions that you or any other members of the subcommittee 

may have after Mr. McFarland and Mr. Bryant complete their 

opening statements. 

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bromwich follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Our next witness is the Honorable Patrick McFarland, Inspector General, Office of Personnel Management. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to 

testify before your subcommittee on the investigative practices of 

members of the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency. As 

you know, I am appearing in my capacity as chairman of the 

PCIE’s Investigations Committee. I have submitted a prepared 

statement for the record which addresses the specific points you 

raise. 

Mr. HORN. Why don’t you tell us what PCIE stands for? I hate 

Government gibberish. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. I am sorry. It is the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency. 

Mr. HORN. Thank you. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. I have submitted a prepared statement for the 

record which addresses the specific points you raised. In my brief 

remarks, I would like to highlight some of the controls currently in 

place to assure professional conduct by criminal investigators in Offices of Inspectors General. Before I do so, I would like to talk for 

a moment about the overall mission and vision of the IG community. 

Prior to passage of the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, in many cases investigations were not conducted by the agencies in a coordinated and efficient manner. The act not only gave 

agencies independent law enforcement authority but also provided 

a statutory framework for coordination. 

IG offices are no different than other law enforcement organizations in the powers possessed and, as we should be, we are very 

concerned about how the power is used. We are fully conscious of 

the broad range of powers that we possess. We also realize that, 

if unchecked, individual reputations and careers could be seriously 

compromised. In fact, the Inspectors General vision statement addresses this concern. 

A few years ago, the PCIE adopted reinvention principles in that 

statement requiring IG’s to maximize the positive impact and ensure the independence and objectivity of our investigations. 

The IG community is proud of its involvement in developing and 

implementing the vision statement. Along those lines, Mr. Chairman, if IG’s are not vigilant in protecting the rights of those individuals under investigation, IG’s will never attain their ultimate 

objective of having a positive impact on agency programs and operations. 

Now that I have talked broadly about the IG mission, I would 

like to specifically address concerns you have raised regarding internal and external controls of IG investigations. 

The authority to investigate allegations concerning misconduct or 

criminal activity in the programs administered by their agency is 

one of the most significant responsibilities of Inspectors General. 

Under the IG Act, all criminal investigators have the responsibility 

to act in a fair, ethical, and objective manner to substantiate or, 

just as importantly, disprove allegations of misconduct or criminal 

activity. 

At the heart of the IG’s authority to conduct investigations is the 

need to assure that controls are in place at every level to protect 

107

the rights of the individuals under investigation and to assure that 

the investigators are acting in a manner beyond reproach. 

In looking at the wide range of organizations that are members 

of the PCIE and the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency, 

I am impressed by the number of innovative approaches they have 

taken and are continuing to develop to maintain the integrity of 

their investigations. 

Internal controls within each IG office will vary widely, depending on the size and geographic reach of the agency, as well as the 

size and organization of its IG office. Most IG offices have investigation manuals which establish the procedural basis for conducting every step of an investigation. The manuals are modeled 

on Justice Department guidelines and incorporate PCIE Quality 

Standards for Investigations. 

One of the most dramatic developments providing both enhanced 

law enforcement authority to IG criminal investigators and at the 

same time increasing external controls on investigations is the 

Memorandum of Understanding between respective IG offices, the 

Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 

authorizing blanket deputation of special agents. It imposes significant controls on deputized agents. 

Under the MOU, IG’s are required to report to the Department 

of Justice detailing the investigative and prosecutive activities of 

agents who receive special deputation. The MOU mandates coordination between the IG, DOJ, FBI, and other Federal law enforcement agencies, as well as consultations with prosecutors on all 

criminal investigations. Certain investigations involving sensitive 

techniques such as electronic surveillance, undercover operations, 

sensitive targets, and consensual monitoring are required to be 

conducted jointly with the FBI or with another Federal law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction over the offense. Any jurisdictional disagreements are referred to the appropriate U.S. attorney for resolution. 

In addition to internal agency procedures and guidelines established by the Attorney General, all IG’s adhere to the PCIE Quality 

Standards for Investigations, which provide PCIE guidelines. These 

general and qualitative standards were promulgated in 1985. They 

provide the basic standards of conduct and represent a consensus 

from organizations affiliated with the PCIE. 

On May 30, 1996, a working group was formed to revise the 

PCIE Quality Standards for Investigations. This group reviewed 

the relevance, in accordance with contemporary standards and 

compliance of these standards with rules, laws, and regulations. 

The training profile received the most substantial revisions. 

Changes in the experience level of IG entry level investigators, as 

well as a new emphasis on law enforcement skills, necessitated this 

change. The revised standards will soon be disseminated to the 

PCIE and the ECIE members for final comment. 

In the revisions to the investigative standards, we recognize that 

one of the most effective controls to protect individual rights and 

assure high quality law enforcement is to provide agents with 

training opportunities. The PCIE Investigations Committee works 

closely with law enforcement training authorities to ensure the 

most professional and relevant training available is provided to 

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both new investigators and to experienced individuals. A full description of our training facilities and the changes under consideration and the investigative standards is included in my formal 

statement. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HORN. We thank you for that helpful statement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McFarland follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Mr. Robert M. Bryant, Assistant Director, Federal 

Bureau of Investigation. Welcome. 

Mr. BRYANT. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I appear before you today in my capacity as 

chairman of the Integrity Committee of the President’s Council on 

Integrity and Efficiency. My testimony will cover the function and 

activities of the Integrity Committee and provide some insight into 

the process by which allegations against Inspectors General are referred, reviewed, and investigated. 

To gain an understanding of the function of the Integrity Committee, I wish to emphasize that the mandate of the Integrity Committee covers only Inspectors General and certain members of their 

staffs regarding noncriminal allegations of wrongdoing. The Integrity Committee covers senior offices of Inspector General staff 

members in instances where it would be inappropriate or might appear to be less than objective if the Inspector General conducted 

the investigation. 

The Integrity Committee does not generally conduct inquiries 

into investigative practices of the Inspector General. The Integrity 

Committee does not function as an office of professional responsibility. 

Upon receipt of an allegation against an Inspector General received by the Integrity Committee at FBI headquarters, the allegations are received from several sources to include Inspectors General themselves, agency heads, and private citizens. The FBI has 

chaired this committee since 1990. 

Upon receipt of an allegation, the working group of the Integrity 

Committee acknowledges receipt of the allegation to the complainant. A copy of the complaint is forwarded to the Public Integrity 

Section of the Department of Justice for a determination whether 

the allegation is criminal or administrative in nature. Should the 

Public Integrity Section determine that the allegation is, in fact, a 

criminal violation of the law, then it is referred to the appropriate 

Federal law enforcement agency for a criminal investigation. 

The Integrity Committee receives the results of a criminal investigation that’s been referred and they may pursue noncriminal allegations related to the case not addressed during the criminal investigation. 

The membership of the Integrity Committee currently consists of 

the Special Counsel of the Office of Special Counsel, the Director 

of the Office of Government Ethics, two Inspectors General from 

the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, and one Inspector General from the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency. 

Committee members serve annually. Advising the committee is a 

lawyer from the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section. 

The Integrity Committee meets quarterly to review allegations. 

During these meetings, the Integrity Committee determines the 

manner in which to handle a complaint. Should a complaint fall 

outside the purview of the committee, the case is closed and the 

complainant is notified in writing of the action taken. If, however, 

the Integrity Committee finds it appropriate to refer the allegation 

elsewhere, the allegations are referred to the most suitable investigative entity. 

153

For example, if an allegation is made against an individual within the Office of the Inspector General below the level of Deputy Inspector General, it would be fitting to refer the allegation to the Inspector General personally. An allegation related to prohibited personnel practices would be referred to the Office of Special Counsel, 

and an allegation regarding equal opportunity matters would be referred to their equal opportunity office. 

If an allegation is credible and falls under the Integrity Committee’s purview, I, as chairman, will initiate an investigation to obtain facts related to the allegation. Since the committee does not 

maintain an investigative staff, I can convene an investigative 

group headed by an independent Inspector General. The staff may 

be made up of the investigators from the Office of the Independent 

Inspector General’s office or others from the Inspector General 

community at large. 

