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75–709 PDF 2012

ADDRESSING GSA’S CULTURE OF WASTEFUL 

SPENDING 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 16, 2012 

Serial No. 112–173 

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

( 

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

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

JOE WALSH, Illinois 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on April 16, 2012 .............................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Brian D. Miller, Inspector General, U.S. General Services Administration 

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

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 7 

The Honorable Martha N. Johnson, Former Administrator, U.S. General 

Sevices Administration 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 34 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 35 

The Honorable Michael J. Robertson, Chief of Staff, U.S. General Services 

Administration 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 40 

Mr. David E. Foley, Deputy Commissioner, Public Buildings Service, U.S. 

General Services Administration 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 40 

The Honorable Daniel M. Tangherlini, Acting Administrator, U.S. General 

Services Administration 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 82 

APPENDIX 

The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings, a Member of Congress from the State 

of Maryland, Opening Statement ....................................................................... 95 

Email from GSA Deputy Administrator Susan Brita to GSA IG Brian Miller .. 97 

The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Member of Congress from the State 

of Virginia, Opening Statement .......................................................................... 98 

The Honorable Paul Gosar, a Member of Congress from the State of Arizona, 

Questions asked to U.S. General Services Administration .............................. 99 

Memo sent to all GSA’s employees on restrictons on travel and Conferences 

for FY 2012 from Dan Tangherlini, Acting Administrator ............................... 100 

Memorandum on Clarification I, II, and III of April 15, 2012 Travel, Training 

and Conferences from Cynthia A. Metzler, Chief Administrative Services 

Officer (H) ............................................................................................................. 101 

Questions for Ms. Martha Johnson, Former Administrator of the General 

Services Administration from the Honorable Paul Gosar ................................ 106 

(1) 

ADDRESSING GSA’S CULTURE OF WASTEFUL 

SPENDING 

Monday, April 16, 2012 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:30 p.m., in Room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Issa, Burton, Turner, McHenry, 

Chaffetz, Lankford, Buerkle, Gosar, Walsh, Gowdy, Guinta, 

Farenthold, Kelly, Cummings, Norton, Tierney, Connolly, Welch, 

and Yarmuth. 

Also Present: Representative Emerson. 

Staff Present: Ali Ahmad, Communications Advisor; Kurt 

Bardella, Senior Policy Advisor; Michael R. Bebeau, Assistant 

Clerk; Robert Borden, General Counsel; Molly Boyl, Parliamentarian; Lawrence J. Brady, Staff Director; Ashley H. Callen, Counsel; Sharon Casey, Senior Assistant Clerk; Steve Castor, Chief 

Counsel, Investigations; John Cuaderes, Deputy Staff Director; Jessica L. Donlon, Counsel; Kate Dunbar, Legislative Analyst; Linda 

Good, Chief Clerk; Jennifer Hemingway, Senior Professional Staff 

Member; Frederick Hill, Director of Communications and Senior 

Policy Advisor; Christopher Hixon, Deputy Chief Counsel, Oversight; Mitchell S. Kominsky, Counsel; Ryan Little, Professional 

Staff Member; Justin LoFranco, Deputy Director of Digital Strategy; Mark D. Marin, Director of Oversight; Ashok M. Pinto, Deputy 

Chief Counsel, Investigations; Laura L. Rush, Deputy Chief Clerk; 

Jonathan J. Skladany, Counsel; Jeff Solsby, Senior Communications Advisor; Rebecca Watkins, Press Secretary; Jaron Bourke, 

Minority Director of Administration; Kevin Corbin, Minority Deputy Clerk; Ashley Etienne, Minority Director of Communications; 

Susanne Sachsman Grooms, Minority Chief Counsel; Jennifer Hoffman, Minority Press Secretary; Carla Hultberg, Minority Chief 

Clerk; Lucinda Lessley, Minority Policy Director; Steven Rangel, 

Minority Senior Counsel; and Dave Rapallo, Minority Staff Director. 

Chairman ISSA. The committee will come to order. 

It is the custom of this committee is to read our mission statement at the start of every hearing. I think particularly today it is 

important that we read it. 

The Oversight Committee’s mission statement is that we exist to 

secure two fundamental principles: First, Americans have a right 

to know that the money Washington takes from them is well spent; 

2 

and, second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective government 

that works for them. Our duty on the Oversight and Government 

Reform Committee is to protect these rights. 

Our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to 

taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to know what they get 

from their government. It is our job to work tirelessly, in partnership with citizen watchdogs, to deliver the facts to the American 

people and bring genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. 

This is our mission statement. And I might add, when I say ‘‘citizen watchdogs’’ that does include the Inspector Generals. 

We are here today to get answers to questions that should have 

been asked and answered long, long, long time ago. The details 

that have come to light about the GSA conference held in Las 

Vegas have raised serious questions in the minds of the American 

people about how government is using their tax dollars. 

There are those who believe government and its reach should be 

expanded. They believe that government should be bigger, have 

more resources, and play a larger role in the everyday lives of the 

American people. What has come to light surrounding GSA’s activities does give us pause for thought and to anyone who opposes cutting government size and spending that, in fact, there is much to 

be cut in government spending. 

There are five key questions that still stand out, and hopefully 

by the end of this hearing some will be answered. First and foremost, why did it take 11 months for this investigation under the 

Obama administration to come to light in a way in which meaningful action could begin? 

The Inspector General briefed the Administrator about details in 

an interim report and gave details of those responsible for gross 

waste. Yet indications are that some political appointees believe 

even this year that this report should be kept private. We on the 

committee find that outrageous. Although it is the custom of many 

Inspector Generals to inform this committee during early interim 

reporting and prior to a final report, that alone is not unusual. 

However, the fact that 11 months transpired gives us a particular 

reason to say, how long after an interim report is delivered and no 

action is taken before Congress is to be informed? 

There are still outstanding questions regarding the resignation of 

Martha Johnson as GSA Administrator. First of all, who asked her 

to resign? What specific reason was she asked to be resigned for? 

Was it because she was responsible for the events that unfolded at 

the convention or because she mishandled the public relations of 

the fallout that came 11 months later? 

While Martha Johnson has been removed, as Chief of Staff, Michael Robertson, who is also here today, has remained in place. Mr. 

Robertson previously served President Obama as legislative counsel in the Senate and served as a personal advisor to the President. 

It begs the question, are we really to believe that the Chief of Staff 

to the GSA Administrator and the right-hand man didn’t know 

anything about this for all this time? And if he didn’t, shouldn’t he 

have? Did he communicate the seriousness of this situation to the 

White House? And if so, when? 

Why was Jeff Neely, a Regional Public Buildings Service Commissioner who was the chief organizer of the 2010 Las Vegas conVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:01 Sep 06, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75709.TXT APRIL
3 

ference, given a bonus approved by the agency’s most senior officials even though they knew and were discussing sensational details of what had happened at the conference? The question here 

from the dais has to be: All the good works, all the assertions of 

a good job—if you have this kind of abuse, can they balance out to 

be a positive bonus totaling over $9,000? 

And finally, while we are determined to uncover the full truth 

about what went wrong and why, it is equally important to look 

to the future. I want to thank the GSA’s new Acting Administrator, 

Dan Tangherlini—I am going to get it right much sooner—for being 

here today and testifying. He called me shortly after taking the job; 

assured me, as one would expect, that he didn’t know everything, 

knew there was a problem, and would work diligently to fix it. 

That is all we can ask from the dais, is that mistakes, when 

made, are remedied, corrective action is taken, and that it be done 

in a professional way with an understanding that the bureaucracy 

is, in fact, neither Republican nor Democratic, that every administration faces these problems, and that solutions will not come by 

us pointing fingers to this administration, the last administration, 

or the next administration. 

Wasteful spending is a problem that transcends multiple administrations, but it is incumbent on the present administration to 

change the culture as best they can on their watch and leave to the 

next administration a better one than they inherited. 

With that, I recognize the distinguished ranking member, Mr. 

Cummings, for his opening statement. 

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

I want to begin by thanking Mr. Miller, the Inspector General at 

GSA, for bringing to light this gross abuse of taxpayer funds and 

for his work over the past year investigating the conference in 

2010. 

Two weeks ago, I, along with the rest of the Nation, was appalled 

to learn the results of this investigation, that GSA employees betrayed the trust we placed in them. 

For example, the Inspector General’s report described the actions 

of Jeff Neely, a career GSA employee for many years and a seniorlevel executive in the Pacific Rim Region based in San Francisco. 

He is certainly not the only official implicated in this investigation, 

and several others appeared to have maximized their own benefit 

in an environment in which they knew—they knew—they could get 

away with it. Nevertheless, Mr. Neely’s role as the host of the 2010 

conference has raised significant questions. 

According to the report, Mr. Neely engaged in an indefensible 

and intolerable pattern of misconduct, including repeatedly violating Federal travel and procurement rules, holding lavish parties 

in luxury suites, and allowing his wife and other nongovernment 

officials to participate in some of these events at taxpayers’ expense. 

In addition, documents obtained by the Inspector General indicate that Mr. Neely was aware that his actions were inappropriate. 

In one email, Mr. Neely invited personal friends to the conference, 

writing, and I quote—and this is simply incredible—quote, ‘‘We’ll 

get you guys a room near us, and we’ll pick up the room tab. 

Should be a blast,’’ end of quote. He then went on and wrote this, 

4 

‘‘I know I’m bad, but as Deb and I often say, why not enjoy it while 

we have it and while we can? It ain’t going to last forever,’’ end 

of quote. Well, Mr. Neely, it stops now. 

The record indicates Mr. Neely’s wife personally handled party 

arrangements, directed the actions of Federal employees, and ordered thousands of dollars in food at not their expense but the expense of taxpayers. In one case, Mr. Neely’s wife reportedly impersonated a Federal employee so she could join him at a private-sector conference. The impression they conveyed by these documents 

is that Mr. Neely and his wife believed they were some sort of 

agency royalty, who used taxpayer funds to bankroll their lavish 

lifestyle. They disregarded one of the most basic tenets of government service: It is not your money; it is the taxpayers’ money. 

Some of my questions today will be about the Inspector General’s 

recommendation to get some of that money back. I want to know 

how we can recoup these funds, including from Mr. Neely and 

other GSA employees personally. 

I understand the Justice Department may be examining Mr. 

Neely’s actions and that he intends to invoke the Fifth Amendment 

today. That is his right under the Constitution, and the committee 

should act responsibly in respecting his decision. However, I do not 

support granting Mr. Neely immunity at this time, Mr. Chairman. 

On Thursday, the chairman sent a letter to Mr. Neely’s attorney 

suggesting that the chairman was considering immunizing him. On 

Friday, Mr. Neely’s attorney responded positively, writing that Mr. 

Neely, quote, ‘‘will abide by the appropriate court order and the 

procedures set forth under the immunity statute,’’ end of quote. 

Granting immunity is a serious action that should not be entered 

into lightly since it could negatively impact a future criminal prosecution or prosecutions. Such a decision requires thoughtful considerations and consultation with the Justice Department. Our committee has no consultations about this, and I see no reason to immunize Mr. Neely if he has taken the actions of which he stands 

accused. 

In addition to addressing the actions of specific individuals, we 

need to understand how GSA’s system allowed this pattern in this 

case, the extent to which it happened in previous cases, and the reforms necessary to prevent it from ever happening again. 

According to interviews by the Inspector General’s Office, these 

activities were going on for years. When discussing the 2010 conference, one witness stated, ‘‘The planning of it was similar to what 

happened in previous WRCs. You know, we just kind of proceeded 

based on that.’’ When investigators asked another witness whether 

the 2010 conference was an outlier, he said it was pretty consistent 

with previous conferences, and that although Mr. Neely wanted to 

do better than they did in New Orleans in 2008, there was not 

much difference. 

Let me close by noting that one of the most damaging aspects of 

this incident is that it tarnishes the reputation of hardworking government workers who dedicate their lives to public service. It gives 

them a bad name, and it is completely unfair. There are scrupulous 

employees across this government who follow the rules every single 

day. They pool their money out of their own pockets just to pay for 

5 

coffee at their offices. They are honest and hardworking, and they 

should not be painted with the same brush. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for calling this hearing. And, with 

that, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

Chairman ISSA. Pursuant to our rules, I now ask unanimous consent that our colleague from Missouri, Ms. Emerson, be allowed to 

participate in today’s hearing. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

All Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements for 

the record. 

Chairman ISSA. We now recognize our panel. The Honorable 

Brian D. Miller is the Inspector General of the General Services 

Administration. Ms. Martha N. Johnson is the former Administrator of the General Services Administration. Mr. Jeff Neely is the 

Regional Commissioner of Public Buildings Service in the Pacific 

Rim Region at the General Services Administration. Mr. Michael J. 

Robertson is Chief of Staff at the General Services Administration. 

And Mr. David E. Foley is the Deputy Commissioner of Public 

Buildings Service at the General Services Administration. 

Pursuant to our rules, all witnesses are required to take the 

oath. Would you please rise and raise your right hand to take the 

oath? 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Please take your seats. 

In order to allow time for discussion, testimony will be limited 

to 5 minutes. Some of you have written statements; some do not. 

In either case, you may consider—or your written statements will 

be placed in the record in their entirety, so you may either read 

your written statement for 5 minutes or make other such comments as you think would be helpful to all of us. 

With that, the chair recognizes Mr. Miller for 5 minutes. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRIAN D. MILLER 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good afternoon, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member—— 

Chairman ISSA. Would you pull the mic as close as you can tolerate? 

Mr. MILLER. Okay. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. MILLER. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here to testify 

today. 

As you know, on April 2nd of this year, I published a report regarding GSA mismanagement of its Western Regions Conference in 

the fall of 2010. It may be very difficult among all the bad news 

and repugnant behavior to find but there is at least a glimmer of 

good news: The oversight system worked. My office aggressively inVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:01 Sep 06, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75709.TXT APRIL
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vestigated, interviewed witnesses, and issued a report. No one 

stopped us from writing the report, and no one stopped us from 

publishing the report. Justice Brandeis said that sunlight is said 

to be one of the best of disinfectants. Let’s hope so. 

Congress recently strengthened Inspectors General, and we 

thank you for that. It helps us to do our job in protecting taxpayer 

dollars. And, unfortunately, we may be the last resort for protecting taxpayer dollars and, unfortunately, catching the fraud, 

waste, and abuse after the money is spent. More needs to be done 

to establish early warning systems. And that is why Acting Administrator Tangherlini and I reminded GSA employees to alert us as 

soon as they see anything wrong. 

When GSA wastes its own money, how can other agencies trust 

it to handle the taxpayer dollars given to them? As detailed in my 

report, GSA committed numerous violations of contracting regulations and the Federal travel regulation. This is a special concern 

because other Federal agencies need to be able to look to GSA as 

a model of how to conduct contracting and conference planning. 

In attempting to model the entrepreneurial spirit of a private 

business, some in the Public Buildings Service seem to have forgotten that they have a special responsibility to the taxpayers to 

spend their money wisely and economically. While a private business may use profits to reward employees in a lavish fashion, a 

government agency may not. 

In preparing the Western Regions Conference report, numerous 

dedicated professionals from throughout my office worked long 

hours to ensure that the report was accurate and it drew no conclusions beyond those fully supported by the evidence. It is my hope 

that these efforts will enable GSA to improve its contracting and 

conference-planning practices in the future so that GSA may not 

only be a better steward of taxpayer dollars but act as the leader 

within the Federal Government in efficient procurement and conference planning. 

I thank you for the opportunity to discuss this important report. 

I request that the report, as well as my written statement, be made 

part of the record. And I welcome any questions. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Ms. Johnson? 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. MARTHA N. JOHNSON 

Ms. JOHNSON. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and 

members of the committee, thank you for providing me the opportunity to present this testimony today. 

On April 2nd, 2012, I resigned as Administrator of the General 

Services Administration and left my cherished career as a public 

servant. I did so in order to step aside and allow a new team to 

rebuild GSA from major missteps regarding the Western Regions 

Conference in October 2010. 

I previously served GSA in the Clinton administration, leaving in 

2001. At that time, the leadership was strong. Scheduled design 

programs and other programs were producing much value for our 

customers. When I returned to GSA in 2010, the agency was not 

quite the same. A quarter of the executive positions were empty, 

strategy was nonexistent, major customers viewed our partnership 

askance, labor relations were acrimonious, a more expensive leasing portfolio had ballooned, and more. 

Nearly 2 years had elapsed without a confirmed Administrator. 

Although I received a unanimous vote by the Senate, my own confirmation was delayed by 9 months. By the time I was sworn in, 

a sequence of four Acting Administrators had overseen the agency. 

What I did not know was that there was yet another problem. 

The Western Regions Conference and economical training event in 

the late 1990s had evolved into a raucous, extravagant, arrogant, 

self-congratulatory event that ultimately belittled Federal workers. 

Leaders apparently competed in entertainment rather than building performance capability. The expensive planning for that conference was well under way when I entered GSA, and I was unaware of the scope. Thus I began my tenure as Administrator. 

I take this opportunity to thank the overwhelming majority of 

GSA employees, 13,000 of them, who eagerly rose to the task of renewal. Their record is extraordinary: a building portfolio 22 percent 

more efficient than equivalent private-sector buildings; efficient 

management of 220,000 vehicles, 10 million trip reservations, billions in purchase card transactions; the innovative USA.gov, results.gov, and more. 

As for my part, I set about reconstituting GSA’s executive team. 

Over three-quarters of the senior executives are now in different 

roles than they were when I arrived. GSA’s strategic path is clear. 

Customers praise us publicly—praise GSA publicly. The labor partnership is fruitful. GSA has email in the cloud. GSA’s renovated 

1800 F Street headquarters, which held 2,500 people, will be home 

to 4,500 people next year, allowing GSA to relinquish leases and 

save millions. 

However, GSA’s performance, tragically, does not compensate for 

the issues raised by the IG and this committee. I greeted Mr. Miller’s report on the conference without hesitation, agreeing completely with the recommendation. I am extremely aggrieved by the 

gall of a handful of people to misuse Federal tax dollars, twist contracting rules, and defile the great name of the General Services 

Administration. 

35 

This is how that chapter unfolded. Around late October 2010, 

Deputy Administrator Susan Brita requested an investigation into 

the Western Regions Conference. The IG subsequently communicated progress with a PowerPoint deck. In May 2011, we realized 

this was a very serious matter and we needed all the facts. However painful and disruptive, we were eager for the full report. 

