    [House Hearing, 114 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

             INSPECTORS GENERAL: INDEPENDENCE, ACCESS AND AUTHORITY

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                             COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                             AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                FEBRUARY 3, 2015

                                   __________

                                Serial No. 114-4

                                   __________

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

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             Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
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                  COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

                         JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman
    JOHN L. MICA, Florida                ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio                  Ranking Minority Member
    JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee       CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
    JIM JORDAN, Ohio                     ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
    TIM WALBERG, Michigan                    Columbia
    JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan               WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
    PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona               STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee          JIM COOPER, Tennessee
    TREY GOWDY, South Carolina           GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas              MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
    CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming           TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
    MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina         BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
    RON DeSANTIS, Florida                TED LIEU, California
    MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina        BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
    KEN BUCK, Colorado                   STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
    MARK WALKER, North Carolina          MARK DeSAULNIER, California
    ROD BLUM, Iowa                       BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
    JODY B. HICE, Georgia                PETER WELCH, Vermont
    STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma              MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico
    EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
    GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
    WILL HURD, Texas
    GARY J. PALMER, Alabama

                        Sean McLaughlin, Staff Director
     Jennifer Hemingway, Government Operations Subcommittee Staff Director
                        Sharon Casey, Deputy Chief Clerk
                     David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hearing held on February 3, 2015.................................     1

                                   WITNESSES

    Hon. Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General, U.S. Department of
      Justice
        Oral Statement...............................................     5
        Written Statement............................................     8
    Hon. Arthur A. Elkins, Jr., Inspector General, U.S. Environmental
      Protection Agency
        Oral Statement...............................................    14
        Written Statement............................................    16
    Ms. Kathy A. Buller, Inspector General, U.S. Peace Corps
        Oral Statement...............................................    22
        Written Statement............................................    24

                                    APPENDIX

    Letter for the record submitted by Mr. Chaffetz-August 5, 2014
      letter to the committee from 47 Inspectors General.............    76
    Letter for the record submitted by Mr. Chaffetz-February 3, 2015
      letter to the House Appropriations Committee from Michael E.
      Horowitz, DOJ IG...............................................    84
    Letter for the record submitted by Mr. Chaffetz-January 30, 2015
      letter to Chairman Chaffetz from Ranking Member Cummings
      requesting a meeting...........................................    88
    Table 2-FY 2014 General Provisions not continued in F............    89
    Letter for the record submitted by Mr. Meadows-January 21, 2015
      letter to Tim Delaney, CIGIE, from committee members...........    90

