Office of Net Assessment

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, on November 18 of last year, I came here to speak about the Office of Net Assessment. That is an office within the Pentagon. That office's purpose, under law, is to produce an annual net assessment, which is supposed to be a long-term look at our military's capability and those of our greatest adversaries. I don't think it lives up to its mission.

In 2018, according to the Director of the Office of Net Assessment, that office had not produced a net assessment since 2007. Not doing its job for those 11 years and--who knows--possibly longer calls into question whether this office should even exist. Yet a recent inspector general report states that the office ``produces . . . highly classified net assessments.'' I question the IG's conclusion based upon available evidence that I know about, and I will give some of that evidence.

In last year's speech here in the Senate and others that I have given over the years on this subject, I discussed my oversight of this office dating back to 2019. I also discussed my amendment to the national defense bill. That amendment would have done one very simple thing: required the Government Accountability Office to determine how much taxpayer money the Office of Net Assessment actually uses for net assessment--its purpose for existing. I want to know how much we can cut from their budget to save the taxpayers money.

Apparently, this type of pro-taxpayer legislation was too much to ask for. Accordingly, it appears that the Office of Net Assessment in the Department of Defense gets to keep operating like a Pentagon slush fund for irrelevant and political research projects.

On February 5, 2020, the Director of the Office of Net Assessment told me:

We review all deliverables to ensure they're consistent with the statement of work. We evaluate each deliverable to assess whether we should seek additional information or require a resubmission of commissioned work.

Now, I am going to return to that statement in a little bit, but I want to give you some evidence of why what he said doesn't work out in reality.

In December 2020, I asked the inspector general to take a deeper dive into the Office of Net Assessment's contracting practices. That means connecting all the dots in the contract transactions to ensure that everything matches up. The inspector general reviewed 20 contracts. On January 25 of this year, the inspector general issued its results and found these three or four points:

Office of Net Assessment acquisition personnel inappropriately performed contracting officer representative duties for 20 contracts.

Next point. Office of Net Assessment acquisition personnel and an office providing contract support did not maintain complete contract files, including preawards and contract administration documentation. That also included the failure to maintain signed contracts and modifications. Since 2019, I have repeatedly asked for a full accounting of Stefan Halper's contracts. Either they never had one or they have decided to obstruct Congress.

Next point. Office of Net Assessment acquisition personnel and an office providing contract support inappropriately approved invoices for payments totaling $9.8 million dollars due to the lack of oversight. And that is just for the 20 contracts the inspector general sampled. So without required supporting documentation for payment, the door is, obviously, wide open to fraud, theft, and improper payments.

Next point. Without established and documented surveillance measures for Office of Net Assessment service contracts, the Office of Net Assessment may not have received all services outlined in a contractor's statement of work.

Next point--and last point. At this point, the next finding ought to be no surprise from the inspector general. The Office of Net Assessment did not administer contracts in accordance with the Federal Defense Department and Washington Headquarters Services internal regulations and policies.

Further, the audit states the ``[Office of Net Assessment] acquisition personnel cannot verify whether they received services, valued at $4.1 million, in accordance with the statement of work.''

Now, let's return back to that first quote I gave you from the Director of Net Assessment.

We review all deliverables to ensure [that] they're consistent with the statement of work. We evaluate each deliverable to assess whether we should seek additional information or require a resubmission of commissioned work.

Based upon all of the available evidence from these 20 contracts that were inspected by the inspector general--and that is not all the contracts that the office negotiated--this Director's statement is absolutely false.

So here is the bottom line: The Office of Net Assessment has no clue what they are paying for and whether they even received a complete work product. And whatever they are actually doing, it is not in compliance with Federal regulations, policy, and law.

This is a complete embarrassment and a slap in the face of American taxpayers. While the Office of Net Assessment wasted millions of dollars in taxpayer money every year, the communist Chinese Government developed hypersonic missiles that can travel the globe.

If this unit isn't doing the job that they are supposed to, to assess our national security capabilities and the capabilities of our enemies, why are we still funding it? It would be better to take the $20 million budget and give it to our servicemembers. At least we know that those servicemembers have earned it.

A government slush fund will always be a government slush fund unless Congress, with our power of oversight and appropriations, steps up and fixes the problem. So I encourage my colleagues, especially those on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to take a stand against this blatant waste, fraud, abuse, and gross mismanagement.

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