In the interim, I addressed leadership, organizational controls, 

and conference management. I placed a new Regional Administrator in Region 9, relieving Jeff Neely of that responsibility. We 

also promptly backfilled the Region 9 regional counsel with an internal reassignment. Under organizational controls, I established a 

Chief Administrative Services Office, reporting to me, with responsibility for GSA’s acquisition, oversight of travel, conferences, and 

the like. 

With conference management, GSA had already been overhauling conferences. For example, the 50-year-old interagency resource management conference was evolving from an offsite at a 

hotel to a shorter event at Gallaudet. This year, it is a 1-day conference. We also cataloged our internal conferences, and Ms. Brita 

reviewed expenditures until she was satisfied that controls were in 

place. 

I believed the IG would conclude the investigation expeditiously. 

We finally received a report in February 2012. We then began disciplinary actions, revised internal controls, and adjusted budgets to 

penalize the regions. 

I accepted the IG’s recommendation. I extended disciplinary action to career employees. It is a complicated process; it is under 

way. The egregious course and nature of this evidence led me then 

to terminate two of the political appointees in the line of authority 

to me and I submitted my own resignation. 

I personally apologize to the American people. As the head of the 

agency, I am responsible. I deeply regret this. I will mourn for the 

rest of my life the loss of my appointment. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Mr. Robertson? 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. MICHAEL J. ROBERTSON 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good afternoon, Chairman—— 

Chairman ISSA. I think your mic is not on yet. Thank you. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Good afternoon, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and members of the committee. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to appear before you here today. 

My name is Michael Robertson, and I am Chief of Staff at the 

U.S. General Services Administration. Like you, I am appalled and 

disappointed by the indefensible conduct surrounding the Western 

Regions Conference outlined in the IG’s report. The behavior of 

those responsible undermines GSA’s core mission, the trust given 

to us by our government customers, and the trust of those we ultimately serve: the American people. 

GSA has accepted all of Inspector General Miller’s recommendations, and we have taken strong action to prevent further abuses 

from occurring. And we will continue to work hard to restore faith 

in our mission. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear today, and I look forward 

to working with this committee. And I welcome the opportunity to 

answer any questions. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Foley? 

STATEMENT OF DAVID E. FOLEY 

Mr. FOLEY. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and 

members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify 

today. My name is David Foley, and I am the Deputy Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service. 

I sincerely apologize for my remarks at the awards ceremony for 

the Western Regions Conference. At the time of my remarks, I was 

not aware of the significant spending irregularities. I did not intend to condone any wasteful spending or minimize the role of congressional oversight. 

I especially apologize to Congresswoman Norton. I have the utmost respect for you. You have always been a strong advocate for 

GSA and our programs while holding us accountable as an agency, 

and I did not mean to belittle you or your role in any way. I attempted to make a joke in the context of a talent celebration that 

I perceived as being similar to a comedic roast. 

As the Deputy Commissioner, I should have taken the stage to 

stress that we have a serious job and responsibility as stewards of 

taxpayer funds. I realize I missed an opportunity to address nearly 

300 people in my organization and stress the importance of the 

work we do. 

During my presentation at the award ceremony, I told the award 

recipient I was making his dreams come true by making him Commissioner for the rest of the day. Obviously, that was a joke; I was 

not seriously delegating any authority to the awardee. 

I also joked about some of the obligations of being the Commissioner. My understanding at the time was that the Commissioner 

was paying for the charges associated with the after-hours party on 

Tuesday evening, so I tried to use that in a humorous way that 

41 

suggested that the awardee would have to pay for the party and 

the hotel. 

Finally, I said as the Acting Commissioner he would have to answer for his proposed pay increases in the video. My intent was to 

point out that the Commissioner has a lot of responsibilities and 

to answer to a lot of people in the administration and Congress, not 

to mock the various oversight roles. 

My remarks were wrong, and I take full responsibility for what 

I said. I understand the outrage about this conference, my comments, and how they have inflamed all of the issues surrounding 

this event. 

I preface the rest of my statement by saying that I have only 

seen the draft IG report that appears to be the same as what has 

been released publicly. I have not seen any of the supporting documents and was not questioned or briefed by the IG during the investigation, so I do not know all of the details. Additionally, I no 

longer have access to my emails or files, so I have not been able 

to review or verify my memory of these events. This represents my 

understanding based upon what I remember from almost 2 years 

ago. 

Concerning my role in the Western Regions Conference, again I 

want to start by apologizing. I was not directly involved in the 

planning for the conference or any of the financial and contracting 

irregularities identified in the Inspector General’s report. I did attend 2–1/2 days of the conference. There were things that seemed 

over-the-top, but I believed they were not being paid for with government funds. In past conferences, items like the tuxedos and the 

after-hour parties were paid for by individuals, not the taxpayer. 

Had I known since what has been revealed, I would have been concerned and would have reported it. 

Because of the regional reporting structure in our agency, I did 

not have supervisory control or authority over how the regional 

budget was spent, procurement activities, or any of the employees 

in the Western Regions. The Regional Commissioners and their 

staff reported directly to their Regional Administrators, who in 

turn report to the Administrator’s office. My primary role as the 

Deputy Commissioner is dealing with OMB, Congress, and other 

Federal agencies on critical projects and policy issues. I am not a 

contracting officer, and I do not have a warrant to approve expenditures. 

I attended two of the receptions cited in the IG report. One was 

hosted by the Commissioner, and I understood that he would be 

paying for refreshments and beverages. The second was on the last 

night to thank everyone for their efforts. At the time, I believed 

that one was paid for by the four hosting Regional Commissioners. 

I did not believe that any government funds were used to pay for 

the events that occurred after-hours. 

I have spent the last 15 years of my career working for GSA, and 

I believe strongly in the agency’s mission and the value it provides 

to other agencies and our country. I am truly sorry for my comments and apologize to this committee, the administration, my fellow GSA employees, and, most importantly, the American taxpayers. 

At this point, I am willing to take any questions you may have. 

42 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Neely, you have not provided us with any 

written testimony before the committee. Do you wish to make an 

opening statement? 

Mr. NEELY. No, Mr. Chairman, I don’t. 

Chairman ISSA. It is my understanding from your counsel that 

you may want to assert your constitutional privileges and remain 

silent. Is that correct? 

Mr. NEELY. Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is correct. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Neely, the topic of today’s hearing is GSA’s 

culture of waste and spending. You are uniquely positioned to provide testimony that will help the committee better understand the 

GSA’s spending of more than $850,000 at the conference in Las 

Vegas in 2010. To that end, I must ask you once again to consider 

answering the questions, so if you will bear with me. 

Mr. Neely, what is your title at GSA? 

Mr. NEELY. Mr. Chairman, on the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional privilege. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Neely, did you attend the 2010 Western Regional Conference in Las Vegas? 

Mr. NEELY. Mr. Chairman, on the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional privilege. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Neely, did you approve the funding for the 

2010 Western Regional Conference? 

Mr. NEELY. Mr. Chairman, on the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional privilege. 

Chairman ISSA. Just a few more. Mr. Neely, what was the original budget for that conference? 

Mr. NEELY. Mr. Chairman, on the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional privilege. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Neely, are you currently employed by the 

GSA as a Federal employee? 

Mr. NEELY. Mr. Chairman, on the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional privilege. 

Chairman ISSA. Lastly, Mr. Neely, are you prepared to answer 

any questions here today about your participation in the 2010 

Western Regional Conference? 

Mr. NEELY. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully decline to answer any 

questions here today based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional privilege. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Cummings, do you have any questions? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, in light of the fact that Mr. Neely 

has asserted his rights under the Fifth Amendment, I have no 

questions. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Given that the witness has indicated that he does not intend to 

answer any questions and out of respect for his constitutional 

rights, I do now ask the committee to excuse the witness from the 

table but to have him remain for the remainder of the hearing. 

43 

Without objection—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I have no objections. 

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered. 

We will now take a very short, about a 4-minute, 3-minute recess. And I would ask Mr. Neely and his attorney to join us 

through that door. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. Thank you all. 

Could we have the clerk remove Mr. Neely’s name? 

I want to thank all of you for your patience. I have served for 

12 years, Mr. Cummings for longer. This is the first time we have 

had somebody do this before one of my committees, so we wanted 

to make sure we did it exactly according to the rules. 

With that, I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

Ms. Johnson, I appreciate your opening statement and the work 

that you said you did, but I am very troubled by the bonus that 

Mr. Neely received. How can you justify a bonus for somebody that 

you knew at the time of his bonus from Mr. Miller in fact was at 

the center of this misconduct? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Congressman, there are two processes; one is the 

conduct process, and one is the performance process. The conduct 

process by which I could discipline someone was wrapped up in an 

investigation which I requested from the IG. 

Chairman ISSA. Well—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. It took much longer than I expected. 

Chairman ISSA. No, I appreciate that, but Mr. Miller—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. The performance process—— 

Chairman ISSA. Were you aware that excess money was spent at 

that conference, significant excess? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I had received a communication from the IG with 

nonconclusive results. I was concerned; I wanted the full picture. 

So when we moved to the performance cycle, the performance reviews for senior executives are based on a 3 for maintaining an organization, a 4 for reforming an organization, and a 5 for transforming. I was informed that his leasing processes were the model 

for the Nation. Leasing is one of our critical issues. I granted him 

a 4. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Mr. Miller, you gave that preliminary some 11 months before 

your final. I am going to ask you something not normally asked of 

an IG. Would you have tried to find a way not to grant that bonus 

considering what you knew and had briefed on, concerning Mr. 

Neely and others? 

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, of course I am not in that position, 

but, you know, I believe the Administrator was free not to give the 

Region 9 Regional Commissioner a good performance evaluation 

and a performance award or a special act award. She was free not 

to give those special awards to the Regional Commissioner. 

She had in her possession a final report on the Hats Off Program, the employee reward program, and that was final. That went 

final at the end of June. So that was final; all the facts were nailed 

down on that. She had the interim report—— 

Chairman ISSA. And I think you have made your case that it was 

a discretionary, and the discretion, Ms. Johnson, was yours not to 

44 

grant that. I appreciate that you are able to bifurcate some of 

these, but let’s go through it. 

Did you, in fact, relieve Mr. Neely of some of his responsibilities 

because of the interim report, as you stated in your opening statement? You made changes—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. It was an opening communication. It was not an 

interim report. I received it through the Deputy Administrator, 

who—and the IG was giving us a—communicating to us that the 

report was—that the investigation was under way. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. Well, let’s go through this. And I will 

make this available for the record. Although it does say ‘‘for official 

use only,’’ I think it is pretty well outed here. 

Was it a 30-page report that detailed the excess spending and 

the ceremonies and so on? And were you aware of that? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I was aware of a PowerPoint slide deck, but I did 

not see it. 

Chairman ISSA. So it was not important enough for you to see? 

Ms. JOHNSON. The Deputy Administrator had seen it and shared 

the information in it with us. 

Chairman ISSA. Because I am trying to understand. You personally were responsible for Mr. Neely’s bonus, but you were not personally willing to look at the evidence of why he shouldn’t receive 

a bonus? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Again, that was a conduct review—— 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. I think you have answered that—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. —with a disciplinary process for conduct. 

Chairman ISSA. —and I am sorry that you can bifurcate it quite 

that way. 

Mr. Miller, does this one incident represent the only time that 

you have seen the kinds of excesses in this and other units? And 

you don’t have to be specific on ongoing investigations, but have 

you seen similar waste, excess stays, spending of the taxpayers’ 

money in a way that is inconsistent with the requirements of law 

or at least the intent? 

Mr. MILLER. In Region 9, yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. So this was, to use the term, widespread? 

Mr. MILLER. Unfortunately, we don’t have a report concluding 

that. We have heard from witnesses that indicate that it was widespread in Region 9. 

Chairman ISSA. I mean, certainly, 5 days for a ribbon-cutting 

with multiple people—— 

Mr. MILLER. In Hawaii. 

Chairman ISSA. —is another example? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. Do you know, not with specific examples, but do 

you know or suspect or are you investigating other misconduct including kickbacks, bribes, and other activities that might go to the 

very question of the objectivity of purchasing and other GSA officials? 

Mr. MILLER. We do have other ongoing investigations—— 

Chairman ISSA. Including kickbacks? 

Mr. MILLER. Including all sorts of improprieties, including bribes, 

possibly kickbacks, but I would have to check on precisely kickbacks. 

45 

Chairman ISSA. Well, this committee some years ago, when I was 

in the minority—or I guess I was in the majority, but a subcommittee chairman—investigated an organization formerly called 

the Mineral Management Services. And we found that, in fact, they 

were partying with the people they were supposed to oversee, they 

were taking gifts and favors, and they thought that they needed to 

have a close relationship with the people they were interfacing 

with and justified ignoring Federal rules as to gifts based on that. 

Is that similar to what you are seeing at GSA? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, very similar. We are investigating those sorts of things. 

Chairman ISSA. As I recognize the ranking member, I might remind everybody that, although we produced scathing reports on the 

Mineral Management Service and tried to get the then-Bush administration to make changes and the then-Obama administration 

to make changes, we failed to do so, and the Gulf of Mexico was 

filled with oil because of that agency’s ongoing failures. 

With that, I recognize the gentleman from Maryland and would 

ask that he have an additional 1 minute. 

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

Mr. Miller, as I walked around my district this weekend, a lot 

of people were complaining about having to write checks to the 

IRS. And in that light, Mr. Miller, and based on your report, there 

were thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in improper 

expenditures in 2010—with regard to this 2010 conference. GSA 

employees stayed in luxury resort suites, charged expenses for 

after-hour parties, and purchased food for non-GSA employees, just 

to name a few of the examples. 

One of the recommendations you made in your report is that, 

and I quote, ‘‘Determine whether GSA can recover funds improperly paid, such as for meals for non-employees,’’ end of quote. I 

think a lot of people agree with that, including myself. These employees acted like this was their money, and now they should pay 

it back. 

What can you do to recover the funds from these Federal employees? 

Mr. MILLER. Congressman Cummings, when Dan Tangherlini became Acting Administrator, one of our first conversations was 

about sending a bill to the Regional Commissioner, the former PBS 

Commissioner, and others responsible for these in-room parties and 

other expenses. And I believe that the Acting Administrator has 

sent the bill. He is on the next panel, and I believe he would say 

that he has already at least taken steps to send a bill. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So if they don’t pay it back, what happens? I 

mean, do you have criminal or civil remedies to try to get it back? 

Mr. MILLER. Perhaps civil remedies. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. Very good. 

Mr. Miller, in several of the interviews your investigators conducted, witnesses told you that they were scared that Mr. Neely 

would retaliate against them if they blew the whistle. This is actually shocking to the conscience. For example, one employee said 

that if you crossed Mr. Neely, and I quote, ‘‘then you are in trouble. 

You know, he threatens you with poor performance appraisals,’’ 

end of quote. When another employee tried to raise concerns about 

46 

the extravagant conferences, the witness told your investigators 

that that employee was, and I quote, ‘‘squashed like a bug,’’ end of 

quote, by Mr. Neely. Those are the kind of threats he allegedly 

made. 

Are you familiar with these statements? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes, I am, sir. Those statements and more. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Was this fear of retaliation by Mr. Neely a significant factor enabling him to continue his inappropriate actions 

for years? 

Mr. MILLER. Congressman, it is a significant factor. They apparently had a very hostile environment. And when someone spoke up, 

they were, quote, according to a witness, ‘‘squashed like a bug,’’ unquote. And another witness said that when individuals spoke up, 

they were, I think, quote, ‘‘put down and not in a gentle way,’’ end 

of quote. So that is a factor, unfortunately. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And this is the same guy that Ms. Johnson gave 

a bonus to? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes, Congressman. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. In fact, it wasn’t until the Deputy Administrator 

of GSA, a high-level Democratic political appointee, raised this 

issue to you that Mr. Neely’s actions came to light. It seems clear 

that Mr. Neely has a lot to answer for. 

Let me ask you one final question. The chairman has written to 

Mr. Neely’s attorney, stating that the committee was considering 

conferring immunity on Mr. Neely. And I applaud the chairman. 

We have agreed and he has made it clear—and correct me if I am 

wrong, Mr. Chairman—that he has now indicated that he has no 

immediate plans to go forward with immunity. 

And I want to ask you this question. And I agree with the chairman absolutely. Mr. Miller, given what you have uncovered about 

Mr. Neely and his actions, would you support granting him immunity at this time and do you think it would be a good idea? Now, 

I have made it clear the chairman is not going to do that, but I 

am just curious. 

Mr. MILLER. I agree with the chairman’s decision not to grant 

him immunity. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so, can you tell us why that is? 

Mr. MILLER. Well, I believe that the criminal justice system 

should run its course and that if any charges are brought against 

Mr. Neely he should defend himself. He does have a right to—a 

Fifth Amendment right, and all people are presumed innocent until 

proven guilty. And if such charges are lodged against Mr. Neely, 

I think the appropriate place is in the court of law. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, let’s go back for a moment to this retaliation and these threats. Did you hear people—I mean, during your 

investigation, were there numerous people who said that they felt 

fear? 

Mr. MILLER. Congressman, yes. We had a witness that was extremely afraid, and we made the witness a confidential witness. 

And that witness, even though she had left and gotten a new job, 

was extremely afraid that even in her new job she would experience retaliation. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And when they used words like ‘‘squashed like 

a bug,’’ did you get any idea what they meant by that? I mean, 

47 

were there things that he had actually done to people that came 

to light? 

Mr. MILLER. I can’t go beyond what the transcript of the interview says. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But I take it that you were convinced that this 

was conduct that was totally inappropriate? 

Mr. MILLER. Congressman, we took it very seriously, and we believed our witness when he or she said that he or she was afraid 

of retaliation. 

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

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Of course. 

Chairman ISSA. I would just like to make sure we both understand on the record, when our counsels provided that letter to his 

counsel, it was based on his assertion that he might take the Fifth. 

And we listed a number of things that could affect somebody, but 

most importantly we had the conundrum that often happens in the 

law, which is that until you subpoena somebody and they come and 

they take the Fifth, any other consideration can’t actually begin. 

So rather than a conclusion that we would consider that it was, 

you know, sort of a form letter to make sure that this committee 

stayed properly within both the D.C. Bar’s determination, but also, 

quite frankly, we wanted to make sure that it was understood that 

we were hoping Mr. Neely, who gave testimony only 3 weeks ago 

before the IG, would reconsider his willingness to cooperate here. 

Sadly, he did not. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for that clarification. And I wanted to make it very clear—I mean, that helps 

tremendously, but I wanted to make it very clear that you were in 

no way going to proceed with the immunity, I mean, during our 

discussions. And so—— 

Chairman ISSA. In none of our investigations to date have we 

ever considered full immunity, transactional immunity. And we 

have not yet even considered use immunity. So I don’t expect that 

that will be often, and I would expect that we would consult with 

you well before doing it. 