             INSPECTORS GENERAL: INDEPENDENCE, ACCESS AND AUTHORITY

                                  ----------

                           Tuesday, February 3, 2015

                      House of Representatives,
          Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
                                                Washington, DC.
        The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:17 a.m. in
    Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz
    (chairman of the committee) presiding.
        Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Jordan, Walberg,
    Amash, Gosar, DesJarlais, Gowdy, Farenthold, Lummis, Massie,
    Meadows, DeSantis, Mulvaney, Buck, Walker, Hice, Russell,
    Carter, Grothman, Hurd, Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Norton,
    Clay, Lynch, Cooper, Connolly, Cartwright, Kelly, Lawrence,
    Lieu, Watson Coleman, Plaskett, DeSaulnier, and Boyle.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Good morning. The Committee on Oversight
    and Government Reform will come to order. Without objection,
    the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time.
        Inspectors General serve the American taxpayers as the
    first line of defense against waste, fraud and abuse by
    government agencies, and to that end, Congress has given them
    unfettered access to agency records. The Inspector General Act
    in Section 6(a) says clearly, ``is authorized to have access to
    all records, reports, audits, reviews, documents, papers,
    recommendations, or other material.'' The Act directs all
    records be made and be given to the IGs.
        We appreciate you being here. Thank you very much.
        I'd like to yield part of my time here to the gentleman
    from North Carolina, Mr. Meadows.
        Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank each of you
    for being here. Obviously every day, some 13,000 employees that
    work with each one of you go to work to protect the American
    taxpayer. Really they're the first line of defense when
    American taxpayers feel like they are not getting treated
    fairly, and that's what this is about, being treated fairly;
    the IGs and the 13,000 people that work with them are there.
    The chairman said it well. This is about all records and making
    sure that all records are available to you to do the work that
    is so important to the American taxpayer. Yet we find that, I
    guess, last August that 47 Inspectors General signed saying
    that they're not getting all the documents to do the work that
    you need to do.
        We had a hearing, and again today we have another hearing,
    because we have not had the progress that we should have seen.
    And so I look forward to hearing from each one of you how we
    can make it any more clear that the Inspectors General need to
    be able to do their job, it needs to be done without
    relationship to--whether it is Democrat, Republican or
    unaffiliated, it needs to be done on behalf of the American
    taxpayer. And I thank the chairman for making this our first
    official hearing. And I yield back.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
        I want to thank the men and women who serve in these
    various offices and agencies. There's more than 13,000 people
    who go to work every day. They're supposed to be able to access
    all the documents without exception. There aren't exceptions.
    The law is crystal clear. They serve as watchdogs, they serve
    as impartial people who go and look at these documents to
    figure out what is truly happening and look under the hood.
    They're essentially the internal auditors. We count on them and
    rely on them. If the Inspectors General can't do their job, we
    can't do our job, and this is why it is imperative and this is
    why I'm proud to have this as my first hearing as chairman of
    this committee.
        Nothing is supposed to be off limits. The committee needs
    to send a strong message we support these hardworking men and
    women to access the information they need to fulfill their
    mission of holding government accountable.
        Now, before I end, I want to address a letter that Ranking
    Member Cummings sent to me this past Friday. I appreciate him
    sending it to me. It was done in the right spirit. I'm going to
    work with him and cooperate with him, and I appreciate that.
    The letter that Mr. Cummings sent to me says that we--and
    requests that we sit down with the EPA, the EPA inspector
    general and the FBI to broker a resolution in a dispute between
    the three entities.
        Again, I appreciate that invitation, I'm happy to be part
    of that meeting. But the letter that was given to me really
    drives home the point. The EPA inspector general should not
    have to lean on a Member of Congress to broker a deal to try to
    negotiate what kind of documents we need to get. The Act is
    crystal clear. We are going to go over that today.
        And as I conclude here, I'd like to enter into the record--
    I'd ask unanimous consent to enter into the record August 5th,
    August 5th of 2014, 47 of the 72 Inspectors General sent a
    letter, and this issue has not been resolved. I ask that this
    be inserted into the record, as well as a letter that was
    brought today by Mr. Horowitz. it is dated February 3rd, 2015.
    Mr. Horowitz, as you give your opening Statement, and we'll
    give you a little extra latitude, if you could perhaps describe
    in your own words this letter that you delivered to us here in
    Congress today. And I'd also ask unanimous consent that the
    letter of January 30th, 2015, from Mr. Cummings to myself also
    be entered into the record. Without objection, so ordered.
        Chairman Chaffetz. With that, I yield back my time and
    recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want
    to thank you for holding this hearing today. I want to thank
    all of our Inspector Generals and I want to thank the people
    that work with you for what you do every day.
        Our Inspector Generals do a phenomenal job on behalf of the
    American people, they make our government work more effectively
    and efficiently, and they save billions of taxpayer dollars. So
    I'm glad we are kicking off our committee's first hearing of
    the 114th Congress on this very critical issue.
        I welcome all the IGs who are here today, including those
    in the audience and those testifying. Inspector general Buller
    from the Peace Corps, inspector general Elkins from the
    Environmental Protection Agency, and inspector general Horowitz
    from the Department of Justice.
        Mr. Horowitz, I also want to congratulate you on your new
    post as the chairman of the Council of the Inspectors General
    on Integrity and Efficiency. It is an honor to have all of you
    here today.
        You have no greater supporter in the Congress than me. The
    work you do is very critical, not only to Federal agencies, but
    to this committee. We rely on you for your investigations, your
