Hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Oversight of the Department of Justice

Hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Oversight of the Department of Justice

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHUCK GRASSLEY, OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Prepared Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa

Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Oversight of the Department of Justice

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing on Justice Department oversight. I look forward to hearing the testimony of Attorney General Gonzales. While I share a number of concerns that have been identified by Chairman Specter, I also have several other areas of interest that I would like Attorney General Gonzales to address.

For example, I'm concerned about the tax deductibility of government settlements and the Justice Department's policy regarding these settlements. Recently, I was joined by Senators McCain and Warner in asking the Justice Department about whether The Boeing Company would be able to deduct any of its $615 million settlement with the government over hiring and contracting manipulation. I was extremely troubled with the inadequacy of the Justice Department's response to our concerns. It's plain to me that the Justice Department doesn't understand that there are serious tax implications to these settlements which undermine the mission of another agency - the IRS - and then end up being a burden to the American taxpayer. I plan on questioning Attorney General Gonzales more about the basis for the Department's policy.

I also have serious concerns about the way the Justice Department reacts and how it advises other departments to react to Congressional oversight. Our attempts to gather information from the Executive Branch when we investigate allegations of government misconduct are too often met with delays, excuses and arguments. We frequently hear the same objections time and time again, despite their lack of any basis in law, history or common sense. The Department's "line attorney" or "line agent" policy frequently is cited as a reason to allow only senior level policy makers to speak to Congress, preventing us from gathering information from frontline government employees who have in depth knowledge of the facts and problems we are trying to look into. This policy is selectively asserted as a way to deflect certain inquiries, but ignored whenever the Executive Branch decides that allowing such employees to speak to Congress appears to be in its best interests. We have been denied access to files from both the Justice Department's and FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, purportedly to protect the privacy of government employees who have been investigated by those offices. However, Congress often needs the information in these OPR files to evaluate the credibility of whistleblowers who come to us with information about waste, fraud and abuse, as well as to assess whether they have been retaliated against for such disclosures. That is one of the reasons that there is an exemption in the Privacy Act for Congressional requests.

For instance, the Judiciary Committee was recently denied OPR documents related to allegations of misconduct in the investigation of the death of Jonathan Luna, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Baltimore who was found dead under mysterious circumstances in the Chairman's home state of Pennsylvania. Three FBI employees were accused of turning the Luna investigation into a personal vendetta against a fellow FBI agent, who complained about an overly personal, aggressive and irrelevant interrogation as well as an unauthorized search of her computer. The FBI employees accused of misconduct were investigated by FBI/OPR, but only after intervention by the Inspector General prevented FBI management from sweeping the incident under the rug. One of the FBI employees accused of misconduct has since been promoted to a senior counterterrorism position. We requested documents regarding this matter from the FBI, but have been provided only a briefing. Even though the head of OPR indicated that she had no objection to providing the Committee a copy of her final report in this matter, neither that report, nor the other documents we requested have been turned over.

This resistance to Congressional oversight has spread to other agencies through the advice that the Justice Department provides to them. In my capacity as Chairman of the Finance Committee, I am frequently conducting inquiries at HHS and FDA that are stalled, delayed, or frustrated by these policies. I have some questions for the Attorney General about those today, and I look forward to hearing his responses.

On a brighter note, I am pleased that when it comes to the Justice Department's oversight of the FBI, there is some good news. Last February, the Judiciary Committee asked the Inspector General to investigate allegations that the FBI's highest-ranking Arab American agent, Bassem Youssef, had been denied a transfer to the International Terrorist Operations Section (ITOS) in retaliation for raising concerns to the Director that his expertise and talents were being underused by the FBI. The Inspector General referred the case to DOJ/OPR, which investigated and found that there was a reasonable basis to believe that Youssef had been the victim of whistleblower retaliation. Moreover, DOJ/OPR recommended that Youssef be transferred to ITOS, as the FBI had originally planned to do four years ago.

I'm glad to see the Department's internal process working to provide some vindication to an FBI whistleblower. This preliminary finding will now be reviewed by another DOJ office for final action. However, I am concerned that the process may still not be as effective as it should be. Specifically, even if Youssef is ultimately found to be a victim of retaliation and transferred to ITOS, the person responsible for keeping him out of that position for four years may escape accountability because of the way the Department's whistleblower regulations work. DOJ/OPR did not identify which FBI official made the retaliatory decision to stop Youssef's transfer, and without further fact-finding we may never know who did it. No matter how many senior officials claim that whistleblower retaliation won't be tolerated, there is no disincentive as long as retaliators are not identified and punished. I hope this Committee will schedule future hearings on DOJ and FBI whistleblower issues, and specifically the cases of Michael German and Bassem Youssef.

There are other issues that I'm interested in, such as drug patent settlements and interchange fees. I'm pleased that Chairman Specter will be conducting a hearing on interchange fees tomorrow morning, but I'd also like to know whether the Justice Department sees any antitrust concerns with these financial practices. I also wanted to express my disappointment with the Justice Department's position in the recent Schering Plough case before the Supreme Court dealing with drug patent settlements. Sweetheart deals that delay the entry of low cost drugs in the marketplace not only hurt consumers, they also threaten the sustainability of federal health care programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid. The Federal Trade Commission is doing the right thing by going after these kinds of anti-consumer settlements. I hope that the Justice Department will take a hard look at its position and decide to assist the FTC in its effort to crack down on anticompetitive activity and to promote true competition in the prescription drug market.

In the meantime, I look forward to hearing the Attorney General's testimony today and having this opportunity to ask him about some instances where the Justice Department has stood in the way of Congress discharging its duty to conduct vigorous oversight of allegations of misconduct in the Executive Branch, as well as the Justice Department's position regarding the deductibility of government settlements.

http://grassley.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=5128&Month=7&Year=2006