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

appreciate it. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank you. 

And we now go to the former chairman of the full committee, Mr. 

Burton, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BURTON. You can call me ‘‘chairman emeritus.’’ I don’t mind 

that that much. 

Chairman ISSA. Should I emphasize the ‘‘emeritus’’? 

Mr. BURTON. No, no, I am just kidding. 

Mr. Miller, when you discussed the preliminary report with Ms. 

Johnson, did you go into all the details or most of the details in 

this report? 

Mr. MILLER. I believe I did, Congressman. 

Mr. BURTON. Okay. This was on May the 17th of 2011? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes. That is what my calendar indicates, and that 

is the best of my recollection. We had a meeting—— 

Mr. BURTON. So she knew about these accusations on May the 

11th, then? 

48 

Mr. MILLER. Indeed. And my deputy, Bob Erickson, leaned over 

and said, ‘‘This is very unusual that we would do an interim report, 

but it is so that you can fix future abuses.’’ 

Mr. BURTON. Did you tell her about the bullying that took place? 

Mr. MILLER. I think we may have alluded to witnesses that were 

afraid of retaliation, but I am not positive. It has been about a year 

ago, so—— 

Mr. BURTON. Well, that is pretty significant, though. I mean, if 

you were talking to her and there were people that were pushing 

other employees around, it seems to me that you probably mentioned it at least. 

Mr. MILLER. I believe we did, but—— 

Mr. BURTON. Okay. 

Ms. Johnson, do you remember May the 11th? Do you remember 

this report? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Congressman, I apologize. I don’t remember that 

meeting, and I don’t have access to my schedule that—— 

Mr. BURTON. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don’t remember the meeting? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, the Inspector General and I met with some 

regularity, and I—— 

Mr. BURTON. Well, this is not an insignificant report. 

Ms. JOHNSON. No, I am not saying I didn’t remember the issues. 

I can’t place where we had that meeting, and I can’t jog my memory. 

Mr. BURTON. You can’t remember the time, the date? 

Ms. JOHNSON. No. I don’t have my calendar with me. 

Mr. BURTON. But he talked about the irregularities—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Mr. BURTON. —and he mentioned the pressure that was put on 

employees, if not bullying. And you didn’t take any action about 

that? 

Ms. JOHNSON. There are a couple of things I must repeat. First 

of all, it was an interim communication—— 

Mr. BURTON. Yeah, I understand—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. It was not the final report. I asked for the investigation, and I wanted to hear the full context. I did not want—— 

Mr. BURTON. Well—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. —to work with nonconclusive information. 

Mr. BURTON. I understand. I heard that before. I heard that before. 

Ms. JOHNSON. All right. 

Mr. BURTON. But Mr. Neely was still in his position. You had 

been told that he had bullied people or pushed them, and you kept 

him in his position, and you gave him a $9,000 bonus. It just seems 

almost unthinkable. I mean, if somebody came in my office and 

said, ‘‘There is somebody on your staff that is pushing other people 

around on your staff’’—and I don’t have a staff anywhere near the 

kind of number of people that you dealt with. But if somebody was 

pushing members of the organization around, I would have taken 

action immediately. I certainly wouldn’t have left him in his position, and I certainly wouldn’t have given him a bonus. 

So, you know, I wish you could elaborate just a little bit more 

on that, because I think this is really important. I can’t imagine 

49 

you seeing this report, talking to Mr. Miller and his associate and 

him telling you this information and you say, ‘‘Well, it is just an 

interim report. We will wait until it is finalized.’’ 

Ms. JOHNSON. You know, I have great respect for the Inspector 

General, and he and I have worked together a great deal. We asked 

for this investigation. One does not interfere with an investigation. 

He was, I assumed, moving quickly and would be getting me the 

final report promptly. 

Mr. BURTON. Well, let me just say this. You wanted to see the 

final report. But if you knew Mr. Neely was accused of doing this 

in the interim report and you knew that they have alluded to him 

pushing employees around and threatening them, why wouldn’t 

you take him and put him in some kind of a position where he 

couldn’t do that while the investigation continued? 

I just can’t understand why you left him there during the next, 

what, 8, 9 months when you knew what he had done, or you had 

a pretty good idea. And even if you didn’t know for sure, you would 

have taken the precaution of putting him someplace where he 

couldn’t bully anybody again. I hate bullies, don’t you? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I hate bullying, too. 

Mr. MILLER. Congressman, if I may for the record, the bullying 

and the coercive atmosphere—we probably laid out the facts at the 

May 17 meeting. We probably didn’t get very much into the bullying aspect. A lot of that came up later on in the investigation. So, 

to be fair to Ms. Johnson—— 

Mr. BURTON. Well, did you mention anything about that to her? 

Mr. MILLER. I don’t recall if we did. 

Mr. BURTON. Well, you said a few minutes ago that you mentioned some coercive action. 

Mr. MILLER. It was a coercive atmosphere. We did have a confidential witness. And—— 

Mr. BURTON. And you told her about the confidential witness? 

Mr. MILLER. No, because the witness is confidential. We did tell 

her what was in the PowerPoint—— 

Mr. BURTON. Well, let me ask you this. Did you give her enough 

information to where she should have been concerned about this 

guy? 

Mr. MILLER. Absolutely. 

Mr. BURTON. Okay. Well, that is the point. 

If there was concern about Mr. Neely, why didn’t you put him 

in a position where he couldn’t do what he was doing, at least during the interim for the rest of the investigation? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Do I only have 3 seconds? 

Mr. BURTON. No, go ahead. I am sure he will let you finish your 

answer. 

Chairman ISSA. Take the time you need. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you. All right. 

When I asked for the investigation, this is a very serious—when 

Susan Brita requested the investigation and as we received that interim communication, it was very clear that it was very serious. 

And I did not want to move until I had a formal, official, complete, 

you know, conclusive report. 

At the same time, I did a number of things to manage the situation. First of all, I put a Regional Administrator into Region 9 suVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:01 Sep 06, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75709.TXT APRIL
50 

pervising immediately Mr. Neely. He did not have an immediate 

supervisor in the region, and we appointed a Regional Administrator in June, relieving him of his second job and putting direct 

supervision in there. 

We also immediately appointed new general counsel for the region when that person retired, so that I wanted to be sure we had 

a good team in the region that I could trust around them. 

We also did a number of other things around management controls and conference management and so on I can get into. But it 

was very important to me not to, in any way, interfere in a way 

that would upset the investigation that the Inspector General was 

doing. 

Now, you have to understand, I did not think it would take 9 

more months to complete. I thought it looked pretty complete from 

what I was hearing, and I wasn’t expecting to wait that much 

longer. So I—so those were the circumstances under which I was 

operating. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

My staff has asked me just to make sure one thing is clear. Earlier you said under oath that you ordered the investigation; then 

later you said Susan Brita ordered it. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I am sorry. Susan Brita, my Deputy Administrator—— 

Chairman ISSA. Had actually ordered it. 

Ms. JOHNSON. —who had—yes. She asked the Inspector General 

to investigate. I had designated to her the role of interacting with 

the IG, so—— 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So it is correct that Susan Brita did it. 

Ms. JOHNSON. —she was doing it for me. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Ms. JOHNSON. She did it, yes. 

Chairman ISSA. No problem. I just want to make sure that we 

didn’t have any inconsistency there. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Sorry. 

Chairman ISSA. No, no. No problem. Our goal here is just to get 

the record accurate. And there will be mistakes made, and we just 

want to make sure they are clarified when they occur. 

With that, we recognize the gentlelady from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this hearing. 

I have got a couple of points to make in my brief period. First, 

I want to assure Mr. Foley that even members of the Oversight 

Committee can take a joke with respect to the joke regarding my 

role on the committee, which has direct oversight over GSA. Far 

from belittling me, I think that the joke complimented me for my 

oversight role because it essentially said Norton is on the phone already with you with regard to one of the abuses that were—— 

Chairman ISSA. Your clock will begin now because we figured 

that was the joke portion. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would just like to clarify when actions should have been taken 

because I have an email, Mr. Miller, from a man who appears to 

be your deputy, Mr. Erickson, who, on May 3rd, 2011, did issue the 

51 

interim report and said, and here I am quoting him, ‘‘Our purpose 

in issuing the interim report was to alert GSA to potential waste 

and abuse so GSA could take steps to avoid future issues. Please 

be advised that the investigation is ongoing, and no personnel actions should be taken until you have received the final report.’’ 

Now, with respect to some notion that maybe the officers of the 

agency or even the administration should have taken action, is it 

your view that personnel action could not have been taken until 

April, when the final report was released or had become known? 

Mr. MILLER. Representative Norton, I believe the email is dated 

July 25, 2011. 

Ms. NORTON. It is. But it says, on May 3rd. 

Mr. MILLER. Yes. Well, we gave the interim report on May 3rd 

to Ms. Johnson and the Deputy Administrator, Susan Brita. On 

May 17th, we personally briefed the Administrator. And on July 

25—and again, there is a second report. The second report—— 

Ms. NORTON. When was the final report alluded to in this email, 

when was that final report received? 

Mr. MILLER. The final report on the Western Regions Conference 

is April 2nd. That is the absolute final date. 

Ms. NORTON. That is my question. Nothing could have taken 

place until that final report. 

Mr. MILLER. But if I could explain—— 

Ms. NORTON. Yes. 

Mr. MILLER. The email deals with the Hats Off report as well. 

That was an employee reward program. And we gave a draft report 

on the same day in May. 

Ms. NORTON. So does it allude to both or to only one? I want to 

get onto my next question. 

Mr. MILLER. I believe that Mr. Leeds had confused the two. 

Ms. NORTON. So what does it refer to in terms of a personnel action? 

Mr. MILLER. Okay. In terms of personnel action, it refers to the 

Western Regions Conference report. 

Ms. NORTON. That was my question. Thank you. That was precisely my question. No action should be taken until the final report. 

Let me go onto the next question, because I am seriously concerned about whether we have a culture in the Western Region, 

whether we have a culture in the GSA. One incident of this kind, 

one event, one conference of this kind has outraged the public 

enough. 

But there were suggestions, Mr. Miller, in your report, that this 

was not an anomaly, that similar events or conferences had taken 

place, that in 2006 and 2008, there had been conferences with fairly lavish catering, that this was not an outlier but rather consistent. Are you looking at the conferences of the Western Region 

in 2008, in 2006? Do we have a culture in the Western Region that 

needs closer inspection beyond this particular conference? 

Mr. MILLER. Representative Norton, we are looking at conferences in Region 9. There are many conferences in Region 9. 

There have been Western Regions—— 

Ms. NORTON. That is the Western Region? 

Mr. MILLER. No, there is no Western Region, first of all, of GSA. 

52 

Ms. NORTON. So are we talking about the same thing? I don’t 

want to waste time on—— 

Mr. MILLER. No, we are not. There are 10 regions of GSA and 

the District of Columbia, which would make it 11. It appears that 

Regions 7, 8, 9, and 10 got together to do a conference, and they 

did the conference every 2 years. They called the conference the 

Western Regions Conference. As far as I know, there is no such 

thing as an Eastern Regions Conference or a Southern Regions 

Conference. It is only the Western Regions Conference. 

Ms. NORTON. So have you looked at those conferences that were 

alluded to in your report in 2008, in 2006? Or if not, do you have 

any intention to look at those conferences to see whether a culture 

has developed or was developing in these regions in the western 

part of the United States? 

Mr. MILLER. Representative Norton, we are looking at conferences in Region 9 right now. The older Western Regions Conferences will, number one, be old. Already the 2010 conference 

is—— 

Ms. NORTON. Do you have any notion that there was a culture 

there that needs to be examined and to be rooted out? That is what 

I am really getting at, Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER. The witnesses, many of the witnesses say that the 

Western Regions Conference in Las Vegas was not materially different than the previous Western Regions Conferences, I believe 

New Orleans, in Oklahoma, and at Lake Tahoe. 

Chairman ISSA. If the gentlelady would yield? 

Ms. NORTON. I yield to the chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. Ms. Norton, we have sent 23 additional letters 

to other agencies. The committee intends on investigating the 

whole practice of conferences, team building—— 

Ms. NORTON. You mean other regions or other agencies? 

Chairman ISSA. No, no, other agencies. 

Additionally, I certainly would like to make the record very clear, 

since other GSA regions or groups that could make a region didn’t 

seem to have these conferences, the first question under any administration should be, why does one need it? The second one that 

begs the worst question in some ways when I look at New Orleans 

as a location, if you are the western States, who would think that 

going to New Orleans was the logical place to go if in fact, as I understand, New Orleans is not within any of those groups’ regions? 

So I certainly think that as we look at a pattern that apparently 

began and continued probably through every administration since 

Hoover, that what we want do is bring it to an end under this administration. 

But I think the gentlelady makes a very good point in her questions. And we are going to be expansive in our look at unnecessary 

conferences and meetings, perhaps even challenge coins paid for at 

the taxpayers’ expense so they can give them to each other. And 

I thank the gentlelady. 

With that, we go to the gentleman from Ohio, one of the gentlemen from Ohio, Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Johnson, I was fascinated by your opening statement because you said you had been at GSA during the Clinton adminisVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:01 Sep 06, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75709.TXT APRIL
53 

tration and returned during—after the first year of the Obama administration, but it was not the same GSA that you had left. And 

I want to agree with you. Because I believe that when you left the 

Clinton administration and returned then after the first year of the 

Obama administration, you would have been joining an administration that had a completely different culture than the Clinton administration, a completely different culture than the Bush administration. 

This is an administration that believes that when government 

spending is occurring, when taxpayers’ dollars are being spent, that 

jobs are being created. That was the whole crux of the stimulus, 

the stimulus I voted and many people in this room voted against, 

is because the American people actually believe that when taxpayers’ dollars are being spent that debt is being created. 

Now, I have some examples of that spending that GSA was 

doing. And Mr. Foley, you had said you weren’t aware that the 

tuxes were being paid for by the taxpayers. 

This is one of those examples of GSA spending, Ms. Johnson, 

under your leadership. It includes the conference logo. And everyone was given one of these. This is apparently, I am told, a blackjack dealer’s vest so that everybody could feel as if they are in 

character when they get to the conference. In addition to that, they 

were given a participatory directory that has everybody’s picture. 

And in it, they are assigned characters and roles. On the page that 

I have opened here one is assigned Cher; one is assigned Sammy 

Davis, Jr.; Elvis; and Celine Dion. 

Additional items were given to the people that were there, including a then and now book on Las Vegas signed by Mr. Neely 

himself, thanking them for being there. By the way, this was printed in China. The vest was made in China. They were given other 

party favors while they were there. All GSA spending, taxpayers’ 

dollars spending. And they were given a coin, a commemorative 

coin, we will call it a gambling chip for this aspect. It is a commemorative coin commemorating the stimulus; again, you know, a 

program that most Americans believe did not work. It is celebrating a program that has not created jobs in Ohio and that we 

have not seen a turnaround in our economy. 

But the question that I have is, how much did these items cost, 

the tuxedo, the coin, the book, the participatory directory? And 

were stimulus dollars used for this? 

Now, I was talking to Brad Miller earlier, and I appreciate his 

hard work on this, and I want to acknowledge that we have Jo Ann 

Emerson here, the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee 

under which GSA falls. And it would seem to me that, one, we have 

a problem that all these items are being purchased and made from 

China, so we are stimulating China and not the United States. Second thing is, what slush funds exist in GSA that these types of 

moneys could be moved? It is not just an issue of who approved it. 

Who in the organization would ever have that type of authority to 

use taxpayers’ dollars to buy a blackjack dealer’s vest with an 

event logo on it? 

So, one, I want to know from you, Ms. Johnson, you know, under 

you, how is it that something like this gets approved for expenditure? What type of funds were used to buy these things? What is 

54 

your policy with respect to buying things made in America, since 

all these things were apparently made elsewhere, including the Tshirts that the participants were given, which were made in El Salvador? 

And also I would like Mr. Robertson to give us an answer on, 

that he will give us a commitment that he will tell us the source 

of these funds that were used to buy these. And specifically in 

GSA’s budget, how is it that this type of money could be laying 

around so that it could be used in this slush fund manner? This 

isn’t just an approval process. This isn’t just someone brazenly violating their authority. This is an issue of money and a budgetary 

process being available in GSA to be moved elsewhere when Congress has a tremendous amount of priorities and needs in this 

country that those moneys should have been applied to, in addition 

to reducing our national deficit annually. 

Ms. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Mr. Congressman, I am just as appalled as you 

are by those examples of expenditures. When I learned about the 

extent of them and the nature of them, I began disciplinary action, 

some of which is confidential and I cannot share at this point. I 

fired the two political people who were in the chain of command 

to me, and I resigned. 

Chairman ISSA. I think you had a slush fund question in there, 

too. 

Mr. TURNER. Yeah. Mr. Robertson. 

And also Ms. Johnson, one other thing before we go on to Mr. 

Johnson, the fact that you continue to say that you don’t want to 

interfere with an investigation by not approving a bonus is so outrageous that I think everyone in the room is shocked. Not approving a bonus is not interfering with an investigation. 

Mr. Robertson, will you assure us that you will tell us how these 

moneys are available in GSA so that we can on a congressional 

basis stop it? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes. I am happy to get that information to the 

committee about the budget where these items were purchased. My 

understanding from the IG’s report is that one of the glaring problems that we had at the time was that the budgets were diffused 

out into the regions. Since then, as part of the response to the report, we have pulled the budgets back into the central office CFO 

so that there is centralized control over those budgets. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

Mr. MILLER. Congressman Turner? 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

We now go to the gentleman from Virginia—I am sorry, Mr. Miller, did you have something? 

Mr. MILLER. I am sorry. 

Chairman ISSA. Of course. 

Mr. MILLER. If I may, I just wanted to clarify that on page 11 

and 12 of the report, we identify those items. We identify the 

$1,840 for the vests for 19 regional ambassadors to wear and the 

$6,325 on the commemorative coins. And as far as we can tell, no 

stimulus money was used. The money was paid on government 

purchase cards and taken out of the Federal Building Fund building operations. 

55 

Chairman ISSA. Just a quick follow-up, very quick. So that is 

$100 apiece for the vests, and the challenge coin-looking things are 

about 20 bucks apiece, when those of us who buy them out of our 

own pocket typically spend less than a dollar apiece. Is that roughly right? They were about $20 apiece, 300 of them coming to 

$6,300? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes, $6,325 is the total for the coins. I would have 

to go through the math. I am not as quick on the math as you are. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Connolly, do you give out challenge coins? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I haven’t done that. 