    audits, and recommendations and advice. Your work can be very,
    very challenging. You are agency employees, but your job is to
    root out waste, fraud and abuse in these agencies. You stand
    apart. And in order to fulfill your obligations under the
    Inspector General Act, you need to be independent and you need
    access to information.
        So I understand your frustration when you are not getting
    the documents you request. I empathize with you when agencies
    cite various other Federal statutes with competing interests
    and the system seems to slow to a crawl. You are just trying
    simply to do your jobs, and without information, it is
    extremely difficult to do so.
        I do not want to downplay the interests of the agencies
    either; very, very important. They are sometimes put in very
    difficult positions. Congress orders them to protect
    information from unauthorized disclosure, and we are not always
    clear about whether that includes IGs too. For example, after
    reports of Peace Corps volunteers being sexually assaulted,
    Congress passed the Kate Puzey Act to protect whistleblowers
    and help these victims. Based on the law, the Peace Corps
    withheld the names of victims as well as specific details about
    their sexual attacks, while the IG wanted access to this
    information under the IG Act. Working together, they developed
    a MOU that fulfills both goals. It allows the agency to protect
    the information, and it establishes a process for the IG to
    gain access to this information in certain cases. The MOU is
    not ideal and it is frustrating that the IG even had to sign
    one. But the fact is is that the IG is now getting access to
    the information it needs to do its job. That's real. That's
    happening.
        Personally, I have always believed that the best course is
    to try to help the parties resolve these competing statutory
    interpretations if possible. I believe that it is preferable to
    coming back to Congress and seeking a change in the law. This
    is not easy and it sometimes takes hard work, but that is
    exactly what I have directed my staff to do. We could sit on
    the sidelines and do nothing, or we could get into the effort
    and try to make things work.
        For example, at our last hearing in September, we heard
    about a similar disagreement between the EPA and the IG about
    Federal statutes governing Homeland Security-related
    investigations. The IG wanted access to this information under
    the IG Act, while the EPA cited other statutes that they
    believed required them to work through the FBI. On that issue,
    my staff worked for many months, meeting with each party to
    address their concerns, and I believe that we are now very,
    very, very close to a resolution.
        The leaders of these offices all seem to have an agreement
    in principle, but the FBI senior leadership field officers and
    agents need to fully commit. Last Friday I wrote to the
    chairman, and he referenced that letter, requesting that we
    call these agencies as soon as this week to get us past the
    finish line, and I sincerely hope we can do it.
        Of course, on some occasions, we have to draw lines. At the
    Department of Justice, for example, the IG has waited for
    months for the Office of Legal Counsel to render an opinion on
    statutes governing their document dispute with the IG over
    grand jury and other sensitive investigative information. To
    the agency's credit, they said they would support a legislative
    fix if necessary, but this ongoing delay is simply
    unacceptable. We need a resolution and we need a resolution
    soon.
        Finally, in some cases, it may not be possible to salvage a
    workable outcome. For example, Representative Henry Waxman, who
    served previously as the ranking member of the Energy and
    Commerce Committee, worked very hard to try to address
    management deficiencies at the Chemical Safety Board. Although
    he made a number of very sensible recommendations, we heard at
    our hearing last September that the CSB chairman failed to
    adequately address these problems, and in fact, had created a
    dysfunctional work environment.
        Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you once again for holding
    this hearing. I want to thank you also for agreeing to sit down
    with me and other--these IGs from the three agencies to see
    what we can work out, but again, I agree with you, we have to
    find solutions to this problem so that that does not have to
    happen over and over again. But, again, I thank you, and I
    yield back.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman. Thank you.
        I will hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any
    members who'd like to submit a written Statement.
        Prior to my recognizing our three panelists today, we have
    a number of people in the audience who either serve as an
    inspector general or work for one of the Inspectors General.
    I'd actually ask you to rise. I'd like to recognize you and, A,
    thank you for your service, and just understand your support
    and your being here today. If you wouldn't mind standing for a
    moment, I'd appreciate it. Thank you for being here.
        [applause.]
        Chairman Chaffetz. We thank you for your service, we thank
    you for your commitment to this Nation, and we are trying to
    hold this hearing so that you can better do your job and get
    back to work and do the things that you need to do and have
    access to the records that we believe under the law you should
    be able to have without question.
        We are now going to recognize our panel of witnesses. The
    first is the Honorable Michael E. Horowitz, who's the inspector
    general of the United States Department of Justice. He also is
    the new chairman of the Council of Inspectors General on
    Integrity and Efficiency, often referred to as CIGIE. The
    Honorable Arthur A. Elkins, Jr. is inspector general of the
    United States Environmental Protection Agency; and Ms. Kathy
    Buller--close enough? I want to get it right, sorry--is
    inspector general of the United States Peace Corps.
        These three people have testified before this committee
    previously, and we welcome you all, but pursuant to committee
    rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify, so
    if you would please rise and raise your right hand. 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?
        Thank you. Let the record reflect that all witnesses
    answered in the affirmative.
        We are going to allocate 5 minutes for each of your opening
    Statements. We'll be pretty liberal in that policy. And I've
    asked Mr. Horowitz, who brought a letter today that he had sent
    to Members of Congress, if you could take a few extra moments
    or minutes and explain in your own words that letter as well--
    it should be on each member's desk--I would appreciate that. So
    we'll now recognize Mr. Horowitz.