Presidential Executive Order 12993 gives the FBI the authority 

to conduct investigations under the direction of the chairman of the 

Integrity Committee. As chairman, I am authorized to obtain investigative resources outlined above and may augment those resources 

with investigative personnel of the FBI. Reimbursement for the investigations is conducted as a responsibility for the agency employing the subject of the allegation. Upon completion of the investigation, a report is issued to the Integrity Committee, and where it is 

reviewed, and based on the findings in the investigation, an appropriate recommendation is forwarded to the chairman of the PCIE 

with notification to the original complainant. 

The Integrity Committee has handled 162 complaints since 1990. 

In view of the signing of the Executive Order 12993, it is expected 

that there will be some increase in the number of referrals to the 

committee as evidenced by the receipt of 23 referrals since last 

quarter’s meeting, which was April 30, 1997. Currently, we have 37 

matters pending review. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. HORN. We thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bryant follows:]

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Mr. HORN. We will now begin with the questioning. Mr. Davis, 

the gentleman from Virginia, 11 minutes. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. 

Vice President Gore, when he was a Member of the House, was 

one of six Representatives who voted against the IG Act. I don’t 

know why he did but it seems likely that it was an adoptive issue 

and at least to some extent the concept of the skepticism for the 

IG seems to have continued. 

The report of the National Performance Review, led by the Vice 

President, says that, in quotes, at virtually every agency he visited, 

the Vice President has heard Federal employees complain that the 

IG’s basic approach inhibits innovation and risk-taking, heavy 

handed enforcement; the presence of the IG’s watchfulness compels 

employees to follow every rule, document every decision, and fill 

out every form and has had a negative effect in some agencies. 

Do you believe that is fair criticism by the Vice President? I will 

start over here at State and move forward. 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. There are many aspects of the work of 

the Office of Inspector General. By law, we are required to undertake audits which are not very intrusive. Agencies often complain 

that they are burdensome on their staff for having to collect and 

gather information to respond to the specific objectives of our review. 

In our office, the inspection process is probably the most consultative function in the office. I frequently receive compliments, accolades, requests for our inspectors to come to Embassies to assist 

the Embassies as they are establishing new procedures, to assist 

them in establishing or reinforcing the internal controls of their 

process; I rarely, but sometimes receive compliments about the conduct of the investigative process. It is the most abrasive function 

conducted by the Office of Inspector General. It is generally not 

pleasant when an individual is subjected to an investigation. 

I think that there is a wide range of functions and there is certainly a great deal of response and reaction to the various functions 

that the OIG’s perform. But I think that it is unfair to suggest that 

the OIG’s as a whole do not advance the mission that they were 

charged with by the Congress, to prevent and detect, to educate as 

well as to adequately inform both the Congress and the heads of 

our agencies. So I think that that comment has to be taken in balance and viewed with the perspective of the various functions that 

we perform and the various tools that are made available to us by 

law and by regulation to execute those functions. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I think the Vice President probably, and 

I have heard him talk about it, and I share the concern that Government has so many of these regulations as opposed to being customer driven or outcome driven, that you are kind of countermanding the ideas that we are trying to get people to focus on the 

customer and please them regardless of whether the rules and regulations sometimes get in the way. I think that is where the conflict or I suppose somebody has to enforce the procedures and 

maybe it is common sense aspect of it. I don’t know what he is asking about, but I wanted to get your reaction to that. Ms. Hill. 

Ms. HILL. I would just point out, when I talk to people about 

what we do in the IG I like to use the term ‘‘by statute.’’ We are 

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sort of schizophrenic, in two respects, and I think both of those contribute to this question of whether we are going overboard and inhibiting change. The IG’s, on the one hand, must report to their department. On the other hand, they report to the Congress. So in 

that respect, they keep both the agency advised and the Congress 

advised. 

The second part is that we are in DOD, the senior advisor to the 

Secretary on waste, fraud, and abuse. So we are supposed to work 

with the Department to help them correct those problems. On the 

other hand, we are obviously the ones who have broad investigative 

authority, broad audit authority. No one likes to be audited. No one 

likes to be investigated. As Jackie said, that can be an abrasive 

process, particularly investigations. 

So we wear two hats. On the one hand, we are supposed to work 

with them and move the Department forward in a constructive 

manner. On the other hand, we also are persons, or the organization that has to go out when there is misconduct, especially individuals, these can be very sensitive, very controversial cases. We have 

to go out and investigate that. 

I think since the National Performance Review came out, I think 

there has been a growing recognition in the community, the IG 

community, that there needs to be some balance; that we need to 

not—you can’t go both ways, either way—completely to one side 

and forget the other part of our job. 

At DOD, I would say that while we have a very active investigative and audit section, criminal administrative investigations and 

audit, we have also made a very concerted effort to work with the 

agency. Particularly at Defense there is a lot of acquisition reform 

going on and downsizing and all kinds of reengineering. For instance, we do a lot of audits. A significant portion of them we do 

at the request of management in an effort to help them point out 

what their problems are, move them in a good direction. 

We also have been very actively participating in many of what 

they call ‘‘process action teams’’ at Defense, which are really management teams that get together to try to solve problems, reform 

the system; regulations, et cetera, those kinds of things. We work 

as advisors to those teams and give them the benefit of our experience. So we try not to be just in the situation of always coming up 

and saying, we got you, you did it wrong. We also try to work with 

them ahead of time and help them prevent problems down the 

road. So I think that’s what they were getting at with the Vice 

President’s comments and certainly people have made those criticisms. It is really the challenge we face is balancing those very different aspects of our job. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. BROMWICH. I think there is something to those comments 

that were made by the National Performance Review about Inspectors General, but I think we need to be careful not to overstate it. 

I think that the three of us, Inspectors General Williams-Bridgers 

and Hill and myself, all came in after the National Performance 

Review was published. So we came in mindful of some of the criticisms that were contained in that report. 

I think that what the report highlighted was a perception of arrogance and high-handedness that many people in agencies felt 

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was exhibited by Inspectors General in some of their work, particularly on the audit and inspection side, but I think also to some extent on the investigations side. For example, I know what my agency now does, and I believe many others do as well, is to do customer surveys, to try to get feedback from people on whom we conduct audits and inspections, and to find out how we do and how 

we can do better. 

Now, we don’t expect to win any popularity contests when we accuse people of wasting millions of dollars as we sometimes do. Nevertheless, the structure and nature of our jobs and the fact that we 

will inevitably be unpopular with some people shouldn’t be an excuse for not modifying our practices and changing the way we conduct some of our work in order to be fairer and in order to do our 

jobs better. So I think there was some truth to some of the things 

that were said in the National Performance Review about Inspectors General, but I think that in my agency and in others we are 

compensating for that. We are trying to make changes without at 

the same time defanging ourselves and really eliminating the important role that we play in making sure that we go after waste, 

fraud, and abuse and all their ramifications. 

Something was said in the hearing before you arrived—Inspectors General are like the Ethics Committees in the Congress. We 

are inevitably going to be unpopular in much of what we do, and 

I think all of us at this table, with the exception of Mr. Bryant, are 

resolved not to win popularity ourselves and to try to do our jobs 

as best we can, understanding that we will get criticism for what 

we do and that, as I say, we shouldn’t use that as an excuse not 

to change and improve the way we conduct our business. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. About 7 years ago, when I was interviewing for 

my job, I was asked by the director, why do you want to be an IG? 

And I explained the reasons. And her comment at that time was, 

simply, well, you will always be invited to the parties. You just 

won’t be the special guest. And I pretty much took that to heart 

because that’s exactly the way it is. And I don’t have a particular 

problem with that. 

We did, I think, as a community of people, I think we took to 

heart the comments made at the town hall meetings to the Vice 

President. Some of us, I for sure, was always skeptical of the concern because I knew that in my shop I didn’t operate the way it 

was being depicted in the town hall meetings. Nor would I ever operate that way. So in general, I think the effort of the IG community was to get together, see what we could do to make ourselves 

more proactive and more helpful to Government. 

We did just that. We created what is called the PCIE vision 

statement and it simply on one side identifies the mandated law, 

the 1978 law that put us into effect, and on the other side talks 

about the reinvention principles. Each of us try to abide by that, 

as has just been discussed, and many of us have added new features to our office. 

I have an evaluation and an inspection group that is—I would 

refer to them as a proactive group. We go out and we solicit some 

work and we try to jump in the middle of something that might 

be a problem if we don’t get in the middle of it. 

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We have team efforts going with the Chief Financial Officer so 

that everything we say is not under criticism but, yet we go in the 

midst of it trying to help. And we don’t have a problem in my office 

of helping and then being concerned about exercising our independence because we truly believe we can do both. 