Chairman ISSA. You know, down at Quantico, you can have them 

made with your name on them for about a dollar. You got to ask 

how GSA managed to spend $20 having them made. 

With that, the gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. If I could say to the chairman, I am told that I 

will get a discount if we have your face on one side and mine on 

the other. 

Chairman ISSA. That certainly will give great value for its rarity. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. That is what I think. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your opening statement. I think you struck exactly the right note. 

This isn’t an opportunity for partisan exploitation. This is an opportunity for the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to 

look at an agency where something went dreadfully wrong. 

And I think, Mr. Chairman, you struck just the right tone, as did 

the ranking member. And I thank you both for the way you began 

this hearing. 

Mr. Miller, you are the Inspector General of GSA. How long have 

you been in that job? 

Mr. MILLER. Congressman, I was confirmed by the Senate in 

July 2005. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. 2005. Between 2005 and when Ms. Johnson’s office alerted you, were you ever aware of the fact that excess spending and raucous behavior and perhaps inappropriate use of resources was going on in the agency anywhere? 

Mr. MILLER. We always look for that, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I mean, I am specifically talking about this kind 

of conference. Because as you pointed out, this isn’t the first time 

this has happened. It happened in New Orleans. It happened in 

some other locations. Did anyone at any point ever bring to your 

attention, or did you discover independently that this kind of thing 

was going on so that you could intervene to prevent when it sadly 

came to a crescendo here? 

Mr. MILLER. We rely on GSA employees to tell us. We did not 

have hotline complaints about this conference. And I do commend 

the Deputy Administrator for bringing it to our attention. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Susan Brita. 

Mr. MILLER. Susan Brita. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. She did that at the direction of the Administrator. Is that correct? Is that your understanding? 

Mr. MILLER. That is my understanding. But we have the Administrator here. 

56 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I am just asking you as the IG what your understanding was. Was your understanding Ms. Brita was acting alone 

or at the direction of Martha Johnson? 

Mr. MILLER. I viewed the Deputy Administrator as the alter ego 

of the Administrator. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So the sequence was, though you had been on the 

job since 2005, the first anybody in the agency alerted you that this 

kind of excess, to this kind of occasion, was when Susan Brita, acting on Ms. Johnson’s behalf, alerted you to the fact that we think 

something is wrong here. 

Mr. MILLER. Ms. Brita came to our office in December 2010 and 

alerted us. We did not get any hotline reports on it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. And when were the events in question? 

When did they occur? 

Mr. MILLER. In October 2010. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So about a month and a half or so later? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Did she indicate to you how she was made aware 

of these—of this information? 

Mr. MILLER. Well, she said she had heard rumors and heard 

things, overheard conversations. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Now, your review of this matter, if I understand 

Ms. Johnson correctly, took about 9 months. Is that correct? 

Mr. MILLER. We started in earnest when Ms. Brita brought the 

complaint forward. You do have to understand that there are a lot 

of documents to go through. Part of the problem is that the funds 

came from different sources. As the previous question illustrated, 

we had to identify funds on purchase cards, in building and operation funds, and money budgeted to the conference. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. So it is a complicated affair. 

Mr. MILLER. It is. And when you talk to witnesses, you know, in 

turning over the proverbial stone, you find 50 more stones, and you 

never know what is going to crawl out from under them. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So it took 9 months, though, to be fair and to go 

through all of that. 

Mr. MILLER. Yeah. Sure. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Is that correct? 

Ms. Johnson indicated in her testimony that she was a little surprised it took that long. She also indicated that there were many 

conversations and meetings between you about this and other matters, of course. Did you have conversations with the Administrator 

about the length of time it was taking? And were you giving her 

interim reports as to what you were finding? 

Mr. MILLER. I believe we had a few. I also—she mentioned the 

Regional Administrator was appointed in Region 9. In August of 

2011, I personally briefed the Regional Administrator about this, 

shared the interim report, and I advised her to get a handle on the 

Regional Commissioner’s travel and perhaps even have the financial officer take a look at his travel. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. I have only 25 more seconds. I am 

going to ask you and Ms. Johnson real quickly, and maybe the 

chairman will indulge your answer. But one of the critiques of GSA 

is there is too much autonomy for these 10 regional offices and not 

57 

enough top-down management. I wonder real briefly if the two of 

you would address that. 

Ms. JOHNSON. In light of this incident, I would agree that there 

was, and therefore, there needed to be more central control of the 

financial structures, yes. 

Mr. MILLER. I agree as well. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I give back my few 

seconds. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Absolutely. 

Chairman ISSA. What is the highest-ranking, highest-paid person 

in each of these 10 areas? In other words, when we talk about decentralized control, we are talking about relatively large amounts 

of people in each of these regions. What would be the highest 

paid—for example Mr. Neely, what was his pay, or the person you 

put in over him in that region? What was their pay? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I am sorry, Congressman, I don’t know. I can certainly see if I can get you that information. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Robertson, would you know? 

I think the gentleman hit on something, which is we appreciate 

things being centralized, but one of the questions is, do we have 

high-ranking, high-paid civil servants in these regions? And if we 

are going to be pulling everything back because they are not responsible, perhaps we are paying more than we should for responsibility not met. 

Mr. Robertson? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I am happy to get the exact numbers for the 

committee, but my understanding is that in I believe all the regions the Regional Commissioners are paid more than the Regional 

Administrators. 

Chairman ISSA. But more than $100,000? Significantly. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I believe both of them are over that number, 

yes. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. Yes. 

Mr. MILLER. The Regional Commissioners are career SES, Senior 

Executive Service, positions. And they do pay quite a bit. The Regional Administrator is a political appointment at the GS–15 level. 

Chairman ISSA. Which would put them quite a bit below an SES. 

Mr. Chaffetz is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Johnson, with whom did you collaborate in the development 

of your testimony that was submitted? Did you collaborate with 

anybody in the development of your testimony? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I wrote my testimony, and I discussed it with my 

lawyer. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Anybody at the White House? 

Ms. JOHNSON. No. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Anybody within the GSA? 

Ms. JOHNSON. No. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Question about why not fire Mr. Neely. You 

know, he is still being paid by the taxpayers. He is on administrative leave. He is still taking his salary. This is somebody who took 

58 

a conference with a budget of $250,000 and made it over $800,000; 

spent $75,000 on a bike building exercise, where he built a grand 

total of 25 bicycles for $75,000; $2,000 in-room party; yearbook and 

a souvenir book at a cost of $8,000 to the taxpayer; $6,000 for the 

stimulus coins that were given out at one of the two $30,000 parties that were given—keep in mind, there were only 300 people at 

this; and a Top Hat program, a recognition program that has fraud. 

So my question is to the Chief of Staff is, why is he still an employee of the United States Government? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. My understanding is that disciplinary action 

has been begun against several individuals involved in planning 

and executing the Western Regions Conference. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Why does it take so long? You were given this report in February. Correct? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes. Correct. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What does it take to actually be fired from the 

GSA? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. There is a long-standing due process that career 

employees are entitled to as part of their employment. We have 

begun that process, among other disciplinary actions, for several individuals that were involved in planning and execution of this conference. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. My question is, why did he get a bonus? Didn’t 

the President of the United States issue a pay freeze? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I wasn’t part of that decision. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You are the Chief of Staff. You are telling my you 

are not involved in any sort of bonuses. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I was not involved in that bonus. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Who was? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. The Administrator. And there is a performance 

management review. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Ms. Johnson, why were you giving out bonuses 

when the President said there was a pay freeze? 

Ms. JOHNSON. The senior executives were entitled to bonuses 

under our—were entitled to bonuses. I don’t believe the pay freeze 

affected those bonuses. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield for just one question? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. As long as it doesn’t take some of my time. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady just seemed to say entitled. I 

thought it was that they were possibly going to be granted. Entitlement seems to be a question the gentleman may want to follow up 

on. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I apologize. I did not mean entitled. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Oh, I think you did mean entitlement. I think 

that is the fundamental problem that America gets and that government doesn’t get. There are a lot of good Federal employees who 

work hard; they are patriotic, and they are frugal with their 

money. But when you see this widespread abuse of money, and 

then you, as the former Administrator, said, well, they were entitled to it, that is where there is frustration just steaming out of our 

ears. It is totally unacceptable. 

And for the President of the United States to look the American 

people in the eye and say, well, we got a pay freeze in place while 

you are getting bonuses and going on trips is totally unacceptable. 

59 

Tell me about—let’s look at the budget here. If you could put up 

the budget graphic. Is there anything wrong with this number that 

you see over here? Three point eight that should be billion dollars 

spent by the administration. These are outlays in the first 3 years. 

If there is anything wrong that you see with that graphic, please 

let me know. This is the last 3 years of the Bush administration; 

the first 3 years of the Obama administration. 

I am going to continue on. If you want to get back to me on that, 

that would be great. 

Ms. Johnson, can you tell me about Results.gov? You highlighted 

it as one of the great accomplishments of the GSA. What does it 

do? 

Ms. JOHNSON. The Results.gov, among other online Web sites, allows Federal Government employees, as well as U.S. citizens, to 

look at and access data about their government. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So when I type in www.Results.gov, why does it 

come up blank? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I don’t know, sir. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Robertson, you are the Chief of Staff. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I am unfamiliar with the Results.gov Web site. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Now, this is the disconnect. You are the Chief of 

Staff; she is the former Administrator. She cites it as one of just 

a handful of great accomplishments at the GSA, and you don’t even 

know what it is? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I believe that the Administrator—former Administrator’s reference to data was about Data.gov. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. That is not what she said. She said Results.gov. 

And it is blank. It is blank. It is something that actually the Bush 

administration does, but I don’t see it there. I didn’t even go to it 

until you highlighted it in your testimony. And I would appreciate 

the GSA getting back to us. I think that is terribly unacceptable. 

Location Solvers. My understanding, Mr. Robertson, is that the 

GSA employs people that are full-time planning coordinators. Is 

that correct? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. That is my understanding, yes. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay. So in this particular instance, Location Solvers is hired, and they were rewarded a $12,000 finder fee. Why 

are we hiring full-time people to be party planners only to go out 

and hire a service that then gets a $12,000 commission? Don’t you 

think they would have given that commission back to the American 

taxpayers had we done this directly? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I do not understand that action either. That was 

one of the outlying—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I struggle to figure out what you do understand 

and what you do know. You are the Chief of Staff. We expect you 

to understand these things. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now recognize the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Yarmuth, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I also would like to commend you on this hearing and your opening remarks, and the ranking member as well. I think this is a 

very constructive hearing. I want to express my outrage at the subVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:01 Sep 06, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75709.TXT APRIL
60 

ject under investigation not just for myself, but on behalf of the 

13,000 current and retired Federal employees in my district, because as Mr. Chaffetz said, we have many, many very responsible 

public employees, Federal employees who I know are embarrassed 

by association because of these instances. 

I have a question about this whole idea of conferences and the 

extent to which this practice may be common, not just in GSA but 

across government. You already said this is not something that is 

held in every region, this type of conference. But do you have any 

idea of the number of conferences, kind of internal conferences that 

are held throughout the GSA organization? Ms. Johnson or Mr. 

Robertson? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I don’t have a good sense of the numbers. The 

numbers of conferences that I attended over my tenure I can talk 

about. They included about five internal conferences over 26 

months. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Over 26 months. That is a fairly frequent number. 

Are there guidelines within GSA for conducting conferences? It is 

kind of ironic, I think, that you have the agency that is responsible 

for facilities, and at least in this particular case they had to go to 

an outside—a private facility outside of—if that is an example, Mr. 

Chairman, of government spending, I guess stimulating the economy but probably not in the right way if you have Federal facilities 

that might house these events. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes, there are various policies and rules, per diem, 

for example, how much people can spend when they travel, what 

they can be reimbursed for. Yes, there are. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Would there be, for instance, any rules regarding 

the things that went on here? Like, for instance, the hiring of a 

mind reader, entertainment, bling, as we call it, these souvenirs; 

are there any guidelines for those types of acquisitions? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I am not familiar with direct guidelines around 

mind readers and commemorative coins. I am aware that our senior executives should be operating under the common sense of no 

waste and would be preserving their budgets for other things. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Miller, you have been involved in government 

for quite a long time. Are there rules in other agencies that you 

may be familiar with that are more specific as to the conduct of internal conferences or events? 

Mr. MILLER. I think the rules governing GSA and GSA policy 

says that they are to plan conferences with an eye to minimizing 

costs. And that is from the GSA policy. So, in terms of minimizing 

costs, things like commemorative coins would be impermissible. 

We do have a discussion of rules within the final report. And 

when it comes down to mind readers, or I think he billed himself 

as a motivational speaker, in terms of the report, we stayed away 

from the quality of—any quality judgments on the type of training 

because we are not the experts in Public Buildings Service, but the 

rules do allow a motivational speaker. Now, if he was mind reading 

or entertainment, that would not be permitted. 

Mr. YARMUTH. So, in terms of both the activities and the ancillary materials that were provided in here, there were in your estimation, Mr. Miller, violations of agency rules. 

Mr. MILLER. Yes. And we have outlined them in our report. 

61 

Mr. YARMUTH. And also in terms of the procurement rules regarding the acquisitions. 

Mr. MILLER. Yes, sir. 

Congressman, they gave a bid of one bidder to another bidder. 

And that is about as much against the rules as you can come up 

with. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Now, a question, because obviously the GSA is involved in a lot of contracting throughout the country, does your office, does the GSA have sufficient auditing capabilities to deal with 

not just the auditing of a conference that the agency conducted for 

itself but for the many other activities that it is involved in, its primary responsibilities? 

Mr. MILLER. We do all the auditing at GSA. We do not rely on 

DCAA, except for a very exceptional circumstance. My office has 

about 300 employees. We have 70 special agents who would actually interview individuals. And I think they have done a tremendous job with this report. And I think they moved at tremendous 

speed, often working 18-hour days and weekends. And I do commend the special agents and the forensic auditors that we have. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Kelly, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. KELLY. I thank the chairman. 

Again, thank you for calling this hearing. 

You know, this is one of those unusual things. And Mr. 

Cummings was talking about being back in his district and walking the streets last week. And I got to tell you the same thing happened to me in northwest Pennsylvania. 

I wonder if we could, we have a slide showing I believe the mission statement, the visions and goals. That is a real eye chart. Let 

me go through—— 

Chairman ISSA. Perhaps the gentleman could read from it. 

Mr. KELLY. I am not going to read from that. I am not that good. 

Let me just say the mission, GSA mission is to use expertise to provide innovative solutions for our customers in support of their missions and, by so doing foster an effective, sustainable, and transparent government for the American people. Then it goes into the 

vision part. And when you go down to the third bullet point: GSA 

envisions a government that works ever better for the American 

people. It is fueled by two powerful sparks for change, namely sustainability and transparency. The former is a doctrine for managing resources with utmost care and an obsession with no waste. 

The latter is a doctrine for inviting our collective intelligence and 

our wisdom to work. 

Then it goes down to strategic goals, and it goes through what 

the GSA will test innovative solutions in its own operations, offer 

those solutions to other agencies through its government-wide contracting and policymaking authorities, which we find out they don’t 

follow. 

You know, as I look through this, there is no wonder that the 

American people have lost faith in their government. 

Now, let me ask you something, Ms. Johnson. To date, there was 

at least four Regional Administrators placed on administrative 

leave. Is that correct? 

62 

Ms. JOHNSON. Regional Commissioners, I think. Did you say Administrators? 

Mr. KELLY. Regional Administrators. 

Ms. JOHNSON. No, the Regional Administrators—— 

Mr. KELLY. Jeff Neely, Paul Prouty, Robin Graf, and Jim Weller. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Those are Regional Commissioners. 

Mr. KELLY. Okay. So they are on administrative leave. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes, they are from the Public Buildings Service, 

yes. 

Mr. KELLY. Okay. But they are still being paid. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I believe so, but I am not there. 

Mr. KELLY. Mr. Neely is being paid. He is on administrative 

leave. 

Ms. JOHNSON. On administrative leave, my understanding is the 

person is—— 

Mr. KELLY. Okay. You have any idea what these folks make? 

Maybe, Mr. Robertson, you are Chief of Staff, you surely would 

know what these people make. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I am happy to provide the exact numbers, but 

I believe they are all at the top of the SES scale. 

Mr. KELLY. Okay. So what is the top of the scale? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I believe it is close somewhere in the 170 range. 

Mr. KELLY. One hundred seventy range. You know, Mr. Chaffetz 

made some good points. You know, I got to tell you that, thank 

God, this time what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. The 

disappointment of these hardworking American taxpayers to know 

that the GSA, the watchdog, the people who are going to make 

sure—listen, they have an obsession with no waste. To see this go 

on day after day in our government, asking people to give more of 

what they have, dipping into what they have to support a government that wastes more and more of their money. 

I don’t think anybody minds paying taxes if the money is well 

spent. But they sure as heck resent the fact that a government 

that tells them they have to pay more of their fair share cannot cut 

back anywhere. In fact, when you folks come in, and you are in 

charge of it, you can’t even answer the questions who did what, 

when did you know about it, what did you decide to do about it? 

Who the heck is the watchdog? And if the watchdog is being fed 

so well, why does it even care what goes on? 

And I got to tell you, it is so easy to spend somebody else’s 

money, especially when you are not held accountable. I think it is 

absolutely ridiculous that the American people have to sit back and 

watch this. Ms. Johnson, you have a great record of public service. 

I read your resume. This is very impressive. What did you do in 

your last job before you came here? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I was at the Computer Sciences Corporation. 

Mr. KELLY. In December of 2008—in 2008, you were on the Presidential transition team and then came onto the General Services 

Administration. 

Mr. Robertson, tell me what you did before you came in the GSA. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Before entering GSA or before the current position that I hold? 

63 

Mr. KELLY. Well, before the current position you have now. Just 

go a through a little bit, maybe like the last 5 years, 4 years of 

your career. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Of my career? 