                           WITNESS STATEMENTS

                 STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL E. HOROWITZ

        Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman
    Cummings, members of the committee. Thank you for having me
    testify here today and thank you for the strong bipartisan
    support of this committee as we've discussed these issues.
        I wish I could report to you that since we last appeared
    before the committee, that the concerns identified in the
    letter signed by 47 Inspectors General have been resolved.
    Unfortunately, they have not.
        My office continues to face challenges in getting timely
    access to information. For example, the FBI still maintains
    that the Inspector General Act does not entitle us to access
    certain records in the FBI's possession, such as grand jury,
    Title III electronic surveillance, and Fair Credit Reporting
    Act information, because of disclosure limitations in statutes
    other than the IG Act.
        In May 2014, in an attempt to resolve this dispute, the
    Department's leadership referred the matter to the Office of
    Legal Counsel. However, 8 months later, we are still waiting
    for that opinion. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how
    important it is that OLC issue its opinion promptly, because
    the existing procedures at the Department undermines our
    independence and puts in place a process that essentially is
    consistent with the FBI's legal position. The status quo cannot
    continue indefinitely.
        We appreciate, as I said, the strong bipartisan support
    from this committee and the Congress. Most significantly, in
    December 2014, a provision included in the Appropriations Act,
    Section 218, prohibits the Justice Department from using
    appropriated funds to deny my office timely access to records
    in its possession unless in accordance with an express
    limitation of Section 6(a) of the IG Act. While the only--while
    the law only recently went into effect, it is clear that the
    Department has taken notice of it and it has had positive
    impact. However, despite that action, the FBI continues to
    maintain its legal position. As a result, the FBI is continuing
    its costly and time-consuming process of reviewing documents
    responsive to our requests prior to producing them to us in
    order for them to determine whether we are entitled to receive
    them.
        Our reviews have been impacted by the FBI's process, and
    that production has delayed our work, including on
    whistleblower retaliation investigations, which we are charged
    to undertake and review.
        As we are--as we are directed in Section 218, today the--
    our office provided the Appropriations Committee with a letter
    and cc'd our oversight committees, including this committee,
    regarding two whistleblower matters where we have not obtained
    timely production to those records, and I'll describe that
    letter in a moment.
        It is long past time to resolve this legal dispute. The
    FBI's position contradicts the plain language of the IG Act,
    Congress's clear intent when it created our office, the FBI's
    and the Department's practice prior to 2010 of providing the
    very same categories of information to our office without any
    legal objection, court decisions by two different Federal
    district judges stating that our office could receive grand
    jury material, and the reasoning of a 1984 decision by the
    Office of Legal Counsel concluding that grand jury material
    could be provided to the Department's Office of Professional
    Responsibility. We remain hopeful that the OLC opinion will
    conclude that the IG Act entitles my office to access all
    records in the Department's possession. However, should the OLC
    should decide otherwise, I would be pleased to work with the
    committee to develop an appropriate legislative remedy.
        Let me briefly mention other areas where I think the
    ability of Inspectors General to conduct strong and effective
    oversight could be enhanced. One such area is the capacity of
    Inspectors General to obtain testimony from former agency
    employees, contractors, and grant recipients. While the IG Act
    empowers us to subpoena records from those individuals, we
    cannot require them to testify even if they have critical
    evidence. While I believe any such authority should include
    protections to ensure that it is used appropriately and only
    when necessary and does not inadvertently impair Justice
    Department prosecutions, I'm confident such protections can be
    developed while also empowering Inspectors General to carry out
    their responsibilities.
        Another area where strong and effective inspector general
    oversight could be enhanced is by enabling us to more
    efficiently obtain and match readily available information in
    furtherance of our efforts to combat fraud and misconduct. This
    information currently exists, it does not require any further
    collection of information, and Inspectors General in each
    agency already have access to it or are entitled to access it.
    The timely use of such data will better enable Inspectors
    General to identify those who improperly receive Federal
    assistance, Federal grants or contracts, or duplicative
    payments. In my view, exempting all Inspectors General from
    limitations in the Computer Matching Act would greatly assist
    our ability to ensure that Federal programs are effective and
    efficient, without undermining the purposes of that law.
        Finally, I'm aware of concerns that have been raised
    relating to the CIGIE integrity committee, including with
    respect to the timeliness of its work and the transparency of
    its efforts. One of my first meetings as chair of the CIGIE was
    with the assistant director of the FBI, who chairs the
    integrity committee in order to discuss ways to address these
    issues. OIGs must maintain the highest levels of accountability
    and integrity, and as the new chair of CIGIE, I will make it a
    top priority to improve the procedures of the integrity
    committee.
        I look forward, as I said, to working with the committee on
    these issues. And that concludes my prepared Statement. Let me
    turn, then, briefly, if I could, to the letter that we sent
    this morning, and this relates to Section 218. And as I
    mentioned in the prepared Statement which I had provided to the
    committee yesterday morning, we have had looming deadlines with
    the FBI. One of them for production was yesterday. The FBI
    informed us--and this regards two whistleblower retaliation
    investigations that we are undertaking. The FBI had made
    partial productions, they had not made complete productions,
    they informed us that they needed more time beyond yesterday to
    produce the remaining materials, they needed until the end of
    this week in one matter, until the end of next week on the
    other matter, and that they needed that time for purposes of
    reviewing the records to determine whether we were entitled to
    access to them or, in their legal opinion, not, based on
    restrictions in other statutes, in which case they would then
    have had to go and would have to go to the Deputy Attorney
    General or the Attorney General for approval to provide them to
    us.
        We discussed this matter. I had conversations until last
    night with the Department about trying to get the information
    pursuant to yesterday's deadline. The FBI believes it needs to
    continue that process because of its legal views, and as a
    result, the deadline passed last night.
        And pursuant to the Act, it is on the Inspector General's
    office to report those matters to the Appropriations Committee,
    and that is why we sent the letter. And regardless of the fact
    that, in our view, they needed this week and the following
    week, the purpose of the--of the need for that extension was
    precisely what Congress in Section 218 said was not
    permissible.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
        [Prepared Statement of Mr. Horowitz follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Chaffetz. I now recognize Mr. Elkins for 5
    minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF ARTHUR A. ELKINS, JR.