But I think one of the important things that we have to measure 

on a daily basis is that we don’t get too proactive; we don’t want 

to be seen as in bed with management, ever. So we have to work 

very closely and guard our independence but yet at the same time 

be flexible enough to be reasonable and proactive and yet step back 

and be independent the next day if we have to. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. 

Mr. HORN. Mr. Bryant. 

Mr. BRYANT. I would have very little to add to what has already 

been said but just the fact that the mission of the Inspectors General is to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse and that’s a hard job. 

And they are extremely valuable allies to the FBI in a lot of criminal investigations, as has been related earlier, but it is a very hard 

job and I think they acquitted themselves very well in most cases. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman, my time is up. 

Mr. HORN. I will be glad to extend it to 15 minutes to both of 

you if you want to take three more. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let me try one more. The Government 

Auditing Standards or the Yellow Book that is produced by the 

GAO establishes a fairly detailed accounting quality standards for 

auditors. Comparably detailed standards don’t exist for investigators. 

Why is it that either the audits have mandated procedures but 

we haven’t been able to develop mandated procedures for investigations? Do you think the IG community could operate under one set 

of investigative standards that are prescribed mainly toward investigative procedures or is that just really not likely? Is there any reaction there? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. There are standards for conduct of 

criminal investigations. The PCIE promulgates a red, white, and 

blue pamphlet that I have seen some members of the panel have. 

Each OIG office, has a manual that goes into great detail and 

length about the conduct of criminal investigations, interview techniques, the rights of individuals, the warnings and assurances that 

our investigators should adhere to. Also, all criminal investigators 

in all of our offices are all GS 1811’s, as they are captured in the 

general standards job series, all trained at the same Federal Law 

Enforcement Training Center. They are required to undergo 8 

weeks of basic training followed by an additional 21⁄2 to 3 weeks 

of specialized training for criminal investigators that are employed 

in the Office of Inspector General. 

In addition to that, there is a continuing legal education program 

that all criminal investigators are required to attend. I believe the 

standard is once every 5 years. In my office, we require one every 

4 years. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I appreciate that. I know what you are 

talking about. I guess the difference is as you look at them is the 

Yellow Book standards are very detailed. These are much more 

general. It may be the nature of what you are trying to do, but I 

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would like to at least get on the record, do you think we ought to 

get more detail or do you think you need more flexibility as this 

allows each investigator? These are pretty flexible. 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. If I might add. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Sure. 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. I think there is always room for improvement on the standards. I am not sure when the last time 

those standards were updated. Perhaps some of my colleagues 

could better speak to that, but I think that no matter how detailed 

we try to prescribe in writing the standards for conduct of investigations, we must also allow flexibility for investigators to accommodate the certain circumstances that may exist at the time during 

pursuit of any particular case. 

Also, Mr. Davis, having spent myself 17 years at the General Accounting Office, I am quite familiar with the Yellow Book standards. Although on the face of it they appear to be quite detailed, 

as an auditor we used to say you could drive a Mack truck through 

those standards. They allow much flexibility on the part of auditors 

and increasingly you will see in the audit community exceptions or 

qualifiers written in the front of audit reports that we take some 

exception to compliance with the Yellow Book on these particular 

cases. We call those program evaluations. We call them program 

analyses, which are increasingly taking into account the various 

disciplines, the much broader disciplines that have brought some 

benefit to evaluating how well Government programs are working. 

Ms. HILL. I would just echo what Jackie said about having—we 

do have written manuals and PCIE has investigative standards, 

but I would point out that—when you think about it, it is true, 

Audit has a Yellow Book. What Audit does not have is what I think 

are the preeminent standards for Federal law enforcement: the Supreme Court and case law, which is very specific and it is constantly changing, I might add. Any good criminal investigator, any 

good prosecutor, has to be very aware of what the rules are on how 

they investigate, what they can and cannot do in terms of searches, 

in terms of interviews, confessions, et cetera. All of that is outlined 

in great detail in the case law and the legal decisions, and certainly 

the Justice Department. 

The other thing that people tend to forget is that in the criminal 

area when we investigate criminal cases, and our agents are criminal investigators, they work very closely and in close coordination 

with the Department of Justice’s career prosecutors. Those career 

prosecutors both Mike and I at one point in our careers were career 

prosecutors for Justice, and I am sure he would echo what I am 

telling you are familiar, through the Justice Department and 

through keeping up with the law and the cases, as to what the 

standards are in conducting criminal investigations. So there is a 

big difference between audit and criminal investigations in that 

sense. 

Mr. BROMWICH. I agree, Mr. Davis, that the quality standards 

you have before you are general, but I agree with Inspectors General Williams-Bridgers and Hill that an attempt to codify it or 

make it tighter than it currently is would be a misguided enterprise and a waste of time. I think that criminal investigators do 

have the structure of their working lives described by the Supreme 

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Court and by the Department of Justice, and I think that is adequate. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. I think, too, Mr. Davis, that what has already 

been mentioned is pretty much the thrust of where we are coming 

from in the criminal investigation world, and that is that we have 

an inordinate—I don’t mean inordinate in the sense that it is not 

reasoned—but we have an inordinate number of oversight reviews 

done of the IG community, such as this particular committee, and 

I think we all, without question, applaud exactly what is being 

done here. But we do have the responsibility of presenting a professional case to the U.S. attorney’s office, and subject to any criticism 

that would be what most of us would consider devastating to our 

operations. 

So, you know, in looking at the Quality Standards for Investigations, that’s one of the primary tasks of the Investigation Committee, which I chair, and we are in the process of finalizing the 

review on that. And it will be out shortly. It is this particular book. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Right. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. So I think, in summing up, what we have to 

strive for in the PCIE community, and especially in the Investigations Committee, is that we have to keep looking for ways of building our continuity and building the reputation that we want to 

achieve. We have to work hard at that. And I think that’s something that everybody is given to do. 

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you. 

Mr. BRYANT. I have nothing. 

Mr. HORN. The gentlewoman from New York for 17, 18 minutes, 

whatever. As the saying goes, now and then. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. McFarland, earlier Mr. Hamilton made the 

point rather forcefully that much of the work is dedicated to noncriminal matters, over 80 I believe he said, at the State Department. And therefore the IG may not, therefore, be viewed as primarily a law enforcement official. Given those facts, do you believe 

that some special procedures may be appropriate for IG’s when 

they are interviewing witnesses who are subjects or possible targets in criminal investigations? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. No, I do not. No, I do not believe that there 

should be any difference. The particular pamphlet that the IG for 

the State Department has put out I think is an exceptionally good 

pamphlet and something that I personally am going to institute in 

my office, something similar to it, and I also suggest that the PCIE 

consider taking it and running with it and building on it and making it something that maybe we can use overall in the community. 

But I think to infer that somebody walking into a room, where 

there is a prosecutor and criminal investigators, without being 

given prior warning, I simply don’t buy that at all for this reason: 

In many instances, especially in high profile cases, United States 

attorneys accompany criminal investigators and police officers on 

the streets when they are about to make an arrest or confront a 

situation. And they go along primarily to make sure that because 

it is such a high profile case or such a complex case, that the people that are going to be arrested or questioned are given every opportunity to have due process. I can’t imagine a situation of walkVerDate jul 14 2003 10:52 Dec 15, 2003 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00172 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HEARINGS\45951 45951
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ing into a room where there is a prosecutor and criminal investigators to be any more suited to due process than that, because when 

you walk in and there is a criminal prosecutor, I think you better 

believe for sure that person is going to be advised of every right 

possible. And the priority of the situation is going to be adhered to. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Yet in the cases that Mr. Hamilton referred to 

that caused him to draft his legislation, he said that was not the 

case. But were any of these cases ever referred to the PCIE committee for action? Are you aware of the cases that brought Mr. 

Hamilton to write the legislation? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Well——

Mrs. MALONEY. I guess, Mr. Bryant, right, you are with the 

PCIE’s Integrity Committee. Were they referred to you? 

Mr. BRYANT. I don’t think these cases were referred to the Integrity Committee. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, Mr. Bryant, just last week my daughter 

and I toured the FBI, and it was really a great experience for her. 

She said of her whole trip to Washington that was her favorite experience, going to the FBI, and you truly have the reputation of 

being the most effective investigators and law enforcement officers 

in our country. And that is quite an achievement because you do 

a good job on so many levels. 

Are there really any differences between the FBI’s procedures 

and standards and the investigative procedures and standards used 

by the IG? Are there differences in how you do your jobs? 