Mr. KELLY. Yeah. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Immediately prior to the position I hold now, I 

was the associate administrator for government-wide policy within 

GSA. Prior to that, I was the White House liaison inside GSA. Immediately prior to joining GSA, I was the deputy working group 

lead on the Presidential transition team for—— 

Mr. KELLY. Okay. Let me just say one thing. For somebody in administration that talks about a clear and transparent government, 

a government that is more answering to the American taxpayers, 

I have got to tell you, as a guy who has only been here 14 months, 

thank God some of us are here now, because apparently you folks 

that made a career out of spending taxpayer money have got some 

kind of a magic shield, or you stay inside this bubble that allows 

you to do those things without absolutely any, any feeling of wrongdoing. And to watch what is going on and watch those videos of 

what happened and knowing that the people that I represent in 

northwest Pennsylvania work hard, some of them two jobs—two 

jobs for mom, two jobs for dad—to make ends meet, and they watch 

their tax dollars being spent and wasted in this way; it is an absolute shame to have to sit here in this meeting today and listen to 

that and watch as we take the Fifth, okay, fine, that is your Constitutional right. I am not sure, cloudy, murky. I don’t know; it 

happened before in other administrations. All I was just doing was 

kind of moving the ball up. It is pathetic. And I got to tell you I 

can’t tell you how disappointed I am. 

And with that, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I mean, this outrage that we are hearing today is genuine, and 

it is bipartisan. And I don’t need to feed into it any more, except 

that this notion that the GSA should act like private corporations; 

I don’t think anybody’s pleased when they see private corporations, 

Tyco, AIG, and others out there, wasting their corporate money. 

The shareholders seem powerless to do much about it. Taxpayers 

should be upset about that because, of course, somebody is probably writing it off as a business expense. But 100 percent of this 

wasted money is on the taxpayer. And that is why people are so 

upset. It is not even masked; it is their taxpayers’ money being 

wastefully spent. 

And I have a lot of government employees and GSA employees 

in my area that work hard every day, and work honestly and don’t 

waste any money; haven’t had a raise for a number of years; had 

their pensions attacked by about 15 bills down here as if they are 

the problem, when in fact it is these outlying situations that are 

just ridiculous. And I think it goes deeper and more systemic than 

just one individual on that. 

Let me ask the former Administrator, you were actually nominated at what point in time by President Obama? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I was nominated early in 2009. 

64 

Mr. TIERNEY. And at that time, was the position of the GSA Administrator, was it vacant? 

Ms. JOHNSON. There was no confirmed Administrator. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And there hadn’t been for a couple of years, right? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I believe—I am always bad with chronology—it 

had maybe about a year-and-a-half, maybe a year. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Year, year-and-a-half before you were nominated. 

How long between the time you were nominated and the time the 

Senate actually voted on your position? 

Ms. JOHNSON. The Senate, I had my hearings in June of 2009, 

and I was voted unanimously in February 2010. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So over 9 months? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. What was the delay? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Sir, the Senate didn’t entertain my confirmation 

and vote on it. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So no permanent Administrator all that period of 

time. 

Now, you had worked as a Chief of Staff at the same agency in 

the 1990s. Is that correct? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes, I had. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So was this kind of activity, as far as you know, 

going on in the 1990s? 

Ms. JOHNSON. No. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Tell me what the agency looked like in your mind 

in the 1990s when you were there. 

Ms. JOHNSON. The agency is full of hardworking people delivering goods and services to the American people. It was an agency 

that was just emerging from the Clinger-Cohen legislative change 

for its mandate. And in the mid-1990s, it no longer was allowed to 

be a monopoly provider to the government. And it became a nonmandatory supplier. So the element of competition was introduced 

into GSA, which I think was a tremendous improvement in GSA 

in that it forced GSA to stand up and look at its customers and 

think about what it was delivering. It was a very exciting time at 

GSA. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I want to read what you had in your written statement here. When you returned to the GSA in February of 2010, the 

agency was not the same as what you just described I guess. A 

quarter of the executive positions were empty. Strategy was nonexistent. Major customers viewed our partnership askance. Labor 

relations were acrimonious. The information technology infrastructure was inadequate. The schedules and other contract vehicles 

were burdensome. The Federal Acquisition Institute had atrophied. 

Government-wide policy looked focus. And more expensive leasing 

portfolios had ballooned. So this is what you found different about 

the agency from the first time that you served there. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And obviously, that all bespeaks, I would think, of 

a lack of leadership, going through a rudderless sort of existence. 

When you were finally sworn in, what did you start doing to try 

to right that ship? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Worked very hard. The very first thing I really did 

was to try to begin to fill the executive slots. We needed leaders 

65 

in those positions, and we needed them quickly. So that was literally my first effort. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Who in that chain of command would have been responsible for knowing that the kind of behavior that we are here 

today about was occurring? 

Ms. JOHNSON. The chain of command around this conference 

would have—it is a matrix. It would have been in the sense that 

it was in the Public Buildings Service, it was Jeff Neely as the Regional Commissioner reporting up to Bob Peck, who was the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service. At the same time, it is 

a regional structure. And the Regional Commissioner reports to the 

Regional Administrator. There was no Regional Administrator 

there. Jeff Neely was dual-hatted. So he was essentially—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. He was watching himself. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes. And he then in that Regional Administrator 

role reported in to the senior counselor, who reported to me. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Did you set about trying to replace those people 

and put the right oversight people in charge there? 

Ms. JOHNSON. We were filling the Regional Administrator slots, 

yes, absolutely. 

Mr. TIERNEY. It is hard to run an agency when nobody is watching anybody else and there is no oversight on that. That is what 

strikes me as incredible here. So when this event happened and 

somebody on your staff reported it to Mr. Miller, was that the first 

time you were aware that this conduct had been going on? 

Ms. JOHNSON. When he gave us the interim communications 

PowerPoint was when I learned of the extent of it. And that was— 

that is when it hit me, yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So nobody had reported to you that this type of behavior happened in New Orleans in 2008 and in other instances? 

Ms. JOHNSON. No. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Apparently for a number of years leading up to 

this. 

Ms. JOHNSON. No, I did not know about the other conferences, 

frankly. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentleman from Oklahoma, somebody who understands budgets very, very well, Mr. Lankford. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you. 

And thank you all for being here, giving a chance to voice it. Let 

me run through a couple things that just strike me. During the 

time of this conference, at that same month unemployment in the 

Nation was 9.6 percent. We were in the process—in fact, GSA was 

in the process of putting out stimulus dollars totaling $5.85 billion, 

trying to help through a very dramatic recovery. The President had 

just recently rebuked public companies who did conferences in Las 

Vegas that had also received TARP money at a very similar time 

that GSA is holding a huge conference in Las Vegas of this type. 

I have been interested, as I have gone back through the history, 

that several folks had mentioned this kind of behavior had gone on 

for a while. So I looked at the Oklahoma City conference, which is 

in the heart of my district, and went back just 4 years before and 

noticed that in the Oklahoma City conference, same number of peoVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:01 Sep 06, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75709.TXT APRIL
66 

ple, $323,000 was spent. In the Vegas conference, $840,000 was 

spent. So to say all these previous conferences, like Oklahoma City 

and New Orleans and all this are the same, they are not. There 

was something that was happening that was very unique. And that 

was dialing up with incredible speed on this. 

Ms. Johnson, you have an incredible career, and I mean that in 

all sincerity, in both the private sector and the public sector. I can’t 

imagine you not having incredible frustration at the process of dismissal on the Federal side, of going through the process of people 

you know should be dismissed, but instead you have resigned, 

when you know some of the people most culpable in these decisions 

are still there going through a long drawn-out process of appeals. 

My question for you is what do we need to fix in dealing with Federal hiring when this kind of stuff comes up that we can work 

through a process judiciously, because there are a lot of great Federal employees, but to work through a judicious process where we 

can clear the house of people that give the Federal Government a 

bad name? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Congressman, I would certainly welcome a 

thoughtful policy discussion about that. I am not a human resources specialist. I am not sure what I would suggest. Certainly 

there is due process for employees. I appreciate that. I appreciate 

the fact that there needed to be two officials involved so that there 

isn’t preemptory decision-making. I would yield to the experts in 

the personnel management organizations. 

Mr. LANKFORD. I understand. But you resigned—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes, I did. 

Mr. LANKFORD. —though your office was the office that actually 

started this investigation. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Mr. LANKFORD. This would not come to light unless your office 

would have started it. But as the leader and at the top, you resigned, and people that were directly there making the decisions, 

signing onto the warrants, going through these fraudulent contracts, they are still there. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes, I have resigned, and yes, I believe they are 

still there. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Let me just mention a couple things that are jarring on this to me. One is in the GSA process and one of them I 

find very meaningful in this, trying to do a piece of charity work 

with this $75,000 bike team-building experience. The frustration is 

they have a $75,000 team-building experience that was designed to 

give away 24 bikes to needy boys and girls from the Boys and Girls 

Club. And so instead of employees putting together this and doing 

this out of charity, they used taxpayer funds to provide a charity 

event of these 24 bikes, and then used taxpayer funds to provide 

an ice cream party for the children when they came and picked 

them up, and so everyone could feel good. But it wasn’t their 

money, and it wasn’t even their time. They were paid to be on the 

clock to do that as a Federal employee. And the Federal taxpayer 

paid for the bikes. And then everyone else felt good. And that is 

one of those moments that we look at and say, where have we gone 

that suddenly now doing charity work as a Federal employee has 

67 

to come from the hardworking American taxpayer rather than actually engaging from it? 

The other side is this contracting issue with the sound company 

and the hotel, not to mention that the charity work done with the 

bikes directly violates GSA policy on disposing of Federal property. 

I mean, it is in direct violation of GSA property. Then this sound 

contract gets preferential treatment over another company. And 

they get free rooms in addition to the rooms that they were paid 

for. The hotel contract was really negotiated off line separately so 

we can have additional food because we didn’t pay enough for this, 

or we are going do all this extra food for this. 

This is the kind of stuff that makes people in my district that 

try to get a Federal contract furious. And they come to our office 

and say we are trying to get a Federal contract, but it looks like 

some sweetheart deal is done for some other company, and no one 

can validate it. How do we start clearing the deck on this so we 

really do have fair competition, whether it be in GSA or anywhere 

else? How do we root this kind of stuff out? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, I believe, first of all, we have a good oversight process. And I appreciate that the Inspector General is there, 

and we can go to him and say, would you look into this and find 

this out? Because it was appalling to me. And I felt grateful that 

someone had the capability to do that kind of investigation. So that 

is certainly a piece of it. I think, as alluded to by some other questions, I think leaving agencies without steady leadership is to leave 

an agency hanging. And although there were able interim Administrators, no one had the clout of being confirmed and able to move 

in and really assume the job. So I think there are a number of different things that could be addressed. 

Mr. LANKFORD. I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

I might note for the record we did look it up, and SES people can make as much as $179,000, which means they are paid more than 

Members of Congress. 

Perhaps we could consider those people unnecessary if you are 

centralizing control, Mr. Robertson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. And they are paid much more than I am—was. 

Chairman ISSA. Noted. 

With that, we go to the gentleman, Mr. Walsh. 

Mr. WALSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Johnson, without getting bogged down into conduct reviews 

versus performance reviews, why did you give that $9,000 bonus? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I gave that $9,000 bonus because I was focused on 

performance, and because the recommendation came from the 

buildings commissioner, who was the direct budgeting and supervisor of Mr. Neely. 

Mr. WALSH. Let me ask it another way. If you could take that 

bonus back, if you could go back in time and not approve that 

bonus, would you do that? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, I would certainly like to avoid these questions, yes. 

Mr. WALSH. Would you—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. I think—— 

Mr. WALSH. Do you wish you had not approved that bonus? 

68 

Ms. JOHNSON. Everything in retrospect is always hard to understand. At the time, I was expecting the Inspector General’s report. 

You know it’s not a decision—— 

Mr. WALSH. I appreciate that. But right now, if you could, do you 

wish you had not approved that bonus? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I am not sure how I can—I am not sure how I can 

answer that, knowing what I know about all of the rules and 

the—— 

Mr. WALSH. I appreciate that. Let me move on. 

My colleagues on both sides have rightfully focused on how did 

this happen? Who knew what? What procedures were in place that 

let this happen? When did it happen? All important questions in 

an investigation. But what eats at me is the why; why does something like this happen? And again, many of these examples have 

been pointed out. The $6,000 commemorative coins. Did Mr. Neely, 

Ms. Johnson, think that was his money? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I have no idea. 

Mr. WALSH. Do you think it is your money? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I do think it is my money. That is why I was so 

appalled. And that is why I resigned. 

Mr. WALSH. You don’t think that is your money. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I believe the—I am a taxpayer. It is my taxpayers’ 

money. 

Mr. WALSH. Taxpayers’ money. The $8,000 spent on yearbooks. 

Do you believe Mr. Neely thought that was his money? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I don’t know what he was thinking. 

Mr. WALSH. Do you think it is your money? Whose money is 

that? 

Ms. JOHNSON. It is the taxpayers’ money. 

Mr. WALSH. The $130,000 spent on six scouting missions to visit 

Las Vegas. Do you think Mr. Neely thought that was his money? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I have no idea what Mr. Neely was thinking. 

Mr. WALSH. Do you think it is your money? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I believe it is the taxpayers’ money. 

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Robertson, do you think that $130,000 was your 

money? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I believe that money belongs to the taxpayers. 

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Foley, do you think that was your money? 

Mr. FOLEY. No, I believe it is the taxpayers’ money. 

Mr. WALSH. Food and drink for the conference, $145,000. 

Mr. Robertson, do you think Mr. Neely truly thought that was 

his money? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I don’t know what Mr. Neely was thinking. 

Mr. WALSH. Do you think that was your money? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. That money clearly belongs to the taxpayers. 

Mr. WALSH. Mr. Foley, do you think Mr. Neely thought that was 

his money? 

Mr. FOLEY. I do not know what he was thinking. 

Mr. WALSH. Do you think that was your money? 

Mr. FOLEY. No. It clearly belongs to the taxpayers. 

Mr. WALSH. And I don’t know you, and I respect your service, but 

why even joke, why even joke about abusing taxpayer dollars? Why 

even do that? I mean, all my colleagues have said, rightfully, everyVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:01 Sep 06, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75709.TXT APRIL
69 

body knows what the American people are going through right 

now. 

Mr. FOLEY. It was—— 

Mr. WALSH. Can’t you imagine that for $6,500, the average 

struggling taxpayer out there could find something to do with that? 

For $8,000 for these souvenir yearbooks, do you think the average 

man or woman in any one of our districts today would know what 

to do with $8,000? 

Mr. FOLEY. Again, I absolutely apologize for my remarks. I clearly recognize they were inappropriate. 

Mr. WALSH. But Mr. Foley, what made you feel like you could 

joke about it to begin with? See, what I want to know is this culture, the why, why did Mr. Neely feel like he could do what he did? 

If Mr. Neely had to foot the bill for this conference would he have 

felt that he could have abused his own dollars like that? 

Mr. FOLEY. I don’t know what Mr. Neely would have felt. 

Mr. WALSH. It is just—and Ms. Johnson, I know you appreciate 

this. It is not your money. 

It is—Mr. Robertson, it is not your money. And this is what has the American people so worked up: $8,000 is a lot of money; $6,500 

goes a very long way for most families today. And I would argue 

that the invisible man there, Mr. Neely, if he had thought this was 

his money, we wouldn’t be here today. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

And I would note for the record that we have not been able to 

get a clarification whether it is 6 or 10. It appears it could be 10 

round trips with family in some cases, costing over $100,000, to 

find out what Vegas was like. 

With that, we go to the gentleman from another region, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Farenthold. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I generally applaud yours and the committee’s selection of 

witnesses. But you have left out one important witness in that 

hearing, and that is the mind reader. Maybe he could tell us what 

some of these people were thinking when they did that. 

I do have a couple of comments and questions that hopefully you 

all could clear up for me. I am really concerned about a pattern 

that we are seeing, not just in the GSA but in the government 

overall, about a lack of common sense or about it not being our 

money. You should have a higher respect for the taxpayers’ dollars 

than you have even for your own dollars. They are giving this to 

us in trust to spend for them. 

But you look at what is happening in the news today. You look 

at this convention. You look at the Secret Service Agents and that 

fiasco that happened. You look at some of the things this committee is investigating. A lack of common sense in Fast and Furious, the Freddie and Fannie bonuses. And I would like to ask the 

gentleman from the Inspector General’s Office, do you see this pervasive in your agency or pervasive in the government? 

The GSA agents I have dealt with personally doing the office we 

have in the district and helping out with some constituents have 

been great people. But are we developing in the GSA or the government in general a culture of lack of common sense or indifference 

70 

about taxpayers’ dollars? I mean, I Priceline hotels. I don’t just use 

you all’s government rate. 

Mr. MILLER. Congressman, all IGs are very concerned to protect 

taxpayer dollars and to get the best value for taxpayer dollars. I 

think the question was asked, you know, why did Mr. Neely do 

this? We can’t get into his head. But one reason was that he could. 

There was a lack of accountability. He was both the Regional Commissioner and Acting Regional Administrator. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. But wouldn’t you agree, regardless of how 

many rules we have, if we have an attitude of let’s see how we can 

sneak it in under the rules or just outright ignore the rules, the 

money is going to continue to fly out the door at a fast and furious 

pace? 

Mr. MILLER. Unfortunately, people know the rules, and they 

know how to skirt the rules. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And that is really disappointing. And I want 

to take a second to point out that if this is happening in other government agencies, we need to know about it. This committee has 

a Web site, Oversight.House.gov, and there is big orange button 

there that says whistleblower. We need to stop this, and we need 

to stop the culture of overspending in our government. What we 

have got do is take Rudy Giuliani’s attitude; let’s start with the little things, fix the broken glass. You have got to remember, it is not 

your money; it is the taxpayers’ money, and you owe them the 

highest duty with respect to protecting that money. 

Let me go back to the former Administrator. And I want to commend you for taking responsibility for that and resigning. I wish 

you would have had a chance to clean up a little bit more before 

you were able to go. And I do think this is something that this committee and the Congress as a whole needs to look at is how government employees can linger on and on and on, basically on paid vacation when they are on administrative leave. We are getting no 

value for it. And the money is just going flat out the door. 

Do you have any comments on that? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Not really, Congressman. 

You have heard my thoughts in my statements. I think that we 

certainly were initiating disciplinary action, and we needed to adhere to due process. And that is what we were working with. But 

we were working diligently with the process we had. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And I understand everybody is entitled to due 

process. And one of the reasons people choose to work for the government is to get away from employment at will. You know, you 

have some rights with respect to the government. But I am thinking we need to look at, especially in cases of clear misconduct, that 

we need to be able to find a way to expedite this process. And I 

do—and pardon me for asking this question, but this is a game of 

politics, and some people have asked me, your resignation was 

timed with the day that this report came out. Was that coordinated 

with the White House or the President’s campaign? Did you talk 

to anybody over there about that? 