        Mr. Elkins. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member
    Cummings and members of the committee. I am Arthur Elkins,
    inspector general for the EPA and the CSB. Thank you for
    inviting me to appear before you today.
        From this seat last June, I addressed impediments to access
    at CSB. In September, I addressed broader issues of access and
    whether there is a need to strengthen or clarify the IG Act.
    Today I will report on progress and challenges that still
    remain.
        This OIG had requested documents of the CSB in the course
    of an investigation, which officials refused to provide,
    asserting attorney-client privilege. We explained that such
    denial violated the IG Act by obstructing an IGs unfettered
    access to all materials and informations available to the
    agency. Eventually, I sent a 7-day letter to CSB chairman
    Moure-Eraso. Although the CSB forwarded my letter to Congress
    as required, CSB officials continued to refuse to produce the
    documents.
        In June, both the chairman and ranking member of this
    committee instructed the CSB to provide the documents to the
    OIG. Subsequently, the CSB substantially complied. However,
    officials have yet to provide an affirmation of full compliance
    with our request. Still, the OIG was able to proceed with and
    complete our investigation.
        Last week I sent a report to President Obama, who oversees
    Mr. Moure-Eraso. That report finds there is evidence sufficient
    to support a conclusion that the chairman and two of his senior
    officials violated the Federal Records Act in implementing
    regulations by using non-governmental email systems to conduct
    official government business and not capturing those emails in
    the CSB record system.
        I would like to thank the committee for taking action in
    response to our 7-day letter, which allowed us to proceed with
    and conclude our investigation.
        In September, I reported that the EPA had asserted the OIG
    may have access to intelligence information only with the EPA's
    permission. In addition, the EPA's Office of Homeland Security
    was conducting investigative activities without any legal
    authority, thereby interfering with OIG investigations. Senior
    OIG and agency officials have now reached a theoretical
    agreement on a substantial portion of the issues, with two
    caveats: First, we are only beginning to implement the
    agreements; and second, we have not resolved the issue of OHS
    having an assigned criminal investigator. We have agreed that
    the OIG has access to all EPA activities.
        On another brighter note, Administrator McCarthy began 2015
    with a memorandum to the EPA work force addressing cooperation
    with and providing information to the OIG. She called upon the
    vigilance of EPA staff to report fraud, waste and abuse.
        Finally, in August, my office received information alleging
    an incident of serious misconduct by a senior EPA official.
    Over an approximately 5-month period, during which the agency
    placed the official on paid administrative leave, the OIG
    uncovered additional allegations of improper actions by the
    same person. OIG investigators sought to interview the official
    a second time, but the official claimed to be retiring
    immediately, and refused. In fact, the official still was
    employed by the EPA. The agency ordered the official to
    cooperate with the OIG, but as the official stalled, retirement
    paperwork was processed and the official was allowed to retire,
    cutting off the OIGs access and the agency's ability to impose
    disciplinary remedies, including termination. Other examples in
    which EPA employees refused to appear for OIG administrative
    interviews are captured in my written Statement.
        The IG Act access mandate predominantly has been applied to
    documents. It also applies to people. If an OIG needs to
    interview an employee who may have relevant information, other
    than when there is a possible criminal exposure, that employee
    is obligated to provide the information, but the Act provides
    no enforcement mechanism. I believe that this committee should
    look into the gap between what the IG Act requires and OIGs
    ability to achieve those requirements.
        In conclusion, this committee has thanked me and the OIG
    community for the work we do in protecting taxpayer funds. We
    appreciate that, but there is a disconnect between what the
    oversight committees observe and appropriations that emerge
    from Congress. Budget levels made available are impeding our
    ability to do our work. We've returned $7.33 for every dollar
    given to us in the past year. I know this is not an
    appropriations committee, but I ask for any help you can
    provide.
        Access to documents and staff rest with the agency.
    Adequate funding must come from Congress. All are necessary to
    fully accomplish our mission. Yet the OIGs have control over
    none of these. As I stated in September, the concept underlying
    the IG Act is fragile and can be likened to a house of cards.
    The removal of the cooperation card will cause the foundation
    upon which the House is built to collapse.
        Mr. Chairman, I will be pleased to answer any questions
    that you or committee members may have.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank you, Mr. Elkins. Appreciate it.
        [Prepared Statement of Mr. Elkins follows:]