Mr. BRYANT. Well, I can’t speak for all the Inspectors General, 

but I think they are generally similar. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Very similar? 

Mr. BRYANT. I think in a criminal investigation, if I might lay 

out what we do, if we have a criminal investigation, say on a bank 

robber, and this is just a typical criminal case and we have about 

75,000 of them, not bank robberies but criminal cases, basically we 

are trying to obtain facts. We have an incident that occurred. 

Something triggered this. We are trying to obtain facts as to what 

happened. A lot of times we interview witnesses around the scene. 

We interview people to try to find out what happened. If the investigation focuses on one person, and we think X might have done 

this criminal act, a lot of times we don’t have very much information and we may interview this person just to try to generally find 

out where this person was. If I go into an interview with X, though, 

and I have the intention to arrest him, I am going to advise him 

of his Miranda rights because that is basically, as Mr. Bromwich 

pointed out, a custodial type interview. Outside of that, we are trying to gather enough facts to develop probable cause to take to the 

prosecutor, and I would just add those are the general standards 

that we work with. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Do you believe that possibly it would be a good 

idea to just accept the procedures and standards of the FBI and 

have them then apply to the IG’s since really the FBI has more experience and is the preeminent investigator and law enforcement 

agency of the Government? 

Mr. BRYANT. I think the standards are pretty similar anyway. 

Mrs. MALONEY. But I mean, if you just went ahead and did it, 

it would be clear. 

170

I guess what I would like to ask, because I am really sort of confused about the testimony from Mr. Goss and Mr. Hamilton, both 

of whom I respect tremendously, and I respect very much their 

point-of-view, both of their points-of-view, and both of them appeared to want to accomplish the same thing. Both of them said 

that it should go across Government. Both of them said that it 

should be clear, that procedures should be clear, that it should be 

consistent; that individuals should be aware of what is going on. 

They also made it very clear that they did not want to in any way 

impede the ability of any of our investigators in any area of Government in their investigative authority. 

So I would just really like to go down the line and just ask Mr. 

Bryant, I think all of you were in here when they testified, I would 

like to ask you, No. 1, do you support the Hamilton legislation? Yes 

or no? If you were to accomplish what Mr. Goss and Mr. Hamilton 

wanted to accomplish, what would you do? No. 3, do you think we 

should refer this to this Integrity Committee that already exists in 

Government to come forward with some guidelines that might help 

us? And both of them seem to want to accomplish the same thing 

but were approaching it in different areas, and I just would like 

wisdom of the opportunity that you have in your jobs, if you could 

share that with us. 

Starting with Mr. Bryant and then just right down the line, if 

you would like to comment, fine. If you would like to pass, fine. 

Whatever. 

Mr. BRYANT. OK. First of all, on the amendment that I saw, 

there was language in there that—like formal interview. I am not 

sure what a formal interview is. There was other language in there 

that needed to be looked at. I think even Congressman Hamilton’s 

suggestions that some of it was in the work in progress stage. But 

as the legislation stands now, I personally would not support it because I think it would inhibit investigations. What about situations 

where we are working undercover? What about situations where 

there is a consensual monitoring where you are trying to obtain 

some type of evidence? And those are issues that are legally recognized by the Supreme Court and they are used in a lot of cases 

that we have and certainly these ladies and gentlemen. And that’s 

the first question. 

I think what they are trying to accomplish is to make sure that 

employees that are under the purview of an investigation have 

some knowledge of the investigation and what type of investigation. I would think you would find in the vast majority of the investigations conducted by the IG or by the FBI that basically the people are identified as to who is there and what the purpose of the 

interview is. And that excludes certainly the undercover scenario. 

I guess the third issue, as far as the Integrity Committee, basically we are set up to look at allegations of noncriminal misconduct 

and it is a little bit outside the scope of what we do. I mean, we 

look at if there are allegations against some of the IG’s. 

Mrs. MALONEY. But then what do you suggest that we do? I 

mean, obviously a problem exists when people are trying to write 

laws or guidelines when they don’t do the job. You are the investigators. You do the job. So you have got to tell us how you protect 

individual rights while at the same time protecting the integrity of 

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investigations. So possibly if you would individually or jointly want 

to suggest some language to the chairman of whatever, I don’t 

know. How would you followup? I could see us spending a lot of 

time drafting a law that we would have another idea in 6 months 

from now that you would have a lot of problems with. 

Mr. HORN. If I might comment on Mrs. Maloney’s point where I 

think we are both in agreement here, I was going to wait until last, 

am waiting until last. Basically, we would like your advice and 

help on this, and we won’t generate any legislation out of the subcommittee, I would say, until maybe even after the August recess 

so we are talking September, October. But I can assure you I do 

intend to put in legislation, and I would ask Mrs. Maloney to be 

the coauthor of that. Because I think some things here need to be 

patched up. 

So I am delighted she says going right down the line issue by 

issue because that is what I intend to do eventually. And I would 

think we would both welcome the advice of Mrs. Hill’s committee. 

I have your letter here that you wrote Mr. Goss after he took action 

on the floor. And I talked to both Lee Hamilton and Porter Goss 

before I voted on that and I said, ‘‘Frankly, we need to air this 

issue out. I am going to vote against it, not particularly because I 

don’t think Mr. Hamilton is right—because I think he has some excellent points personally—but simply because I did not want one 

agency to have that provision going through the House. But maybe 

you ought to begin with all agencies.’’ 

So with that interruption, I will go back to my colleague here. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Your first question, my answer is no, I do not 

agree with the legislation, very much for what Mr. Bryant gave as 

his reason. I think there seems to be, in Mr. Hamilton’s viewpoint, 

at least, no differentiation between the employees of the State Department and Government in general, and the general population. 

I can’t imagine legislation that is going to give Government 

workers a particular right that the citizens of the country do not 

have, and yet I think that is where this particular legislation is 

headed. 

In consideration of what a typical police officer may go through 

during any daily activity, he or she may find themselves going into 

a building, talking with somebody about a crime, and there is no 

intention whatsoever prior to that to notify these people or this 

person what you are doing. And I don’t see much difference between that and what Congressman Hamilton is concerned about, 

somebody walking into a room where there is an IG and a prosecutor. 

I personally, if I was going to be charged with a crime or under 

suspicion, personally, I would rather walk into a room where there 

was a prosecutor and a criminal investigator together, because I 

know for sure I am going to have every advantage that the judicial 

system will provide under those conditions. 

Now, I think there is also a gray area in the discussion of an 

interview. When we talk about an interview, an interview is something pretty simple. When we talk in terms of police interrogation, 

I think we are in another area. And to me, an interview situation, 

if you walk in, it is just common courtesy to advise who you are, 

show the credential of who you are representing, and explain to the 

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person what is going on. If you are into an interrogation situation, 

some of these things may not apply because the criminal investigator certainly has the right to be clever and cunning if he or she 

needs to be, and every right does not have to be given at any given 

time. 

So, anyway, to get to your other point, how this can be accomplished, I think rather than send it to the Integrity Committee, I 

think probably the best avenue would be the Investigations Committee that I happen to chair right now. And maybe that is part 

of the answer that we can supply to you, is that I would be happy 

to look at, from the Investigations Committee standpoint, what can 

we do to try to resolve the concerns that this committee is dealing 

with today. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Mrs. Maloney, I can’t speak to the accuracy of 

the figures you cited, 80 percent noncriminal, 20 percent criminal. 

My statistics are the flip side of that, 80 percent criminal, 20 public 

administrative, roughly. So what you would be doing to the extent 

that you created new rights, you would be creating them for people 

who are the subjects of criminal investigations. And I, too, would 

be very concerned as Mr. McFarland is, that you would be creating 

a new set of rights for a limited class of citizens, not just, as we 

are hearing, the State Department employees but all Government 

employees. 

I think in a time of great cynicism about the operations of Government, to create new and special rights for Government employees and Government employees alone, I don’t think that would help 

the reputation of any of us for that to happen. 

And in response to your specific questions, first, I oppose the 

Hamilton amendment, as I said in a letter that I submitted with 

Inspectors General Hale and DeGeorge. 

Second question: How do we accomplish what we want to accomplish? I think it is very important that we do a better job of explaining to you what our procedures are, what our practices are, 

both in criminal and administrative contexts. For example, in an 

administrative interview, where somebody is not under arrest, we 

make it clear to someone after advising them of their rights, they 

cannot be fired for invoking their fifth amendment privilege 

against self-incrimination. So the element of compulsion that Congressman Hamilton and, to some extent, Congressman Goss were 

concerned about is vitiated to a substantial degree because people 

understand because we tell them the voluntariness of the interview; they are there on a voluntary basis. If they decide not to answer any questions, the interview is over and then we look to another day and do whatever we need to do. 