Ms. JOHNSON. It was certainly not coordinated with the campaign. I did inform the White House. We were in communication 

with the White House so that they would be aware of it. I mean, 

I was resigning from my White House appointment. And it was—— 

71 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Did the White House ask you to resign, or was 

that your decision? 

Ms. JOHNSON. No, they did not. No, they did not. I chose to resign. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And again, I commend you on having done the 

honorable thing there, and thank you for your public service. And 

I am sorry you have to leave on this sour note. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Certainly. 

Chairman ISSA. Just a quick follow up. You knew this report was 

coming. You had 11 months between a scathing preliminary and 

the final. You resigned on the day it came out. When did you decide that you would resign? When did you first know that this report would look the way it did? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I knew when I received the draft report that it 

would look that way because I had no quarrel with the IG. 

Chairman ISSA. So you had 11 months’ warning? 

Ms. JOHNSON. No, it was 45 days. From the time that they gave 

us the draft—— 

Chairman ISSA. So about 60 days, okay. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yeah. I mean, it was someplace in there. And I 

knew that it—so I knew what was in the report, and I did not contest it. I had no reason to. I accepted all the recommendations. 

Part of what we worked through, because I took the role of running our response myself, is understanding what our personnel 

rules were, what our legal positions were, and so on. And as that 

unfolded, it became clearer and clearer to me that we needed to do 

something very—I don’t want to use the word ‘‘dramatic,’’ but we 

needed to make a very strong statement about how this was so appalling. So I decided to resign. I finally came to the decision in my 

own head about 3 or 4 days before I resigned, but I had thought 

about it for the entire 6 weeks. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

The gentleman from New Hampshire, Mr. Guinta, is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GUINTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to continue on this line of questioning. You said over that 

several-day period you had thought about resigning? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Over the whole—well, the thought entered my 

head right away, you know, was this something I needed to resign 

over. And I worked my way through what the discipline was for the 

various people involved, what other actions we could take. But I 

came to the—you know, I was ready to sit down and write my resignation about 3 days before. 

Mr. GUINTA. Did you consult with your Chief of Staff on that? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes. I mean, he understood my thinking. Yes. 

Mr. GUINTA. Okay. 

What was your position, Mr. Robertson, in 2007? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. My position in 2007? 

Mr. GUINTA. Yes. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. It depends on what time in 2007. I held two jobs 

in the year 2007. 

Mr. GUINTA. Which were the two? 

72 

Mr. ROBERTSON. In the U.S. Senate, in this body of the U.S. Congress, I was a legislative coordinator in the Senate. And then, following that, I joined the Presidential campaign for then-Senator 

Obama. 

Mr. GUINTA. You were a legislative coordinator for a Senator? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes. 

Mr. GUINTA. Which Senator? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. It was Senator Obama. 

Mr. GUINTA. Okay. So you went from working for Senator Obama 

as an LC to then working on the Presidential campaign to then 

working on transition to then going to GSA to then being Chief of 

Staff to GSA. Is that fair? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. After about 18 months inside GSA, yes. 

Mr. GUINTA. Okay, in an 18-month—you went from an LC to a 

Chief of Staff. That is great. Congratulations. 

At what point did you talk with Ms. Johnson about her resignation? She just said that she had talked with you about resigning. 

When did you speak with her about resigning? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. She told me that she was thinking about it at 

some point during the development of our response. I don’t recall 

the date. 

Mr. GUINTA. Can you give me a month, a month of the first time 

you talked about it with her? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. It was sometime between February and April 

when the final report came out. I believe it was in March. 

Mr. GUINTA. Who did you talk to at the White House about her 

resignation during that period of time? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Nobody. 

Mr. GUINTA. You did not convey in writing or verbally to anyone 

at the White House that there was a consideration of a resignation? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. No. To the best of my recollection, I did not. 

Mr. GUINTA. To the best of your recollection? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yeah. 

Mr. GUINTA. So you didn’t or to the best of your recollection? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. To the best of my recollection, I did not communicate anything about the Administrator’s resignation to the White 

House. 

Mr. GUINTA. So it is possible you did communicate something to 

the White House? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. To the best of my recollection, I did not communicate anything about the Administrator’s resignation to the White 

House. 

Mr. GUINTA. Did anyone from the White House talk to you in 

writing or verbally about the thought or the idea of Ms. Johnson 

resigning? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. To the best of my recollection, no. 

Mr. GUINTA. Mr. Miller, you said earlier in your testimony that 

it was, I think, abnormal—I don’t recall the words you used, but 

it was not the norm. 

Mr. MILLER. Unusual. 

Mr. GUINTA. Unusual, okay, thank you. So why did you provide 

this preliminarily information? 

73 

Mr. MILLER. I provided it to the Administrator May 3rd, 2011, 

so that GSA could take steps to prevent future waste. 

Mr. GUINTA. Okay. 

And I am reading from Ms. Johnson’s written testimony that was 

submitted today. ‘‘We finally received the report’’—excuse me, let 

me back up. You had written, ‘‘Ms. Brita shared these findings 

with four of us in May 2011,’’ and you named the four people who 

were in that meeting. And according to your testimony, you were 

part of that meeting. Is that accurate? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Mr. GUINTA. In your line of questioning with the chairman at the 

beginning of this hearing, you had stated, quote, ‘‘I was aware of 

a PowerPoint slide deck, but I did not see it.’’ Yet, in your written 

testimony—so maybe you want to clarify—you said, ‘‘Ms. Brita 

shared these findings with the four of us in May 2011.’’ 

The sentence prior to that says, ‘‘I believe the Inspector General 

subsequently briefed her with a PowerPoint deck,’’ yet you are saying you never saw the PowerPoint deck. So I want to be clear if 

you saw that PowerPoint deck in May during that briefing. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I have to apologize. It must be because I am 59 

years old, but I have no memory of seeing it. 

Mr. GUINTA. Okay. 

Ms. JOHNSON. This is based on my memories. If I could see my 

schedule and jog them and think about what meeting I was in with 

the Inspector General, I might be able to recall something. But 

right now I cannot recall that. 

Mr. GUINTA. All right. The last point I want to get to—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. But we did have a discussion about it. 

Mr. GUINTA. Okay. Thank you. 

The last point I want to get to is the raise of Mr. Neely. I have 

this email dated November 5th, 2011, which is certainly after, significantly after, you and others were briefed about this incident, 

this circumstance. And your email said, ‘‘I spoke to Bob yesterday 

afternoon.’’ I believe that is Bob—I would assume you are referring 

to Bob Peck. ‘‘He is recommending a 4 based on the extent to which 

Jeff is achieving more results in leasing than anyone else and some 

other things which he didn’t delineate. I could support that if the 

Steve Jobs message is dead-clear. Next year people have to have 

crackling good collaboration/people skills to get above a 3. I have 

made that adjustment in a couple of other cases this year. It has 

to be in the message like a fire siren. Yes on the bonus. He was 

also Acting RA forever and a day.’’ 

That is the entire body of the email sent by you to Susan Brita, 

with a CC to Steve Leeds and Bob Peck, regarding Mr. Neely’s 

$9,000—I find it a little shocking that that would really be the only 

thing we have, the only correspondence we have, the fact that—it 

looks like you cite two things: He has been an RA forever and a 

day, and, secondly, that he is achieving more results in leasing 

than anyone else. 

Is there any kind of guideline or specific documentation that 

someone has to go through to determine if there are measurable 

outcomes and objectives that someone at this level is meeting the 

criteria in order to receive a bonus? 

74 

Ms. JOHNSON. So the process involves a performance review 

board, and I believe they had a fair amount of documentation. The 

Deputy Administrator was briefing me. She was briefing me fairly 

regularly, just verbally. We sit right next to each other. So she was 

informing me of their thinking and where they were wrestling with 

a recommendation and where they were pretty straightforward. 

There was a lot of dialogue. 

Mr. GUINTA. Do you still agree that he should have received this $9,000 bonus? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, as the other Congressman was asking what 

would I do in hindsight, I still am not sure how to think about the 

two different expectations on me around assessing performance and 

conduct and how much I would have interfered with a conduct review that I considered very serious if I had moved in a different 

direction with a performance process and made that less independent. 

Mr. GUINTA. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Miller, have you made a referral to the United States Attorney’s Office? 

Mr. MILLER. To the Department of Justice, yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. I hope it is a different group than the one that handled Fast and Furious. But you have made a referral? 

Mr. MILLER. Indeed, yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. When did you make it? With a recommendation? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Did you make recommendations for criminal charges 

or just FYI, forwarded it? 

Mr. MILLER. No, we recommended criminal charges. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right. 

Well, Mr. Chairman, the need for a hearing like this epitomizes 

our fellow citizens’ frustration with government. They are absolutely convinced that we spend their money differently from the 

way that we would spend our own, and they are exactly correct. The rest of America cannot comprehend a $44 breakfast. They are pouring generic brand cereal while you are eating a $44 breakfast. The rest of America would never conceive of a $7 Monte Cristo 

mini-sandwich, and neither would you if you were spending your 

own money. You don’t go out of your pocket and buy commemorative coins. I don’t know anyone who does that. But we don’t hesitate to spend taxpayer money on a trinket like that. 

Giving bicycles to indigent children is a wonderful idea. I hate 

that you robbed yourself of the satisfaction of knowing what it feels 

like to do it yourself instead of spending someone else’s money to 

do it. 

The ostensible purpose of this hearing was to exchange ideas. 

You know, Alexander Graham Bell has this marvelous invention 

called the telephone, or, better yet, videoconferencing. The notion 

that you have to spend $800,000 to exchange ideas is laughable 

and perhaps criminal. 

And the part that galls me the most is the hypocrisy of GSA not 

even following its own damn rules. You are so quick to make everyVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:01 Sep 06, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75709.TXT APRIL
75 

one else follow the rules, and you can’t follow your own rules. You 

have an event planner on staff. That will come as quite a surprise 

to most taxpayers. What will come as even more of a surprise is 

the fact that you didn’t even use them. You paid somebody else to 

plan the event despite the fact that you have event planners at taxpayer salary. 

And the scouting trips. You know, Mr. Chairman, the tribes of 

Israel sent 12 scouts into the promised land before they decided to 

invade, and GSA has to send 15 to Las Vegas to check out a hotel. 

Do you not see the outrage in that, Mr. Robertson? Do you see 

it? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Absolutely. This conference was outrageous. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I am not going to be as self-congratulatory as 

some other people are. I think the fact that we are having a hearing is a loss. Most people don’t need a hearing to know that you 

don’t spend other people’s money the way that money was spent at 

this conference. We don’t need a list of recommendations from the 

Inspector General. We don’t need to be reminded that you can’t negotiate a discount on a purse because the U.S. Government decided 

to contract with a hotel. That is criminal. 

And a mind reader? My guess is they will not need a mind reader to find out the American public has lost confidence in the institutions of government and their response. 

I want indictments, Mr. Inspector General. That is a great way 

to get people’s attention, an indictment. Not a memo, not corrective 

measure, an indictment. 

I went through your report and I wrote 25 times, what is the 

penalty? What is the penalty for doing what you found that they 

did? What is the penalty for negotiating a discount on a purse for 

your personal use because you work for the government and you 

steered work? What is the penalty for tipping off a competitor of 

another bid? That sounds remarkably criminal to me, Mr. Inspector 

General. 

You know, Mr. Chairman, while this conference was being 

planned and executed, I was working in a small DA’s office in 

South Carolina. We had budget cuts. We had to furlough secretaries that were making $20,000 a year. We started a fund out of 

our own pocket to pay for kids’ birthday presents. We never 

thought about spending taxpayer money on it. 

Working for the government is a sacred trust which you have 

blown. So instead of a team-building exercise, you might want to 

investigate a trust-building exercise, because you have lost it. 

Chairman ISSA. That concludes our first round. The gentleman’s 

outrage I think is a bipartisan reflection of the entire first round. 

I will be brief in the second round. There are a few things that 

weren’t covered. So I recognize myself. 

Mr. Miller, Exhibit 2, a letter we have from Susan Brita, that, 

although she was the original, if you will, provocateur that caused 

your investigation to begin, she writes—or, actually, to Ruth Cox, 

there is a question, wanted to know why the report had to be made 

public since she was told otherwise by Bob Peck. 

Are you familiar with this exhibit? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes, I am, Mr. Chairman. 

76 

Chairman ISSA. And I appreciate your completeness in supplying 

us this. 

Chairman ISSA. How do you explain anybody, political appointee 

or not, considering that any part of this would be retained as private, particularly after such a long time of us not knowing about 

it? 

Mr. MILLER. I can’t explain that, Mr. Chairman. We always intended for this to be public. It is of such a magnitude and such an 

outrage that it had to be made public for transparency. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, I would like to follow up on that, because 

the ranking member and I regularly receive briefings from IGs. 

IGs, all 12,000 men and women and $2 billion budget, exist to a 

great extent for a liaison with this branch. I am a little—I am more 

than a little concerned. You have done a wonderful job. It is a comprehensive report, and it is going to change a lot of things throughout government. But if you had to do it again, when would you 

have briefed this committee, your primary committee for oversight? 

Mr. MILLER. Well, Mr. Chairman, we wanted to nail down all the 

facts every which way before we put the report to print. I am receiving your message that we should come to you sooner, much 

sooner than we have a draft report. 

The process was that we wanted to get something together quickly to warn the Administrator and others so that they can stop further waste. We did that quickly and did it in May 2011. It took a 

long time to nail down the facts every possible way, and we got a 

final report to her in February. She requested an extension of an 

extra 30 days. 

You know, I—you know, we—I am happy to talk with you about 

when we should bring these reports to you. These are sensitive reports. They do contain what we view as criminal conduct. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, and I appreciate the criminal conduct. And, 

obviously, one of the concerns we have is, we need to know from 

a reform standpoint, from an oversight standpoint earlier, not 

later. 

I will say this on the record to you but, in fact, to all the IGs, 

the 70-plus, and all the people that work for them. It is my intention to work with the ranking member to produce a guidance letter 

from this committee that would spell out an expectation. If that expectation, which is ordinary—we are going to try to be consistent 

with what often occurs—if that is not something that we see on a 

go-forward basis, then I will also draft legislation with the ranking 

member to try to codify in law. 

It has not been a problem in the past. I do find it exceptional. 

And, by the way, good work. I am not making any disparaging remark on the quality of your work. But it is highly unusual for us 

not to receive a heads-up much, much sooner, particularly when it 

would have allowed us—for example, the 23 letters I sent to other 

agencies—to begin looking at perhaps the effects of so much money 

being infused into the government. 

As you know, Earl Devaney and I work closely. We were monitoring through the stimulus funding a plethora of possible areas in 

which so much money could, in fact, be misspent. And former IG 

Devaney, Chairman Devaney, and this committee worked constantly on this, along with the Vice President. So while we were 

77 

doing all of that, this would have been helpful. That is the only 

criticism. 

I am going to close here with Mr. Robertson. You were previously 

liaison to, essentially, the White House. And I know the word ‘‘administration’’ versus ‘‘White House’’ versus ‘‘President’’ gets used 

loosely. So let’s just take the largest question. 

In your role as, in fact, the communicator, not representing the 

Administrator, but representing White House liaison, that role in 

which your job was to communicate to have no surprises, nothing 

unknown to the people of the White House, both political and nonpolitical, wouldn’t you ordinarily have reported something like this 

in that role? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. The role of the White House liaison is to onboard appointees into different offices in the executive branch agencies and departments. 

Chairman ISSA. No, but here is the whole point. When you 

worked for Senator Obama, I am sure your Chief of Staff told you, 

‘‘No surprises for the Senator,’’ right? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I don’t remember having that conversation in 

the Senate. 

Chairman ISSA. So you would have kept something like this that 

could embarrass the President, you would have kept it a secret 

when he was your boss as a Senator? Or would you have told the 

Chief of Staff that? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I don’t know how to answer a hypothetical question. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, this is not all that hypothetical. All of us 

on the dais, in fact, you know, we have the same situation that 

Senator Obama has. So this is not something that is unusual. 

When you work for a Member of Congress, it is almost a given that 

the one thing you don’t do is let somebody be surprised with a 

scandal that occurs under their watch. 

Now, I am going to ask you because you still have your job, you 

are still a political appointee at the highest level—and, as Ms. 

Johnson says, you are probably making less than the $179,000 that 

Mr. Neely is still making today. So I ask you again, during the 

time that you were White House liaison, wouldn’t there be an expectation that you would inform people at the White House? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. During my time as White House liaison, I executed the duties assigned to me by my boss, the Acting Administrator, at the time. 

Chairman ISSA. So the word ‘‘liaison’’ doesn’t mean anything? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. It means that the primary duty of the White 

House liaison is to on-board appointees into the executive branch 

agencies and departments. 

Chairman ISSA. So you are telling me that the Obama administration doesn’t use White House liaisons to communicate back and 

forth to keep the White House staff informed about things that 

may—a heads-up that may be significant? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. My role as White House liaison was to on-board 

the appointees into the executive branch agencies, my branch agency. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. When did you first become aware of this 

scandal? 

78 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I had secondhand knowledge in May following 

the briefing that the IG gave to the Administrator. It was mentioned to me that this was an ongoing investigation that existed. 

Chairman ISSA. Since May of last year, more than a year, or approximately a year, have you talked to anyone in the administration outside of GSA that may have communicated it to anyone inside the White House or related areas? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Do you mind repeating the question? I am 

not—— 

Chairman ISSA. It is a fairly broad question. Did you—once you 

knew of this terrible scandal, this waste, did you talk to any of 

your friends, associates, or other people employed either by the Office of the President or related areas within the administration? 

Did you communicate this to any of your, sort of, friends and family? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I communicated to the appropriate people. 

Chairman ISSA. Who are they? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Who are the appropriate people? In my ongoing 

work as Chief of Staff to the Administrator inside GSA, I occasionally and sometimes on a regular basis communicate to the White 

House about the policy priorities inside GSA as well as any issues 

within the agency that might impact administration priorities. 

Chairman ISSA. To the best of your recollection, when did you 

first report this scandal to those people? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. To the best my recollection, the first mention I 

made of the ongoing investigation by Brian, which I was not assigned—it is important to note that the Administrator directly assigned the Deputy Administrator and the senior counselor to both 

the relationship with the IG as well as the specific investigation. 

And after becoming aware of the existence of the investigation, 

I mentioned it to a White House staffer that I worked with on a 

regular basis, among, you know, other things that I communicated 

to them about what was going on inside GSA. 