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        Chairman Chaffetz. Ms. Buller.

                      STATEMENT OF KATHY A. BULLER

        Ms. Buller. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings and
    distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting
    me to appear before you today and allowing me to summarize my
    prepared Statement.
        As you know, our access issue stems from a sensitive and
    important subject: the Peace Corps's handling of volunteer
    sexual assault reports. So before I continue, let me emphasize
    that our push for access goes beyond our zeal for upholding the
    basic principle that transparency and accountability are the
    hallmarks of good governance. Our push for access is about
    doing everything we can to confirm that volunteers, who
    sacrifice so much when serving in remote corners of the world,
    receive the services they need when they are victims of sexual
    assault.
        Standing in our way to fulfilling that duty is a legal
    opinion drafted on July 9, 2013, by the Peace Corps former
    general counsel. That legal opinion asserts that the Kate Puzey
    Act of 2011 overrides my broad right of access to agency
    records under the IG Act.
        As a result of the legal opinion, Peace Corps established
    policies and procedures denying OIG access to information.
    These policies effectively undermined one of the key purposes
    of the Kate Puzey Act, which is to enhance OIG oversight of
    sexual assault incidents to ensure Peace Corps does not repeat
    past mistakes.
        It is worth reminding the committee that the Kate Puzey Act
    was enacted after more than 100 volunteers reported that Peace
    Corps had ignored allegations of sexual assault, blamed
    victims, and mismanaged their cases.
        Since my last testimony on September 10th, Peace Corps has
    issued revised policies and procedures that grant OIG access to
    more, though not all, information on sexual assault reports.
    Unfortunately, these revisions took place only after 2 years of
    discussions with the agency, Members of Congress, two
    congressional hearings, negative press coverage, and a hold
    being placed on a nomination of the Director, and ultimately
    the signing of a formal agreement between the agency and the
    OIG.
        My office is hopeful this agreement will give us enough
    information to fulfill some of our oversight duties, and Peace
    Corps has been responsive to our requests for information
    regarding two cases. However, I have several concerns about the
    agreement. First, I am concerned about the appropriateness of
    my office having to enter into an agreement to obtain
    information that we are entitled to by law and that we need to
    fulfill our statutory duties.
        I am also concerned that the agreement does not undo all
    the damage these policies have caused. Since the agreement was
    signed, staff remain confused on how to handle sexual assault
    cases, and staff and volunteers remain confused about when they
    can or must report information to OIG.
        Finally, I'm concerned about Peace Corps's ability to meet
    its commitments under the agreement, such as implementing a
    system that would permit OIG to review sexual assault cases
    without full access to information. Lacking such access,
    Congress would be unable to properly assess whether Peace Corps
    is adequately responding to victims.
        It is clear that despite some progress, this agreement
    remains a temporary fix and much work remains to be done to
    restore a culture where staff and volunteers communicate openly
    with the IG.
        Congress and Peace Corps have the power to solve this
    issue. Congress could take legislative action to ensure we get
    full access to agency records. The Peace Corps, for its part,
    could retract the erroneous legal opinion underlying its
    misguided policies. As long as that opinion remains in place,
    Peace Corps is free to rescind our agreement and withhold or
    delay OIG access to sexual assault reports. Moreover, its very
    existence sets a dangerous precedent whereby any agency may
    withhold information by deciding to interpret a law as
    overriding the IG Act.
        Allowing agencies to decide when they will or will not
    release information to their IG creates a clear conflict of
    interest. Not only that, it forces IGs to spend their limited
    time and resources wrangling with the agency to obtain
    information, as I have done for over 2 years. Taxpayers and
    volunteer victims of sexual assault, in particular, deserve
    better.
        While Peace Corps withdrawing its legal opinion may resolve
    our access issue, it will do nothing to help other IGs who are
    denied full access to agency records; therefore, I appreciate
    the committee's efforts to help restore our access for the sake
    of Peace Corps, volunteer victims of sexual assault, and the
    entire IG community.
        Thank you. That concludes my prepared Statement, and I'm
    prepared to take any questions you may have.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
        [Prepared Statement of Ms. Buller follows:]