So I think we need to do a better job of letting you know what 

we do, the procedures that we follow. I think our procedures, at 

least in my agency, differ not at all from the procedures of the FBI 

relating to criminal matters. The FBI, because they are a criminal 

law enforcement agency, does not do the administrative matters 

that we do, and therefore we have a whole separate panoply of procedures that apply to administrative cases that they just don’t have 

because they don’t work those cases. But in a criminal case or in 

cases that could be criminal at the beginning of the investigation, 

173

I don’t think there is any difference between the procedures that 

they follow and the procedures that we follow. 

Mrs. MALONEY. But the point that Mr. Hamilton made is, how 

voluntary is it? It is one thing to get a phone call to go down to 

the FBI and testify. It is another thing to get it from a city prosecutor. But it is another thing to get a phone call from what is 

viewed by most employees as their boss, which is the IG within 

their department and whom you are taught to cooperate with. You 

are taught to cooperate and work with the IG and help them in any 

way, and that is part of the code of Government. The IG is there 

to find fraud and abuse, but also to stop problems, to make things 

work better, to let people know they are making a mistake, that 

that is not the way you do things, you are supposed to do them this 

way, or whatever. 

I think the point he was saying was, how voluntary in his testimony? Is it when you get a phone call within your agency to, in 

effect, you know, respond to questioning from a boss? And so he 

was making that distinction. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Well, we are not really a boss, we are independent; we’re statutorily independent from management. 

Mrs. MALONEY. But you are part of the agency, and you are part 

of making Government work better. 

Mr. BROMWICH. There is no doubt about that. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And you are seen as a superior. 

What are IG’s, second ranking to the Secretary themselves? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Some of us would like to think so, but I don’t 

know exactly where we fit in. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I think you are, and I think the testimony of IG’s 

is really important for Congress. They are independent, they are 

analytical, and they are—IG testimony is just as important, I 

would say, as a Secretary’s testimony before Congress, maybe more 

so. 

So the point he was making is, how free are you? 

Obviously, if the FBI calls you, you can say, ‘‘Wait a minute; I’ve 

got a problem.’’ If the FBI says, ‘‘I want to talk to you,’’ you have 

to think twice about it. But the IG, I don’t think most of the employees would think twice about the IG calling them in. 

Mr. BROMWICH. I think if you canvassed employees, you would 

find that their reactions are different. If they are aware of the function that we play and if they get a call to come to the investigator’s 

office for an interview, they are likely to be asked about their conduct or the conduct of somebody else. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Do you have many people invoking fifth amendment rights before IG’s? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes, we have lots of people who decline to participate in an interview or at some point in the interview decline 

to participate further. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Can you force an employee to testify? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes, we can, but then the information they furnish to you during that portion of the interview or that interview 

for which they have been compelled cannot be used in any criminal 

prosecution against them. They do have their rights, and we are 

careful to advise them of those rights. 

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Ms. HILL. I would say no, I do not support the Hamilton amendment. As to how to accomplish what he is getting at, I think the 

real crux of his concern was this idea or impression that somehow 

people are called into criminal investigative interviews and don’t 

understand the importance of the fact that there is a criminal investigation going on. And you suggested, certainly people know 

when the FBI calls them. They think the FBI conducts criminal investigations and therefore they should know the importance of 

their interview. 

I would suggest to you, first of all, that at least at DOD—and I 

mentioned this previously—I don’t think we have that problem, because our criminal investigators in the IG’s office are a separate 

entity under the name the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. 

Any time they interview a suspect, they first identify themselves. 

I have a badge with the DCIS credentials which clearly states, 

‘‘The Defense Criminal Investigative Service.’’ And most people, if 

not all in the Defense Department, know who they are before they 

get that notice. When they see the name, they have to understand. 

But certainly you would expect them to understand that it is a 

criminal investigation. 

So I don’t think that there is that same issue or concern, at least 

with our operation, that the Congressman has. 

To the broader issue of where he wants to go with the amendment, I think, frankly, you are getting into a very dangerous area. 

I don’t think you can treat criminal investigations in a vacuum, 

just the IG community. 

There was much talk when Mr. Hamilton testified about due 

process and making sure people have due process in criminal investigations. ‘‘Due process’’ is a constitutional term. The Supreme 

Court and the Federal courts have defined and set forth very clearly what due process requires in criminal investigations, and they 

have made no distinctions between due process for IG criminal investigations and due process for FBI criminal investigations. 

So if you are talking about creating new due process rights, outside what the Constitution requires, you are talking about giving 

additional rights to people who are investigated by IG’s, employees 

in the case of the Hamilton amendment. 

At DOD, for instance, we investigate people who are not employees. We investigate DOD contractors. Under the Hamilton amendment, employees would have more rights than contractors, and certainly the employees would have far more rights than the rest of 

the American public in similar criminal investigations. We do joint 

investigations with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. 

You would end up with situations where certain interviews would 

have to recognize certain rights, others would not, in the same investigation. 

So, my own personal opinion is, I think our procedures we need 

to address more to the committee and maybe educate people as to 

what they are, because I think they are sufficient. They certainly 

comply with the law and with the Supreme Court’s idea of due 

process. If you go beyond that and start creating new due process 

rights in criminal investigations, I think you cannot do it only for 

the IG. You would have to go to the entire Federal law enforcement 

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community, including the Justice Department, to get their input on 

how to do that. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Mrs. Maloney, I think your opening 

comments were very telling. This is a very confusing area. I, too, 

as I am sure many of my colleagues at this table, would agree with 

most of what Mr. Goss and Mr. Hamilton said on the first panel. 

We want fairness in the conduct of our investigations, we want objectivity, we want consistency throughout the OIG community, and 

we want to be able to continue to adhere to the larger Federal law 

enforcement investigative standards. 

Where I depart in company from Mr. Hamilton is the specific 

provisions of his amendment that we provide advance notice and 

advance identification of any of those law enforcement entities accompanying us on an interview, for reasons that Mr. Bryant articulates and others on the panel articulated, because in certain circumstances, not all and perhaps not even the majority, but in certain circumstances we do not want to, in any way, compromise the 

integrity of the investigation. We do not want documents destroyed. 

We do not want witnesses and potential testimony influenced. 

Mrs. Maloney, I have seen cases that we have conducted where, 

in the course of our fact-finding, e-mails have been mysteriously 

lost, documents have been erased, witness testimony amazingly 

word-for-word verbatim, and we have to believe that had it not 

been for the tools that were available to us when those tools can 

be fully exercised and are exercised properly, that we can maintain 

the integrity of the information prior to witnesses having an opportunity to destroy or alter that information. 

As Ms. Hill mentioned, it is quite clear to us that most employees, perhaps not all—and that is a point I want to get back to 

later—but most employees know the difference between an OIG investigator and an OIG auditor and inspector. 

Ms. Hill mentioned the credentials. This is the badge that our investigators carry. It looks just like that of any local policeman or 

any FBI agent that approaches you. It is quite clear when someone 

shows this badge from our office—and only investigators carry this 

badge—that we are there for a particular reason. 

When we approach the subject of an investigation in an interview, we inform them they are the subject of an investigation—if 

our investigation has progressed to that point where we have sufficient evidence to make that conclusion, that they are the subject 

of the investigation, that they have certain rights: the right to remain silent; that we give them certain assurances, just as Mr. 

Bromwich mentioned. We have them sign a form that spells out in 

writing all of those rights and assurances. 

I must also mention that Mr. Bromwich’s counsel and my counsel 

teach the IG’s a course on administration of rights. So if I might, 

with the chairman’s permission, submit with my testimony copies 

of those rights and warnings statements so that you can see that 

they are all the same, we adhere to the same standards.

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Mr. HORN. Without objection, they will be inserted in the record 

at this point. That is one of the more interesting questions to see 

what they do across agencies, so the staff will be following up in 

July and August. 

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Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Thank you very much. 

And one last point: What are the possible outcomes of this hearing? I think this conversation is one of the most productive outcomes, because clearly there is a misunderstanding about what the 

roles, the functions, and the full authorities invested in the Offices 

of Inspector General. 