Chairman ISSA. That was a pretty good answer, but the word 

‘‘when’’ was in my question. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I apologize, Mr. Chairman. That was sometime 

shortly after the May 2011 time frame when I became aware that 

the IG had briefed Administrator Johnson. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So you hear about it in May; you report 

it promptly to a staff person within the White House. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I would say it was sometime after May, in the 

next several weeks that—— 

Chairman ISSA. Within a few weeks. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. Who was that staff person? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. It was a member of the White House Counsel’s 

Office that I work with on a regular basis as far as GSA issues go. 

Chairman ISSA. I said ‘‘who.’’ 

Mr. ROBERTSON. It was a lawyer in the White House Counsel’s 

Office. 

Chairman ISSA. What is the name? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Her name was Kim Harris. 

Chairman ISSA. Kim Harris? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes, sir. 

79 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. Thank you very much. 

I don’t want to take this panel longer because we do have another panel. I appreciate the ranking member’s indulgence of 

longer than would ordinarily be prudent. And I recognize the ranking member. 

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

Ms. Johnson, you know, I am sitting here, and I have been just 

listening and watching, and I was trying to figure out some issues. 

First of all, I know that you are an honorable woman. I know that. 

And I know that you have a reputation for excellence. 

And I just want to go back to when you resigned. Tell us why 

you resigned. 

You know, and let me say where I am going. This is not a trick 

question. You know, a lot of times when something happens, and 

although a person at the top does not necessarily feel that it was 

their fault, they know that they were in charge. Sometimes you 

will hear a President say, ‘‘It was under my watch, I take full responsibility,’’ of whatever. On the other hand, I guess some of them 

may feel that they actually could have done something different, in 

other words, to avoid certain things from happening, or that they 

did something to cause these things to happen. 

And I am just wondering, why did you resign? Do you follow my 

question? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Congressman—yes. I resigned because I wanted to 

step aside so that GSA could have some new leadership going forward. Frankly, the nature of that conference, the coarseness, the 

videotapes, the kind of impact that it was having deeply disturbed 

me. And I wanted to, as much as I could, reassure the American 

people that somebody was taking it quite seriously, and through 

my resignation, could send the message that this is unacceptable, 

it is appalling, and it is not the norm. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. As I listened to the way you came in and the 

delay in your confirmation and when you came in and what you 

came into, you know, and then I watch you, and you said something that you probably don’t even realize you said. As a matter 

of fact, you said it twice, and not necessarily in response to a question; you just volunteered this. I think it may have been the chairman that was asking you. But a comment was made about the salaries of certain employees, and you said, ‘‘Yeah, they make more 

than the Administrator.’’ You said it twice. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Oh, I did? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, you did. I saw you. And you seemed like you 

were very, kind of, upset about that. 

And let me tell you where I am going with this. It seems like 

there are some things going on at GSA—and God knows I hope 

they are not going on in these other agencies—that are out of control. In other words, the Administrator comes in and there are 

some things that have been going on. And, you know, I look at 

what have we read about what Mr. Neely has been accused of 

doing, and I don’t necessarily want to get into all that. But I am 

just wondering, are there things that you felt you had no control 

over? 

And the reason why this is so significant is because I believe the 

chairman is concerned, as I am, about getting to the reform that 

80 

is necessary to get to, but it seems as if—it is almost like the Administrator is here, and there is something happening down there, 

and it is all—I mean, when I read the facts of what went on here— 

you know, a fund that, you know, you can almost pull out a million 

dollars to hold a conference for. People can talk about this money 

as if it is their money. The chairman made a good point of that, 

and others. You know, and they can use it for whatever they want. 

I just—I mean, are we—has government become—I mean, do we 

need a different—some kind of different kinds of controls here? 

And you might want to chime in here, Mr. Miller, too. Because, 

I mean, if we are going to get to the bottom of this—I mean, we 

can go through these hearings and accuse one administration of 

doing it and another administration of doing it and all that kind 

of stuff, but if we don’t get to exactly controlling what is going on 

there, we will never solve this problem. And so then 10 years from 

now there will be a new set of people sitting up here, and they 

won’t be talking about a $900,000 event, they will be talking about 

a $2 million event. 

So I am just—I mean, help us, help us. I mean, you have written 

this wonderful report, Mr. Miller. 

And, Ms. Johnson, am I reading you right, that you—and you 

seem like you—I have watched your expression. It is like, you 

know, really—and this is what it seems like you are saying. You 

don’t have to tell me, but it seems like you are saying, this really 

pisses me off, not that you have to be here, but that you have these 

people who did these stupid things, did these greedy things, and 

I am just pissed, but I was not in a position to control it. 

And I am not trying to excuse you; I am just trying to get to the 

bottom of this. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I appreciate that. I appreciate that, Congressman. 

And I think that—I alluded to what I do think is one of the 

issues that I would certainly welcome attention to, and that is to 

be sure that there is leadership in place in these organizations and 

that they aren’t left in interim status too long. I think that is very 

hard. It is a very large, complicated organization. It takes time for 

a person even coming in to learn the organization. I was lucky, I 

already knew a fair amount about it. But I think that the leadership aspect is a pretty important part of this story. 

Secondly, I think that with any large organization you do need 

good management oversight. I had acted as an executive would, 

and I tasked various people with oversight, and there was a clear 

breakdown in the organization around that. Where I trusted, I 

needed to confront the fact that I had trusted and it yielded this. 

And I resigned as a result. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Miller, did you have a comment on it? 

Mr. MILLER. Well, I have discussed some of these issues with 

Acting Administrator Tangherlini, and I know he is going to address you in a few minutes. 

I applaud him in taking stronger action to strengthen central office control over budgets of the regions. One reason they could 

spend this money was that their budgets weren’t being—they didn’t 

have accountability for their budgets. And so they could move 

money from the operations fund into a conference and use purchase 

81 

cards and that sort of thing. And I believe Mr. Tangherlini will tell 

you that the CFO now will be able to see those transactions. 

There was a—I guess the regions had a lot of power and autonomy. And I know that Mr. Tangherlini is taking steps to have the 

Deputy Administrator take more active control and management of 

the regions. 

But I don’t want to steal his thunder, so I will let—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. No, you don’t have to steal his thunder, but let 

me just say this. I agree with the chairman that—I know there 

may be all kinds of reasons for not giving us some kind of headsup. But, you know, sometimes—who was the fellow in charge of 

making sure he oversaw the money? You mentioned his name. 

Chairman ISSA. Earl Devaney. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Devaney. Earl Devaney said something that I 

will never forget. You know, he said he tried to operate in a way 

where the rules didn’t get violated. In other words, he tried to be 

in front of the train instead of, you know, waiting for things to happen. 

And so I just kind of—it’s just helpful for us, I mean, that—I 

mean, we would love to have had all the information on this one 

so that we could have possibly done some things, I mean, brought 

some people in and just actually sat around the table and say, look, 

how do we make sure this doesn’t happen, instead of letting it happen and then going—and we probably could have saved some people—first of all, could have saved some money, but we also may 

have been able to save some embarrassment. 

The last thing I want to say is this, Mr. Chairman, as I close, 

and this will only take a second. You know, a lot of times, groups— 

and I am saying this to our GSA employees and to other employees 

that may be watching this. A lot of times, groups are judged by 

their weakest link. And it is so sad because then people look at 

what a few people do in that group and they judge the whole 

group. 

And I just want to say that, you know, we have a lot of great 

Federal employees, and you know it, that are doing a hell of a job. 

And I just don’t want them to be tarnished by this. I just want the 

public to understand that there are people, like I said in my opening, that, you know, they collect money for the coffee so that they 

are spending their own coffee money, you know? And they do all 

those little things coming out of their own pocket. Some of them— 

many of them, of course, as you know, have taken—you know, they 

can’t get a pay raise for 2 years and whatever and gone on furloughs, all kinds of stuff. And so, anyway, I just don’t want the 

public to judge our Federal employees by these weak links. 

And I want to thank you very much. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

As we close this panel, I would like to let Mr. Robertson and Mr. 

Miller know that we will likely be back in this setting more times 

as we get through the reform part of this. 

Ms. Johnson, we are unlikely to ask you back in the same setting. Your experience at Computer Sciences Corporation, your experience here—we may ask if you would voluntarily help us as we 

begin to sort out some of the frustrations you saw between political 

82 

appointees, who in fact you might have a hard time recruiting the 

kinds of people that need to oversee SES and other very senior individuals in the bureaucracy, and of course some of your frustrations that may exist as to what it takes to eliminate a member of 

civil service even after egregious behavior. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I would be happy to be of any support I can be. 

Chairman ISSA. And we will make sure it is not at a cost of needing a counsel here again. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. And, with that, we will take a short recess before 

the second panel. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman ISSA. The committee will now come to order. 

Our second panel is the Acting Administrator of the General 

Services Administration, Mr. Daniel M. Tangherlini. 

Mr. Tangherlini was kind enough to call me almost immediately 

after his appointment. 

And we look forward to your opening statement and, in light of 

the first panel and your listening to that, your comments on 

changes you anticipate. And, with that, the gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Good afternoon, Chairman Issa—— 

Chairman ISSA. I apologize. I have to stick with the script. Pursuant to the rules, all witnesses will be sworn. Would you please 

rise? 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you are about to 

give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I do. 

Chairman ISSA. Let the record reflect the witness answered in 

the affirmative. 

The gentleman is recognized. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. DANIEL M. TANGHERLINI 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Thank you. And good afternoon, Chairman 

Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and members of the committee. 

My name is Dan Tangherlini, and I am the Acting Administrator 

of the U.S. General Services Administration. I appreciate the opportunity to come before the committee today. 

First and foremost, I want to state that the waste and abuse outlined in the Inspector General’s report is an outrage and completely 

antithetical to the goals of the administration. The report details 

violations of travel rules, acquisition rules, and good conduct. Just 

as importantly, those responsible violated rules of common sense, 

the spirit of public service, and the trust that the American taxpayers have placed in us. 

I speak for the overwhelming majority of GSA staff when I say 

that we are as shocked, appalled, and deeply disappointed by these 

indefensible actions as you are. We have taken strong action 

against those officials who are responsible and will continue to do 

so where appropriate. 

I intend to uphold the highest ethical standards at this agency, 

including referring any criminal activity to appropriate law enforcement officials and taking any action that is necessary and appropriate. If we find irregularities, I will immediately engage GSA’s 

83 

Inspector General. As indicated in the joint letter that Inspector 

General Brian Miller and I sent to all GSA staff, we expect an employee who sees waste, fraud, or abuse to report it. 

We want to build a partnership with the IG, while respecting 

their independence, that will ensure that nothing like this ever 

happens again. There will be no tolerance for employees who violate or in any way disregard these rules. I believe this is critical, 

not only because we owe it to the American taxpayers, but also because we owe it to the many GSA employees who work hard, follow 

the rules, and deserve to be proud of the agency for which they 

work. 

We have also taken steps to improve internal controls and oversight. Already I have cancelled all future Western Regions Conferences. I have also cancelled 35 previously planned conferences, 

saving nearly a million dollars in taxpayer expenses. I have suspended the Hats Off stores and have already demanded reimbursement from Mr. Peck, Mr. Shepard, and Mr. Neely for private inroom parties. I have cancelled most travel through the end of the 

fiscal year agency-wide. And I am centralizing budget authority 

and have already centralized procurement oversight for regional offices to make them more directly accountable. 

I look forward to working in partnership with this committee to 

ensure that there is full accountability for these activities so that 

we can begin to restore the trust of the American people. I hope 

that in so doing GSA can refocus on its core mission: saving taxpayers’ money by efficiently procuring supplies, services, and real 

estate and effectively disposing of unneeded government property. 

We believe that there has rarely been a time of greater need for 

these services and the savings they bring to the government and 

the taxpayer. There is a powerful value proposition to a single 

agency dedicated to this work, especially in these austere fiscal 

times. We need to ensure we get back to basics and conduct this 

work better than ever. 

At GSA, our commitment is to our public service, our duty, and 

our Nation and not to conferences, awards, or parties. The unacceptable, inappropriate, and possibly illegal activities at the Western Regions Conference stand in direct contradiction to the expressed goals of this agency and the administration. And I am committed to ensuring that we take whatever steps are necessary to 

hold responsible parties accountable and to make sure that this 

never happens again. We need to focus this agency on the basics, 

streamlining the administrative work of the Federal Government to 

save taxpayers’ money. 

I look forward to working with the committee moving forward, 

and I welcome the opportunity to answer any questions at this 

time. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. I will recognize myself, and I will start with one 

question. 

Do you know if the administration plans on putting you up 

promptly to the Senate for confirmation? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I have not talked to anyone about plans beyond my time coming over as Acting Administrator. 

84 

Chairman ISSA. Well, I appreciate that. I want to make sure the 

record is clear that the earlier panel made it very clear that a series of Acting Administrators was part of the lack of continuity of 

control that in no small part led to, if you will, Ms. Johnson receiving an agency that was already, to a certain extent, in trouble. So 

hopefully at OMB and OPM and at the White House that is all 

being heard, as we speak. 

I appreciate the fact that for the record you embraced a number 

of recommendations. But would you have exception to any of the 

recommendations from the Inspector General, realizing Ms. Johnson had already embraced all of the recommendations for change? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. No. In fact, the Inspector General and I met 

on the first day to talk about the report and to talk about building 

a strong rapport going forward so that we wouldn’t have any such 

situations develop like this again. 

Chairman ISSA. The Inspector General made us aware in his answers to our questions that there were ongoing investigations, including ones that fall much more in the nature of corruption, 

meaning kickbacks, perhaps bribes, and the like. 

Would you commit to us today to ensure that both the chairman 

and ranking member be informed in sufficient specificity to understand the gravity of events, if not necessarily all the details of possible criminal indictments? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. To the extent that I can do that in working 

with the Inspector General, I would be happy to work with the 

committee on those issues. 

Chairman ISSA. We appreciate that. No small matter. My ego can 

take not knowing about something. What I can’t do is deny the 

ranking member and myself the possibility of looking for fundamental changes in yours and other agencies in a prompt period of 

time, we think in 2-year increments or less, and would like to make 

sure that we don’t have 2 years go by without that. 

You were previously Senate-confirmed, so the expectation of this 

committee is that, if you are promptly put up, you would promptly 

be confirmed again. So hopefully that message is delivered. 

You have listened to the testimony of the previous panel, including the frustrations of your predecessor, for more than 2 hours. Do 

you feel that you would be able to resolve the issues that your 

predecessor was unable to resolve? And I would particularly question, do you have confidence in the team you now have in place, 

obviously sans the two that were dismissed? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Well, I intend to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the organization. As a new person coming in, particularly 

in these circumstances, I have to have confidence in the people I 

have, but I also have to have that confidence demonstrated. I have 

to have a sense of how we have structured the organization, how 

we have put our resources into play, and make sure that that is 

in fact the way we think we should go forward. Clearly, there were 

serious gaps, as evidenced by what took place here. 

Chairman ISSA. Now, as you know, you have a fairly large 

amount of Schedule C political appointees that work for you, just 

as you are a political appointee. When you were appointed Acting, 

were you given the full ability to clean house, to determine political 

85 

appointees you would keep and those that you would ask to be replaced? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I believe when I was appointed Acting I was 

given full latitude to make managerial decisions over the General 

Services Administration. 

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate that, but my question was a little 

more nuanced. The President has placed a number of political appointees, from your Chief of Staff on down. Were you given the 

ability, or do you believe you have the ability, to retain or to dismiss any or all of those individuals you find not to meet the standards necessary going forward for what you envision to be a predictable GSA that is cleaned up and that this sort of thing never happens again? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. At the time, I never had a discussion specifically about that. But I did ask if I was going to have full authority 

to make recommendations on how we should structure the agency 

going forward, and that I was given assurance I would. 

Chairman ISSA. Your predecessor showed a considerable frustration to both the chairman and the ranking member seemingly in 

two areas: the SESs that were paid a lot of money and, in fact, may 

not have performed well and even, in the case of Mr. Neely, are 

still being paid by the taxpayers; and the political appointees who 

made significantly less than those individuals. Do you share that 

frustration? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I, again, need to understand the reason why 

we have the GSA structure that we do. And in the sense that I 

heard the description from my predecessor, I understand the nature of her frustration. But I would like to know why we have the 

structure we have and see if there are ways that we can make it 

better. 

Chairman ISSA. Has the GSA been successful in recovering any 

money so far from individuals who received benefits that were not 

warranted, either the individuals who made the decisions to spend 

the money or those who accepted them? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. We began that process late last week, so I 

don’t think we have received any money back at this time. 

Chairman ISSA. How much are you hoping to receive back for the 

taxpayers? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Right now we have the case of the three individuals we have sought reimbursement for the private in-room parties. We also have the contractor that charged us for hotel rooms 

when they were actually getting hotel rooms from GSA. 

I want to work very closely with Brian Miller and go through the 

entire bill of particulars and see how much of that we can get back. 

Chairman ISSA. Our indication is that approximately $100,000 

was spent. You know, this is an egregious amount, but when you 

break it down, one of the most egregious portions were the 10 fam 

trips, the 10 trips that included other luxury hotels on the Strip 

and so on that were visited by both individuals and their families. 

Will you seek to get any part of that money back from the individuals who had their vacations with their family paid for by the taxpayers? 

86 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I will work closely with Inspector General Miller to make sure that, to the extent that any funds are recoverable, 

we will recover them. 

Chairman ISSA. Would you commit to us if you find that you cannot recover because statute doesn’t allow for it to inform us? Because ultimately one of the reforms that I believe the chairman, in 

my role, and the ranking member and all of us on the committee 

want to do is make sure you are empowered when people receive 

something they are not entitled to to make sure the statute allows 

it to be clawed back. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I will commit to working with the committee 

and sharing with you where I have succeeded and where I have 

had less success. 

Chairman ISSA. Lastly, you are inheriting an organization that 

had other problems. Some of the Members that were here earlier 

have worked on it. I know the ranking member in his role over at 

Transportation and Infrastructure, Ms. Norton in her role over 

there, have been frustrated for a very long time that there is a 

huge amount of waste within the management and disposal of Federal property. That is not the subject of this hearing, but it will 

continue to be the subject of both individual and joint hearings by 

T&I and this committee. So I would hope you would be prepared 

as quickly as possible to address those issues, because they are 

going to be of billion-dollar concerns to us. 