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        Chairman Chaffetz. I'll now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Horowitz, help me understand what the atmosphere was
    like at the Department of Justice, and when did this change? I
    mean, this is a new phenomenon, is it not?
        Mr. Horowitz. This changed in 2010 before I became
    inspector general in response to a legal opinion issued by the
    FBI's general counsel.
        Chairman Chaffetz. So you--prior to that, you were able to
    access grand jury information, Title III electronic
    surveillance information, Fair Credit Reporting Act
    information?
        Mr. Horowitz. That's correct. My office had no objection to
    any legal access to those.
        Chairman Chaffetz. So they had been in operation to be able
    to access that information. And then what--I'm trying to get at
    the heart of what changed.
        Mr. Horowitz. I'm at a loss to look--to understand why,
    frankly. And it--when you look at it, the law did not change,
    the work we were doing didn't change. In fact, one of the
    reviews, we got credit information at the start, and then 2010
    came along and we were told we weren't going to get it anymore.
        Chairman Chaffetz. What--are you impeded doing your job on
    any other information or is it exclusive to those three issues?
        Mr. Horowitz. So far it has been those three issues, but we
    have a list of several other items where the FBI has indicated
    it believes there are problems with producing them to us as
    well.
        Chairman Chaffetz. How often do you have to negotiate what
    you are going to be able to see?
        Mr. Horowitz. It has--much like inspector general Buller
    said, it has taken far too much of my time and, frankly, it is
    taking far too much time of the leadership of various parts of
    the Department to work these out.
        Chairman Chaffetz. And this is one of the concerns, is that
    you have to go in and negotiate for this. And, Mr. Elkins,
    what's your experience with that?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, I have to agree with everybody on the
    panel here. The--the issues that--that I have been confronting
    have spanned, you know, over 5 years. And when you think of the
    expense not only in my shop, but here on the Hill, the agency,
    it is just--it is phenomenal, it just doesn't make any sense,
    but I've had the same sorts of issues.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Well, what percentage of the information
    do you need to come to a complete conclusion?
        Mr. Elkins. I need all of the information. To the extent
    that I--to the extent that there's any information that's
    missing, then I can be assured that, you know, I'm making a
    good decision. I need all the information. And the IG Act
    envisions that all the information----
        Chairman Chaffetz. So how often do you bump into this
    problem? I mean, I think before, you had mentioned that you get
    90-plus percent of the information, but it is that last little
    bit, isn't it, that you're----
        Mr. Elkins. Absolutely.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Explain that to me. Give me an example
    of--do you have something that comes to mind when I bring that
    up?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, I guess I can, you know--hypothetically,
    you know, I can--I can think of a number of different issues.
    You know, in the course of any investigation, you know, it is
    important that we don't rush to judgment, it is important that
    we have all of the information, that we make sure that we are
    targeting or we are approaching, you know, the folks who need
    to be approached.
        Chairman Chaffetz. And sorry to interrupt you there.
    Explain to me the situation with the Homeland Security and the
    lack of jurisdiction that you see. What are they doing--are
    they impeding your ability to do your job? Are they doing the
    same job that you're doing? What's happening with that?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, in the past--and we've made some progress
    in that area, so I want to preface that by saying we've come a
    long way in that area, but in the past, what the issue was is
    that we were working at opposite ends. There was activities in
    terms of investigative activities that clearly fell within the
    jurisdiction of the IG that we were not being provided that
    information at all, and the Office of Homeland Security,
    assuming that they had investigative authority, were going out
    on their own and doing their own investigations. But clearly,
    you know, you can't have--especially in law enforcement, you
    can't have two folks doing opposite--opposite missions. So
    that's the type of issues----