Also, Mr. Hamilton’s point is very good about the need for regular and frequent communication with employees about what their 

rights are. It is just, at what particular point in time do you advise 

the person of those rights? And there we want to remain in concert, 

in compliance with Federal case law. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. HORN. If I might add, no one is asking you to go beyond Federal case law at this point, though Congress does have a right to 

grant rights, even if the Supreme Court doesn’t, which I think we 

would all agree under the Constitution. 

I am going to go through a series of questions here that are not 

in any particular logical order, because I have been scrawling them 

as I have listened to the witnesses. 

I guess the first question I want to ask Ms. Williams-Bridgers is, 

obviously Mr. Hamilton has taken certain items from a State Department investigation, and that is the basis for his testimony. And 

I know you have commented in your written statement, but I 

would like to hear it orally and look at me in the eye: Is he wrong 

on some of these on what he is stating, and, if so, what are they? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. As I heard Mr. Hamilton repeat his understanding of the case, some of the information is mixed. The 

cases have been mixed. Information related to the course of investigation of at least two cases have been mixed. 

As I read his statement very quickly before coming to this table, 

the third case, I am not familiar with what he cites in his written 

statement. In one of those cases that he mentions a Presidential 

appointee that was involved. 

The Clinton passport investigation, that was not a criminal investigation involving that individual. So discussion of what happened to that individual does not even fall within the purview of 

much of the discussion this morning about being subjects of criminal investigations and what are your rights. 

Mr. HORN. What about the question of somebody on the Inspector General’s staff leaking information to the media? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Again, that was not an unauthorized 

disclosure. We did have a pending investigation. It had been referred to the Department of Justice. 

When calls came in from the press—well, actually before the 

calls came in from the press, anticipating that there would be 

much public interest in that particular case, we consulted with the 

prosecuting attorney on that case and asked him, what is your 

guidance? What shall we do? That prosecuting attorney specifically 

advised us: Say that you have referred this matter to the Department of Justice. Refer all questions to my office. 

Mr. HORN. In other words, you are saying your people didn’t 

mention the person by name, they just said on this case——

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garding that particular case should be referred to the Department 

of Justice. 

Mr. HORN. And you gave them someone in Justice to whom they 

should call? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Yes. 

Mr. HORN. And it is the belief of the members and the staff in 

the Department of State that the leak came from the Department 

of Justice? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. I am not going to characterize it as a 

leak, but I do believe, from my read of recounts in the press, that 

the Department of Justice did have a conversation with members 

of the press. 

Mr. HORN. If one of your staff did do something like that, what 

would be the punishment? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. If a member of my staff provided information to any member of the public without prior authorization, I 

would take swift action against that individual. It is my policy to 

not comment on ongoing investigations unless I have been specifically advised to do otherwise by the Department of Justice, and 

only by the Department of Justice. 

Mr. HORN. What does ‘‘swift action’’ mean to you? Are you going 

to fire them on the spot, and can you? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Well, it is certainly within my purview 

to take administrative action, which includes removal from the office, for any misconduct of employees in my agency. But in that 

case, what I would probably do is refer it to the PCIE, the Integrity 

Committee, or another Office of Inspector General’s Office of Investigations for investigative followup. 

Mr. HORN. Well, what I would like from all of you—and Mrs. 

Maloney pursued a lot of it—is the basic information you think employees should get in a timely way, and the degree to which they 

should be notified who is present, and the opportunity to consult 

counsel, at what point in the process should that occur. 

And, obviously, no one is talking about an undercover investigation. I mean, let’s face it, you have got an undercover investigation; 

fine; keep going. That is not the context in which Mr. Hamilton’s 

case, right or wrong, is. It is going into a room of investigators who 

are not undercover. But if you don’t know completely who is in the 

room in the way some people might say, well, the good-cop-bad-cop 

routine, some try to get them just to tell everything, and they do 

not realize that that can be used against them. 

And let’s face it, we have had problems with the Naval Investigative Service over the years. Poor training of people. They have hit 

the headlines numerous times for violating people’s rights. And 

there are a lot of other agencies in this town that try to get away 

with certain things, and I think that is why the Congress is here 

to hear these complaints and that is why you are there as responsible executives to clean house if there are problems like that. 

And one of these bad apples—and I have seen one or two since 

I have been here—on your staffs, that were absolute self-publicity 

freaks, if I have ever seen any—and I have seen a lot in the State 

of California. Their testimony before congressional committees was 

designed to make a headline. It wasn’t designed to lay out the fairness of the case one way or the other. 

181

So I had my fill of that in 1993, and I don’t think the person is 

with us anymore, thank God. But it bothered me, because I have 

seen the same mentality in the State audit folks in California. I 

happened to get along with them, and I learned a lot from them, 

because I always had a private interview with them to say, OK, tell 

me some other experiences in other places. I wanted to be aware 

of those things. 

You said that on criminal investigations at the State Department, 80 percent is not criminal, it is really more administrative 

investigations program? Is it audit? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. That was not my figure. I believe someone else offered that. 

In the area of investigations, almost 100 percent of our investigations at initiation are criminal. Then when that case is referred to 

the Department of Justice, if the Department of Justice declined, 

it usually moves into an administrative phase. 

Perhaps that figure comes from a look at the total resources, the 

total operating budget, for State Department OIG. We employ 

about 35 criminal investigators out of a staff of 300. So about 10 

percent of the staff, a few more dollars are attached to our investigations. Because of the nature of our work, we travel worldwide, 

and that is expensive. But I am not sure where that 80 percent figure came from. 

Mr. HORN. We will leave it with a look at Mr. Hamilton’s comments on the floor and just file for the record anything you feel 

that is not accurate. 

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Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Sure. 

Mr. HORN. The next question I have concerns these nice little 

brochures. This is from the Department of State’s Office of Inspector General Investigative Process. And I asked the question—and 

maybe it has already happened—with Federal agencies, is there 

one basic set of content that your committees, both the investigative committee and the legislation committee, could put together 

that should be utilized by all Federal agencies, with the allowance 

that if something is so unique to a particular agency, they would 

add whatever they feel is related to that uniqueness? 

Can’t we agree on some language across the Federal Government 

as to how you inform employees of what their rights are, how the 

process works? That isn’t just a rights question, it is also to assuage worry about what the process is? And you can’t assume everybody knows that. You are all lawyers or advanced degrees and 

all of that, and I understand that, but the average citizen doesn’t 

understand that, and I am interested in what the average citizen 

knows, not what every lawyer in town knows. 

You chair the legislation committee? 

Ms. HILL. That’s right. I would say—certainly the IG investigative standards which Mr. McFarland referred to, they are very general, but they supposedly cover across the board for the IG community. They talk in terms of what standards we want to fulfill in investigations and in all of our work, in investigations, per se. 

Mr. HORN. Is that an issuance of the Office of Personnel Management or the committee that you chair on investigations? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. No; this is the result of the PCIE putting it out 

in 1985. 

Mr. HORN. This is the 1-year update? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Yes, we are updating this now. 

Mr. HORN. This was put out when? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. 1985. 

Mr. HORN. Twelve years. And you are in the process of changing 

it? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Yes, that’s right. 

Mr. HORN. It seems like a lot has happened in 12 years with the 

Supreme Court decisions. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Court decisions, yes, Mr. Chairman. But really, 

this book doesn’t get into that field of court decisions and case law 

as much as it tries to cover the general and the qualitative standards that are necessary for criminal investigations. 

Mr. HORN. Yes, now this is really more for the investigator than 

it is for the average employee. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Yes, strictly. 

Ms. HILL. It sets forth some general standards that we go by. If 

you get to something more specific, such as the pamphlet I believe 

the State Department has, which I have not read, but I assume it 

gets more to their particular procedures and policies and the way 

they are set up, I think it is difficult to be effective unless you 

would go agency by agency. The IG’s—there are 28 statutory IG’s, 

and the offices are very, very different. We have broad general authorities, but how they are set up, which parts do investigations, 

which ones don’t. In our case at Defense, you have the added issue 

191

of the military, and they have certain rights that civilians don’t 

have. 

So I think it would be more helpful to the employee to have 

something designed or targeted to their own agency. Certainly at 

Defense, we do not have such a pamphlet. When I saw the State 

Department pamphlet or was told about it, I didn’t have any particular objection to doing that; I think it is probably a good idea. 

I don’t know that everyone is going to read that and remember 

what they read. 

