Inspectors General

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the ability of Congress to be a check on
the actions of the executive branch is being endangered. One of the
tools that we in Congress have created to help the government identify
and correct its mistakes is being obstructed. That tool is the vital
work of inspectors general.

Inspectors general work in nearly 80 Federal agencies. They perform
audits, conduct investigations, and issue public reports of their
findings and recommendations. They combat waste, fraud, and abuse.
Their work is being frustrated, and that is why I am here. To keep an
eye on what is happening inside a government agency, the inspector
general must be able to access the agency's records. This is exactly
what the law calls for.

The Inspector General Act of 1978 directs that all inspectors general
have a right to access all records, documents, and other materials.
``All'' is not the same as ``some.'' If the inspector general deems a
document necessary to do his job, then the agency should turn it over
immediately--immediately. But the clear command of that law is being ignored far too often.

Agencies partially comply or refuse to turn over materials after a
lengthy review and screening process by lawyers for the agency. That is
a step not included in the IG law. The examples range from the
Environmental Protection Agency to the FBI, and can you believe it,
even to the Peace Corps.

The excuses vary, but the pattern is very clear. For example, the
Department of Justice Office of Inspector General is reviewing the
Department's use of the material witness statute. That statute
authorizes detaining certain witnesses for testimony before a grand
jury.

The inspector general was looking into allegations that the civil
rights and the civil liberties of certain material witnesses may have
been abused. This is just the kind of issue that Congress relies on
inspectors general to investigate. If the problems are found, the
inspector general helps our government identify the problem and helps
Department leadership fix these problems.

Naturally, the inspector general needed to review the grand jury
testimony to decide if the value of that testimony was reasonable,
given the burden imposed on the witnesses. Three U.S. attorneys offices
and the Department's National Security Division provided the inspector
general with the grand jury information concerning material witnesses,
but the FBI refused to cooperate. The FBI claimed the grand jury
testimony could not be shared with the inspector general.

This FBI decision to withhold information was a brandnew practice,
beginning sometime in 2010. The law was not changed in 2010 so the FBI
could do it. The FBI claimed it had the right to refuse to provide the
inspector general information in over a dozen other categories as well.

Remember, the law says the inspector general shall have access to
all--not some--records, documents, and other materials that they deem
necessary to conduct their investigations. Yet the FBI says its
attorneys will review material first and then decide what it would and
would not release to the inspector general.

It even gets worse. The FBI claimed it needed the approval of the
Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General to provide the
information to the inspector general. This is exactly upside down.
Under the law, an inspector general must be independent. Agencies
cannot be trusted to investigate themselves. If an inspector general
had to ask for permission from senior leadership, he would not be truly
independent.

The Inspector General Act of 1978 does allow the Attorney General,
not the FBI, to prohibit the inspector general from carrying out or
completing an investigation but only in certain limited circumstances.

When that extraordinary step is taken, it must be done in writing to
the inspector general, and the inspector general must forward that
written notice to the Congress. The FBI would have us believe that
instead of written notice being required to block an IG investigation,
it needs written permission to comply with an investigation. This is
simply not how the law is designed to work.

After this controversy took place, Congress took action. We
essentially bolded and underlined the provision in the Inspector
General Act that ensures access to documents. We didn't literally do
that, but this year's Justice Department appropriation declares that no
funds shall be used to deny the inspector general timely access to all
records.

The new law also directed the inspector general to report to Congress
within 5 days whenever there was a failure to comply with this
requirement. Since February of this year, we have already received four
of those reports that the FBI is still refusing to comply, regardless
of the actions Congress took on the appropriations bill last year.

One notice said the FBI was withholding evidence in two whistleblower
cases. I have written to the FBI twice about these notices and just
received a reply from the FBI Wednesday. Unfortunately, the FBI ignores
most of the questions I asked and simply reasserts their original
position.

That tells me the FBI thinks they are above the law. It has an
obligation to comply not only with the Inspector General Act but also
with restrictions Congress placed on its appropriations. That means FBI
employees cannot legally be spending their time withholding and
reviewing documents before providing those same documents to the
inspector general. We must stay vigilant and we must insist all
government agencies, including the FBI, work with the inspectors
general, not against them.

I applaud my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for standing
up for inspectors general. I also urge them to follow through and help
make sure the funding restrictions they put in place are obeyed.

As I noted earlier, the problem is not confined to the FBI or to the
Department of Justice, similar attempts to limit the work of an
inspector general have occurred at the EPA and the Peace Corps. Just
last year, 47 inspectors general signed a letter to the Congress
warning of these problems across government. We all lose when
inspectors general are delayed or prevented in doing their work. In
every agency where IG's work, they help agency management become aware
of problems and opportunities to improve government service. We must
support the work of inspectors general and remind government agencies
that blocking their investigations is not acceptable.

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