Lastly, so far, we have been able to get from the Inspector General a pretty good production of documents. He has been very cooperative. Would you also commit to make sure that we get documents, preferably in electronic format, and organized pursuant to 

our request? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I think, to date, we have provided nearly 

50,000 documents to the committee. We had a—the initial request 

came in just about this time last week, so we have been working 

day and night and through the weekend to try to provide the committee with all the documents we can. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, as I turn it over to the ranking member, 

I would like this to be an example of how it doesn’t take months 

or a year to get document production. So far, the work from the 

GSA has been excellent. And that was the reason for the question 

but also for a comment, that it has been good so far. 

With that, I recognize the ranking member. 

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

I am hopeful, Mr. Chairman, that we can bring Mr. Tangherlini 

back, and Mr. Miller, for some periodic checkups as to where they 

are with regard to what they are doing, because I just don’t want 

to—I want us to make sure we stay on top of this. 

Chairman ISSA. Oh, I have no doubt we will have several hearings of this sort going forward on a joint basis. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Tangherlini, you shared your plan to review the previous 

conferences as well as the controversial Hats Off Program that 

awarded electronic cameras and iPods to GSA employees. The Hats 

Off Program has been suspended pending your review. I understand that you also closed all other award programs; is that correct? 

87 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. All other similar award programs in which 

points were given to employees that they could then turn in for 

prizes or awards. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Uh-huh. And how did that start, do you know? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I really don’t know, and that is part of what 

I am trying to understand. What I would like to do is look at things 

like these award programs and ask ourselves, where did they come 

from, what purpose did they serve, is there some good underlying 

them, what contractual agreements do we have with our employees 

related to them. 

So we have suspended them. It is part of the top-to-bottom review, to really get to the bottom of where it came from. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what will be done with the inventory remaining in those award programs? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Well, for the time being, I have asked them to 

hold and suspend the inventory pending a decision on whether we 

move forward on the program. If we move forward on the program, 

it could be reused. If we don’t, we have—we are in charge of disposal of Federal property, so we would find a way to dispose of it 

properly. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what type of awards programs, if any, do 

you feel are appropriate, if any? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Well, I think that that is one of the things we 

have to look at, is ask ourselves is our bonus and award program 

tied to the appropriate outcomes and the appropriate types of performance. GSA is about saving, so we should really find ways that 

we can re-emphasize savings within the GSA mission. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, you heard the testimony of the former Administrator and the fact that I think just about all the Members 

on the dais are very concerned about—and I think it was probably 

one of the weak parts of her testimony—the whole issue of the 

$9,000 bonus. And she explained the process by which one thing 

was separate from another thing. 

I mean, how do you deal with that? Because I think if there is 

anything—I remember when we had AIG and all these companies 

giving bonuses for bad behavior, I was very loud and sometimes 

loud by myself, and very upset about it. I think when you have bad 

actors, the last thing you want to do is to give them bonuses. The 

public doesn’t understand it. 

And even if there is a two-track process—and that is the impression that I got, there are two tracks here. Some kind of way, we 

don’t want—you know, as you go about the business of trying to 

re-establish this trust, you don’t want the public to be confused 

about folks going out there and partying with their money and at 

the same time getting a bonus. I mean, it is like slapping them in 

the face. 

So I am just wondering, what are your plans with regard to that? 

Have you talked about it? Have you studied it? I mean, I know it 

is early on, but tell me, I mean, is that something that is GSAwide, Federal Government-wide? I am just wondering. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I had some of these responsibilities overseeing 

the human capital operations at the Treasury Department in my 

role as assistant secretary of management. And I have to say that 

I have a slight disagreement. I believe that the process actually 

88 

gives the Administrator more authority. And so one of the things 

we will need to do is make sure, as we look at how we manage performance, that we should look at the conversations we are having 

with the IG, and if there are any issues out there, and maybe put 

these things on hold if there are big questions out there. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, I talked about reestablishing trust, 

but it seems as if—you know, when I look at what happened here, 

it seems as if there may have been rules that were just totally disregarded. And that concerns me, because, and particularly when 

you have got rules that are being disregarded and not only being 

disregarded, but then you have folks making videos about how they 

are disregarding them, which is incredible to me, and basically saying, to hell with those people who are supposed to be over the oversight. I mean, it just seems like you got to dig deep to get into some 

of this. I don’t know if this is just some surface stuff. So I am just 

trying to figure out, how do you get to that? Were you in here for 

the Administrator’s testimony? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Yes, I saw the testimony. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. And did you hear my last question, sir, 

with regard to it seems as if the Administrator is here, but then 

there is all this stuff going on that seems to have a disconnect. And 

so tell me about that. Talk to me. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. So what I found in just the short time I have 

been there, and it has only been about 2 weeks now, that it seems 

obvious to me that there is a disconnect between the headquarters 

and the regional operations. And to some extent, we need to build 

a stronger connection at a separation of duties level. So the chief 

financial officer, I have asked that the chief financial officer of the 

GSA serve as the chief financial officer straight down into the regions so that we have visibility into the way the regions are designing their budgets, and more importantly, spending their budgets. 

And I think that that is one of the things, as we conduct a top-tobottom review of GSA, we can ask ourselves some questions; why 

are we structured this way? Is this the best way to provide accountability and oversight? And if not, we should change it. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I really wish you well as you go forward. And I, 

too, agree with the chairman that we have seen what the failure 

to have somebody in that position permanently can do. And we 

need to do that. And I am hoping that the President will nominate 

you or somebody capable of addressing these issues, and then the 

Senate will move on the confirmation as soon as possible. 

Thank you very much. And if there is anything that we can do 

to be supportive of your efforts, please don’t fail to call on us. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I appreciate that. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. [presiding.] Thank the gentleman from Maryland. 

The chair would now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. 

Farenthold. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And we saw earlier in the day the GSA mission statement. Are 

you looking at revising that, or are you thinking we are all right 

with what it is? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I think as part of a top-to-bottom review, we 

should start with the mission statement and the goals. I haven’t 

89 

been there long enough to say whether this is the exact right one 

or the exact wrong one. It seems to hit many of the key points of 

savings and efficiency, economy, effectiveness. So I want to make 

sure that even if we were to change it, that we wouldn’t lose those 

important parts. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Right. And it would be your belief that in general, it is the GSA’s job to get the best deal for the government and 

efficiently manage what the government has. Just broad general 

terms. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Absolutely. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And part of that would be taking care of tax 

dollars as if they were your own or, more so, almost as if they were 

being held in trust. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Absolutely. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Great. Now, the title of this hearing was, do 

we have a culture problem within the GSA or within the broader 

government? And I have to say I have worked with a lot of great 

government employees; I have worked with some that aren’t so 

great. Do you think this is a cultural problem, or do you think this 

is more of a cancer? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Well, I think we definitely had a cultural problem in Region 9, probably tied to a leadership problem. But I can’t 

say that I know enough about GSA to say whether we do or do not 

have a cultural problem across the organization when it comes to 

these issues. 

I will point out, though, I have received dozens and dozens of 

email mails from GSA employees who are every bit as outraged, 

every bit as angry about what took place here. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. It is my hope that this is a cancer, and we are 

going to be able to excise it from wherever it exists, be it in the 

GSA or any other government agency. And I think this committee 

has already started investigating the spending habits of some government agencies. 

I did want to touch on one other point. With regard to the acquisition of services, in his report, the IG identified a number of problems. In fact, this isn’t the first report by Mr. Miller that has 

raised concern about the GSA acquisition officers disclosing competitor pricing or the maximum price. And GSA officials have failed 

to abide by small business set-asides, failed to properly publish offerings, and omitted important Federal Acquisition Regulations 

clauses which protect the government. Do you think this is intentional misconduct, or do you think this is just ignorance or poor 

training? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I am not sure what it was in this case, but I 

can tell you that I think it is unacceptable. And I can tell you I 

think the GSA should be held to a higher standard. We should hold 

ourselves to a higher standard. 

And one of the actions I have taken most recently is to centralize 

in our senior procurement official, our senior procurement executive, the ability to grant or withdraw warrants. Warrants are the 

ability to actually make procurement actions. So I think we have 

to take a good strong look at how we do things, how we set ourselves up, what our standards are, what our performance is. How 

do we create structures of accountability? And hopefully, we can 

90 

make the improvements to make sure that nothing like this can 

happen again. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And Members of Congress have district offices 

where they hear complaints and problems from constituents. And 

just in the past few months, there have been an alarming number 

of folks who have complained about the government contracting 

process, not just with the GSA but other agencies. And you ought 

to be able to walk away feeling like you were treated fairly by the 

government. As a former small business owner, I know it takes a 

lot of time and, in many cases, thousands of dollars to prepare a 

proposal, especially for a government agency. And to have your bid 

disclosed to a competitor, or to have your bid, when it was the lowest, passed over is very frustrating to people, and ends up, especially in the case of smaller businesses, you just throw up your 

hands. You don’t have the money to go hire a government contracting attorney. You just walk away and say I am done with the 

government. And you end up with good people who could offer 

products and services at a better cost just refusing to go through 

the red tape. 

So I look forward to the GSA making that a priority to educate 

not just their own contracting officers but the other government 

agencies that the GSA trains through the Federal Acquisition Institute. And I would appreciate your commitment to make that part 

of your agenda. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I appreciate that. And I think you are right, 

that government contracting isn’t always easy, but it should be 

fair. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. The chair thanks the gentleman from Texas, and 

now recognizes the gentlelady from the District of Columbia, Ms. 

Holmes Norton. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Tangherlini, I must say that I welcome the President’s decision to bring you to the GSA, because I am very familiar with your 

own record as, if you will forgive me, something of a turnaround 

agent in government because of the tough posts you have had. 

First, the President simply takes out the top of the agency, including the Administrator, who may not have been conversant with 

what was happening below, and he had to do that. That is the way 

things like this are done in parliamentary democracies, like Britain 

and Asia. But in our country, somehow we go beneath the top and 

go after someone who has hands on as if the top has nothing to 

do with how the agency is run. 

So I think that your experience running, you were the operational head of the District of Columbia, running the operations of 

a big city and, for that matter, of the Metropolitan Transit Authority more than equips you to take on what needs to be done here. 

And you heard perhaps the Administrator speak about how she felt 

the agency was in need of reforming. I can’t imagine that you don’t 

think so as well. It may be that you can continue what she began, 

and it may be that you have a different vision. 

But let me give you a specific example, because it really involves 

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leagues on the other side that I thought was very good, which is 

how did Mr. Neely get ahold of this pot of money in the first place? 

It looked like he regarded as his own. And actually it wasn’t ever 

answered, at least to my satisfaction. It looks like Mr. Neely was 

in charge of Mr. Neely. 

Let me ask you about how decentralized this agency is, and 

whether it is decentralized to a fault. There is one theory of management, which is I think a very efficacious one, that goes that if 

you delegate to managers hands-on responsibility, you can hold 

them accountable and they become more creative. When you get a 

situation like this, one has to ask about whether or not the agency 

has any chain of command, whether if, for important issues like 

spending, the Administrator at the top and the Chief of Staff can 

sit here and say, well, I don’t know anything about it, one wonders 

whether this agency is simply run at the regional level with Washington having no responsibility for holding the regions accountable. 

So I would like you to discuss what you think of the chain of command now, if you think it is too decentralized, if you think its operations and its budget—I think you said something about the CFO— 

but whether in general, this agency has simply allowed itself to be 

run as if there were—what is it—11 regions running one agency. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I think autonomy is incredibly important if 

you are going to allow managers to innovate. But autonomy without accountability can lead to the kind of situations we find here. 

And what we are interested in—— 

Ms. NORTON. For example, did Mr. Neely report to anyone on 

spending, or was he the final check on spending, including his own 

spending? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I don’t exactly understand the nature of the 

reporting structure that Mr. Neely was operating under at the 

time. I can tell you my concern is that the financial management 

office of the Public Buildings Service was autonomous from the 

chief financial officer; that each of the different authorities, each of 

the different regions had authority over their own budget within 

the region, and so they had autonomy over the administration of 

those budgets. We even found, in trying to get the records, that it 

is very hard to get the records from the regions of the actual spending. 

So, early on, we think the quickest thing we can do to make sure 

that we have a stronger sense of accountability to avoid this kind 

of problem from happening again in the near term and going forward is to centralize the authority over the financial management 

of the agency within the agency chief financial officer and make 

each one of those service and regional financial managers report up 

to the chief financial officer. We are now going to have to build the 

appropriate data systems, the data collection systems. We are 

going to have to build the appropriate budget oversight. But that 

appeared to be missing. 

Ms. NORTON. I want to ask you a question about this Hats Off. 

GSA procures for Federal agencies, doesn’t it? If you want to order 

something, you order it through the GSA. Can it be that through 

this program, where they awarded electronic cameras and iPods 

and the like, got out of hand because GSA ran the procurement of 

these electronic devices, and with little oversight from the top, simVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:01 Sep 06, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00095 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75709.TXT APRIL
92 

ply regarded these stores as something that grew on its own as 

something that they could use to award to their own employees? 

In other words, I am looking for the link between their own procurement authority and using that authority within the agency for 

its own employees in a way that I have never seen done in Federal 

agencies elsewhere. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. So from what I understand, and this is from 

the IG report, Mr. Miller’s report on the Hats Off program, that 

that was focused with the electronic equipment, the GPS’s, was focused around Region 9 and just Region 9. 

Ms. NORTON. Yeah, I am talking about Region 9. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Right. The broader program operated throughout the agency. 

From what I also understand, what was going on in Region 9 

was that they were violating simply the, if not the procurement 

rules, they were violating the personnel rules and the limit you 

could give for any one special act-type award in that regard. So I 

think that the rules actually are in place. What we had was a case 

of people simply ignoring them. 

Ms. NORTON. I just wonder if you are going to give out valuable, 

much-wanted things like iPods and other electronic equipment, it 

seems to me there ought to be—somebody ought to have done 

something pretty wonderful in the agency. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentlelady from the District of Columbia. 

The chair would now recognize himself for questioning. 

Mr. Tangherlini, you have a Herculean task ahead of you, which 

is to restore public trust not just in GSA; most folks don’t compartmentalize government that way. They just don’t have any trust or 

confidence in really any of the institutions of government, including 

those of us sitting on this dais. 

So it is a big challenge, but it is a fundamental challenge. You 

have to do it. And far be it from me to tell you how to do your job. 

I never ran anything the size of GSA. But I can tell you this, in 

a little D.A.’s office in Spartanburg County, when we had budget 

cuts, we suspended all travel. And I would encourage you to do 

something, not just at the margins, but something to send a message that if it can be done via telephone, it must be done via telephone. If it can be done by video conferencing—I understand, I 

guess, at some level team building. I am not saying I have never 

been part of a team building exercise. I am sure I have. I don’t remember enjoying it. But I remember—I have been to different conferences where they did it. But these are really austere times. And 

for folks watching, who really are struggling, it is hard for them 

to understand what they have heard today or what they have read 

about this conference. And let me ask you this starting off. If one 

of the folks we are working for, one of our fellow citizens or a government employee is aware of waste, fraud, abuse, personal gain, 

is there a repository? They don’t have access to the Inspector General. How would just an ordinary citizen or an ordinary government employee that sees waste, fraud, and abuse and wants to correct it, to whom would they report it? 

93 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I know this committee has a Web site on 

which they can report these things. But actually, a private citizen 

can report waste, fraud, and abuse that they think is related to 

GSA to the GSA IG by going to www.GSAIG.gov. We also have 

fraudnet@GSAIG.gov. And that is an email address people can use. 

And the GSA IG has a phone number, (800) 424–5210. And we encourage anyone who sees anything that they think is untoward 

about GSA activity to reach out to the IG. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, thank you for that. 

And you know, Mr. Cummings raised a pretty provocative point, 

I thought, which is—and so did Mr. Farenthold—where is the line 

between nuances that need more training and just a character deficiency? Because honestly, some of what happened in this conference, there is no training in the world that is going to fix that. 

It is just a character flaw. So from a hiring standpoint or a retention standpoint, if you are having to train someone that they can’t 

go to a hotel employee and ask for a discount on a personal purse 

or pocketbook, it just strikes me that there is no training in the 

world that is going to fix that. So there has to be a moral component to it. How do you address that from your position? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I think it starts at—it is a leadership requirement. And it means that you have to have strong messages coming 

from the top. And that is why in the first week, meeting with the 

Inspector General, we agreed to send a joint letter to all GSA staff 

and tell everyone that we have an expectation that they will raise 

alarm or concern if they see something they think is untoward. 

GSA employees are the most skilled employees for understanding 

the travel rules, the procurement rules, the acquisition rules. So 

they should be the ones who are the easiest ones to recognize when 

something is wrong. And so I think we have to start with strong 

leadership, and then we have to make sure that our leaders are actually sending the leaders in the regions, the leaders throughout 

the organization are also sending a similar message. 

But we also have to encourage employees to come forward and 

say it is okay to come forward if you see something wrong, because 

that is the way we can catch these things before they spin out of 

control and happen the way this one did. 

Mr. GOWDY. I have time for one more specific question, so I will 

end it on this. Most folks reading about this, watching it on the 

news, are struggling with whether or not they are going to be able 

to go on vacation this summer. The thought of going on a scouting 

trip to figure out whether or not they like the condo or the beach 

house or the amusement park has never entered their mind. Was 

this a question of people exceeding their jurisdiction, their subject 

matter jurisdiction, if you will, from a legal standpoint, or was it 

an abuse of discretion? I mean, is there really the power to say I 

need to go four or five times to scout a series of four-star hotels? 

So is it totally outside their jurisdiction, or was it just an abuse of 

discretion? Because most of us were surprised to learn that you 

would have the authority to abuse, to have multiple scouting trips 

when everything is available, I mean virtual online tours, word of 

mouth. Which is it? Is it a discretion issue or a power issue? 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I may not be the best person to answer that 

question. 

94 

I can tell you what we have done. And what we have done is centralize our travel and conference approval process in our chief administrative officer’s office. Now, we don’t think we are going to get 

in the way of anyone doing important and valuable travel and 

training by simply asking that they come to the front office; they 

come to the GSA headquarters and make a case for what it is exactly they are doing. And then, hopefully, if this kind of thing begins to happen, we can see a pattern, and we can stop it before it 

goes any further. Frankly, I think that people know when they are 

being watched and that they have to make a case and they have 

to document it, that that will in part stop this behavior. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, my time is up. On behalf of all of us, thank 

you for your testimony today. We honestly, earnestly wish you well. 

I don’t know you. Not because I personally want you to do well, but 

for us to make it as a Republic, you have to do well. We have to 

do well. We can’t survive with people not having confidence in the 

institutions of government. We just won’t make it. 

So on behalf of all of us, thank you and good luck. 

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Thank you. 

Mr. GOWDY. With that, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:54 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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