The problem that we have at Defense in doing that is just simply 

the logistical one. We would have to hand out almost 4 million 

pamphlets, and to make sure that everybody got one would be very 

difficult. If you didn’t get it to certain people or missed it, you 

would be accused of not giving it to them. I am not saying it is impossible, but it would be a significant undertaking for us. 

Mr. HORN. Well, I guess I am not too sympathetic with that because of all the paper that the Defense Department gives to employees. You could add the one that is important to constitutional 

rights. 

Ms. HILL. I would agree with that. 

Mr. HORN. The pamphlet to which I am referring is titled Quality Standards for Investigations. The publication source is the 

President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency and says copies may 

be obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector 

General. 

Now, that was not the GPO? Was this one of the Defense prints 

and not using the Government Printing Office? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. The situation at that time was that one of the 

Inspectors General raised his hand and he got the job of printing 

it. 

Mr. HORN. And paying the postage. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. I believe so. 

Mr. HORN. Any other comments on this discussion? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. If I may add, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I would be inclined to, and most happy to pursue through the 

Investigations Committee, some possible answers to your concerns. 

I am not sure at this point exactly what we would do, but we have 

a committee with a lot of years of experience, and that is what primarily we are all about, is looking at things like this, and we would 

be happy to do our best. I cannot make a guarantee, but I can 

guarantee that we will do it. 

Mr. HORN. Why don’t you initiate it and keep it simple. Don’t 

write for the Department of Justice solicitor general as a case going 

to court, but put it in simple English. 

In other words, it is fine with me to have you all initiate this. 

We reserve the right to, obviously, change it. But I would like to 

have your thoughts based on your knowledge of the law, what employees in general need to know about the Office of Inspector General on certain types of investigations, and what they ought to be 

informed when they come in. I can’t criticize this pamphlet for the 

Department of State. 

The question is, to what point do you remind people, after, let’s 

say, they have had it in employee orientation, and I think we can, 

given the several million employees of this Government—I think 

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we can afford to do that—10 cents a head or whatever it would be 

with GPO. 

Placed in the record at this point, without objection, the Office 

Inspector General Investigative Process prepared by the U.S. Department of State. Sherman M. Funk was the Inspector General. 

And it has a date on it March 1992, Department of State publication 9938. Hopefully, there were not 9937 items in their brochure 

when they joined the Department. 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Mr. Horn, may I ask that the most recent copy of our pamphlet be included in the record? We have one. 

Mr. HORN. Certainly, without objection. We are delighted to do 

that. 

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Mr. HORN. So staff will check, and you could help us. Do each 

of the agencies with the statutory IG’s have a pamphlet? And if so, 

what is it? And we would likely gather that. 

We would like to have more feedback if your committees can do 

that, on the audit versus nonaudit type of situation. I realize there 

are different things you get into. Obviously, the criminal area is 

the one that we certainly put a lot of concern on. And, again, I 

would say I would think OPM would be issuing some guidance in 

this area on behalf of Federal personnel, and you are sort of wearing two hats there, Mr. McFarland. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. OPM certainly will issue any guidance regarding personnel issues, but as far as this type of brochure, I think 

the genesis of it certainly has to be us, and we will do that. 

Mr. HORN. And obviously the question is, when? Joining the organization is one. I would think most people would agree that employees ought to know about what your office does when they join 

the organization. Then second, prior to entering the room where 

somebody is called in to participate in an investigation, an inquiry 

or whatever, at that point in the time, in your judgment, should 

be known and, if known, under what circumstances or it should be 

not known under certain circumstances? And I am going to leave 

it to those two committees to give us the answer by the end of August. 

We got into leaking information to foreign diplomats in one case, 

but I will not get into that. 

Let’s see. If a witness comes into one of your inquiries, shall we 

say, they may be investigations, and they happen to bring their 

microcassette recorder with them, would you let them tape that inquiry? 

Do you want to start down the line with State Department? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. It is not our general practice to allow 

people to tape record conversations unless our investigators are 

also tape recording conversations. 

Mr. HORN. I would hope you would tape record an inquiry. You 

don’t? You just take notes? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. No. We generally take contemporaneous notes and then rewrite the notes and type them up for 

records of the interview. That is the standard practice. 

Mr. HORN. Does the person who was interviewed ever see those 

notes? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Yes, if we are taking a formal deposition, they review and then sign each page. 

Mr. HORN. In other words, they can correct it if they feel it was 

in error? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. That’s correct; in a formal deposition. 

Mr. HORN. You don’t have a stenotypist in the room? 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. No, we do not. Generally we do not. We 

may use an interpreter, because we are dealing quite often in U.S. 

Embassies, and if we have a language problem there is an interpreter, and then we take contemporaneous notes through an interpreter. 

Mr. HORN. Do you all work the same way as State? 

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ies. DCIS follows the same practice, to my knowledge, as most 

other Federal law enforcement agencies in criminal cases. They do 

not tape record interviews. They take notes and have agents’ reports of investigation. 

Obviously, that is part of the criminal justice system which, if 

you work in a Federal criminal justice system, the place for sworn 

testimony is the Federal grand jury, and at that point the witness 

would be under oath and sworn testimony for the record. I don’t 

think the FBI——

Mr. HORN. There would be a stenotype transcript of that? 

Ms. HILL. The grand jury? Right. Short of the Federal grand 

jury, in criminal investigations we do not tape record witnesses or 

take stenographic transcripts. But, again, I would say that is the 

practice throughout the Federal law enforcement community, and 

I think it is a practice that the Justice Department would prefer 

and has approved in criminal investigations. 

On the administrative side, Departmental Inquiries does tape recorded interviews of witnesses, and they are entitled to a copy of 

the transcript. 

Mr. HORN. Mr. Bromwich. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Justice is also the same as identified by the two 

Inspectors General. We generally do not tape-record interviews. We 

have agents present to take notes and write up memoranda of 

interviews. On occasion, we do tape-record the interview. On other 

rare occasions in very important matters, generally administrative 

or management matters, we will actually have a court reporter 

present and have a transcript prepared. But that is the exception, 

not the rule. The rule is not to have the session tape-recorded or 

transcribed. 

Mr. HORN. Even if the individual says, ‘‘By the way, I want a 

record of what I have told you’’? 

Mr. BROMWICH. That is correct. We would not permit them to 

record the interview. 

Mr. HORN. You would not permit them? Do you think that is fair 

under the Constitution? 

Mr. BROMWICH. I think it is fair under the Constitution. I believe 

it has been found to be fair under the Constitution. The witness 

will then not have the ability to take the tape and play it for other 

prospective witnesses in the investigation and thereby tip them off 

as to precisely the questions that are likely to be asked of that subsequent witness or the answers that this specific witness gave. 

We cannot stop the witness from orally telling a prospective witness down the road what he believes he told the interviewers, but 

we like to try to stop a verbatim version of what that witness told 

us by not permitting tape recorders in the room. 

Mr. HORN. You didn’t really answer the question. Do you permit 

the witness—if they came in with a microcassette recorder, could 

they tape record? 

Ms. HILL. Our policy would be no, that we would not. In the 

criminal area, particularly the concerns that Mr. Bromwich just 

mentioned and the prosecutor’s concerns would be that they don’t 

want a verbatim transcript of the interview. That is why we don’t 

tape-record them. We take notes, and on the administrative side 

201

we don’t allow them to tape it, because we have a tape recorder 

there. There is a tape done, and they get a copy of the transcript. 

Mr. HORN. Who gets the copy of the transcript? 

Ms. HILL. The witness. 

Mr. HORN. The witness does get it? 

Ms. HILL. Right. 

Mr. HORN. They certify, certainly. 

Ms. HILL. They read it and can verify that it was accurate. 

Mr. HORN. Mr. McFarland. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Our practice is the same as Mr. Bromwich. We 

do not permit tape recorders to be used. 

Mr. HORN. Has that been a problem for you? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. No, to date it has not been a problem. 

Mr. HORN. And usually the witness doesn’t have time, I would 

think, to scratch down too many notes; right? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Well, probably not in most circumstances. They 

wouldn’t be taking many notes. But, you know, the interview that 

is written up is for their signature, and that is their chance to correct something. 

Mr. HORN. And let me consult here a minute on this question. 

I am going to get to that. But I take it it is clear you would not 

permit the witness coming in to use their own microcassette. Mr. 

Bromwich has stated one of the reasons why they might not. 

Here is what I am saying. I have a letter—Office of Personnel 

Management employee letter from Mary Lou Lindholm, the Assistant Director for Personnel. Subject: Notice of right of employees in 

exclusive bargaining units to request union representation. January 27, 1992. It is required by the agreement between the AFGE 

Local 32 and the OPM Central Office, OPM Central Office bargaining unit employees are to be advised of their right to union 

representation every year, during the month of January every year. 

Specifically, article 2, section 6, of the negotiated agreement states, 

quote: An employee has the right, upon request, of union representation at any time he or she is being examined by one or more 

agency representatives in connection with an investigation when 

the employee reasonably believes the investigation may result in 

disciplinary action against him or her. Each year during January, 

the agency shall send to each employee a memorandum quoting 

this section of the contract, unquote. Signed, Mary Lou Lindholm, 

Assistant Director of Personnel. 

Is this policy, Mr. McFarland, still pursued in the Office of Personnel Management? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Well, it is pursued, Mr. Chairman, but my office abides by the district court decision as opposed to the Third 

Circuit Court decision that says that the union representative is 

permitted. We do not permit the union representative. 

Mr. HORN. Two things. One, every January you remind them of 

their rights that they have union representation in the meeting. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. OPM does; we don’t. 

Mr. HORN. OPM does? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HORN. I thought you represented OPM in that sense? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Not in that sense. 

Mr. HORN. But you are an employee of OPM? 

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Mr. MCFARLAND. Yes, I am. 

Mr. HORN. Do you know if this 1992 agreement still stands? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Well, I don’t think it still stands, no. 

Mr. HORN. So presumably you have negotiated it out. Let’s get 

you and the staff to get us the answer as to what is the current 

practice of OPM on this particular 1992 language. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. All right. 

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Mr. HORN. Go ahead on when you permit union representatives 

in the meetings. 

Mr. MCFARLAND. No, I would not, and we do not. 

Mr. HORN. Mr. Bromwich. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Same answer. 

Mr. HORN. Ms. Hill. 

Ms. HILL. I would say in both our criminal investigations manual 

and in our administrative investigation manual, we do recognize 

the right of an employee, if they request it, to have a union rep 

present during the meeting. So we do allow them to do that. 

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Our practice is the same as Ms. Hill’s. 

We do allow, if requested, a union representative to attend during 

the interview. 

Mr. HORN. So it is two to two with this randomly selected panel. 

OK. Now let’s see what remains here. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Mr. Bryant has offered to break the tie, Mr. 

Horn. 

Mr. HORN. Well, I have one closing question, not on this subject. 

When I have all of this talent before me, I tend to take advantage 

of it. 

Well, Mr. McFarland, let me get back to you. At one point you 

said you cannot imagine Government workers being given a right 

that the average citizen does not have. And I really would like you 

to sort of tell me your thinking on, what rights has this dialog elicited that the average citizen doesn’t have? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Well, I think it kind of goes to the heart, Mr. 

Chairman, of some of the things that were said today about the 

pamphlets that are given to employees when they start Government, the EEO briefings that they may get, the ethics briefings 

that they may get, the warnings that they may get, as opposed to 

the average citizen, who may well have taken a civics course and 

that may be the extent of the knowledge that they have regarding 

their rights. 

Mr. HORN. Do you regard it as unreasonable that we give an employee a pamphlet that tells about the role of the Inspector General 

and what their rights are? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. No, I don’t see that as unreasonable at all. 

Mr. HORN. OK. I know that the OPM memo was sent by the IG 

yesterday, I guess, dated 6/23/97, time of 13:49. And that just goes 

with that document in the record. 

Now, having exhausted some of that, we always reserve the right 

to ask you questions later, and you can submit in writing, and you 

are still under oath in our rules. 

Let me move to a law in which Mrs. Maloney and I have a great 

interest, and often the Inspector General functions to save money 

through improving program management. 

In the Debt Collection Improvement Act, which I authored, and 

Mrs. Maloney is a cosponsor, and came out of the Chief Financial 

Officers Group of the executive branch, Congress authorized what 

some people call gain sharing for the agency. But what it is, the 

agencies can keep a percent of what they collect to improve the 

technologies with which they are enabled to more efficiently and effectively collect debts owed to people of the United States in a particular agency. 

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What do you think about agencies receiving part of the money 

from such a collection program to improve the technology? And has 

this funded and can it be used, in your judgment, to fund some of 

the Inspector General work which improves credit and debt management programs? It is now 1 year old, that act. Have IG’s benefited in any way under the act? 

Ms. HILL. I am not familiar with whether the IG’s have directly 

benefited. I have not looked at the exact wording of it and whether 

or not we would be able to get any financial benefit from it. 

I can tell you in principle that I think the Federal Government 

needs every incentive it can get to improve debt collection. I mean, 

when I was a prosecutor, I saw problems in debt collection. When 

I worked in the Senate on the Student Loan Program, I saw horrendous problems in debt collection. And at the Department of Defense we have problems in debt collection. 

So anything we can do to encourage agencies to get their efforts 

going stronger I would endorse, and certainly if there is a way, we 

will explore whether, under the act, the IG could take part in that, 

because we do look at issues like that, collection. We would certainly do that. 

Mr. HORN. Good. 

Mr. BROMWICH. I am also not familiar with the provisions of the 

debt collection statute, but I agree with Eleanor Hill that Government needs every instance to collect the debts that it is owed, and 

there is no greater challenge facing agencies than upgrading their 

communications and computer systems. I don’t know if we would 

be entitled to get a share, but our system technology needs upgrading, and this is certainly something that needs to be looked into. 

Mr. HORN. Any other comments? One last one for Ms. Hill. 

You mentioned the service IG’s. What is the relationship between 

what the IG’s do historically with the military branches versus 

your office? 

Ms. HILL. Right. Their role is a little different than ours. Honestly, they predate us. 

Mr. HORN. 200 years. 

Ms. HILL. Von Steuben, I believe. 

They have a large inspection function in addition to their investigative function. In addition, they are also a place where the service member can go for help on any number of problems, some of 

which may just be logistical and advice and that sort of thing. We 

work closely with them. 

I meet with the service IG’s regularly, and our biggest interaction with them is probably in the area of senior official and whistleblower investigations, administrative inquiries, because, as I 

outlined in my statement, even though we have broad authority on 

administrative inquiries in the Department, we don’t have the resources to do all of those whistleblower cases or all the senior official cases or all of the investigative cases that pertain to the military. And what we do, by necessity, is, we delegate out many of 

those cases to the service IG’s, and then we try to maintain oversight of what they do. 

So we work closely with them in trying to get the cases moving, 

make sure they are done right. Sometimes we send them back to 

them if we don’t think they are done properly. I can tell you that—

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and this is nothing adverse to the service IG’s, they are very 

strained on resources, and it is one of our biggest concerns, my concern as well as their own concern, are time limits. There are tremendous numbers of whistleblower cases that they handle, and 

they don’t have the resources to adequately handle them, and we 

are constantly meeting to try to come up with ways to improve the 

process and improve their process to get out credible, quality investigations on a more timely basis. 

Mr. HORN. Would anybody else like to comment or any similar 

relationship within their own Department’s historically? I have forgotten, frankly, about the Coast Guard, which would be in transportation unless in times of war, and some of the other things. 

Well, let me just thank you all for spending this morning here 

to help clarify a lot of matters that Members have been talking to 

us about since that issue came up on the floor. We will look forward to your reaching out to your fellow IG’s and getting back to 

us by the end of August some suggestions as to what would be appropriate in this area. I think there is a problem here. Now, the 

question is, we don’t want a solution that is worse not that problem. So we welcome your advice on it. 

And then I would to thank the staff that helped prepare this 

hearing: The staff director and chief counsel for the majority, Russell George, sitting on the back wall taking in all that surrounds 

us; and Mark Uncapher, the counsel for this particular hearing on 

my left. John Hynes, professional staff member, is not here. Andrea 

Miller is here, the clerk; Mark Stephenson for the minority, the 

once majority. Sorry, Mark. Hope springs eternal; right? Very helpful. He writes excellent questions. Jean Gosa, clerk for the minority, is here with us; and our two reporters, because we knew that 

all of you, the way you would talk very long this morning, so there 

was a relief team, Mindi Colchico, court reporter; and Joe Strickland, court reporter. We thank you all. 

And with that, this hearing—two interns? Jeff Cobb and Darren 

Carlson. Thank you, interns. 

They work for nothing. Is that a violation of some employee rule 

of OPM? 

Mr. MCFARLAND. Probably. 

Mr. HORN. Or it will be. 

The meeting is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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