        Chairman Chaffetz. But they were from--from Homeland
    Security?
        Mr. Elkins. The Office of Homeland Security within EPA.
        Chairman Chaffetz. The last thing I want to bring up in my
    last minute here is--and you're fairly extensive in this
    description here, but one of the concerns is that people get
    into hot water, you're pursuing what's happening, and then they
    just file these retirement papers and then the issue just goes
    away. They get full retirement, they get full benefits, they're
    not held accountable.
        Go into a little further detail about these--this
    allegation of this one person that you were investigating at
    the EPA.
        Mr. Elkins. Well, yes. This is a--it is an interesting set
    of facts. You know, we had allegations that--of inappropriate
    conduct by this particular senior official, and over a period
    of time, you know, in doing the investigations, we found
    additional individuals who were coming forward and providing
    us, you know, more and more information. We felt that we
    needed--in order to address some of these issues, we needed to
    talk to that individual.
        And after about a 4-or 5-month period, when the individual
    was placed on administrative leave, once we approached the
    individual, he decided that he was going to retire. He didn't
    really want to talk to us. It was almost immediate. He said,
    I'm retiring today, and within a matter of hours, the paperwork
    was cut and he retired.
        Now, he was directed by the agency's management to talk to
    us, but nothing happened. He didn't talk to us. He says, I'm
    retired. The agency produced the paperwork, he was gone. So----
        Chairman Chaffetz. My time has expired, but I would hope
    that those of us on both sides of the aisle, these allegations
    is fairly serious. As the inspector general wrote, the senior
    official's inappropriate behavior toward at least 16 women from
    2004 to present, violation of security procedures, mishandling
    of classified information, lack of due diligence by senior EPA
    executives who did not act on this information and did not hold
    him accountable, and which it ultimately resulted, as he wrote,
    in six additional women being subject to the senior official's
    inappropriate behavior from January 2014 to July 2014. We have
    to be able to figure this out. These people have to be held
    accountable. To just simply retire and take full benefits, not
    be held accountable, don't--ignore the investigation here from
    the Inspectors General, you just don't get a ``get out of
    jail'' free card by just filing some retirement papers and then
    not being held accountable.
        Appreciate the time here and the patience. Now recognize
    the gentleman from Maryland, the ranking member, Mr. Cummings.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I--and
    one of the thing that I just want to ask all of you, you know,
    all of us are public servants and, I think, trying to do the
    jobs that we are sworn and agree to do. And one of the reasons
    why I've spent so much time, and my staff has spent so much
    time in this is because I do believe that at times there can
    be, I guess, legitimate disputes. Would you agree? I'm just
    curious, Mr. Horowitz. Legitimate disputes between the IG
    statute and the statutes that these agency heads are using to
    say, well, maybe they can't give up the information or they
    have to review it or whatever. I mean, are there legitimate
    disputes or are you saying that they're trying to hide
    something? That's the only other--I mean--one or the other.
        Mr. Horowitz. Yes. I'm not here to suggest anybody's making
    a legal opinion in bad faith at this point, but the issues that
    we had historically discussed were about sensitivity and how to
    handle documents----
        Mr. Cummings. Right.
        Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. And access; not should we get
    them, but how do we safeguard them in some of the most
    sensitive work we did.
        Mr. Cummings. And you, Mr. Elkins?
        Mr. Elkins. I would agree. You know, the IG Act is clear.
    You know, we need access in order to do our job. There could be
    legitimate disputes, and I think built into the system there's
    always the opportunity to talk through these disputes, but at
    the end of the day----
        Mr. Cummings. You got to get--you got to get some
    resolution.
        Mr. Elkins. We have to have resolution.
        Mr. Cummings. And that's what I've been trying to do. Mr.
    Elkins, the challenges you've faced in getting the information
    from the EPA's Office of Homeland Security have been certainly
    a priority of mine, and I know yours. As you know, and my staff
    has spent many hours working with your office and the Office of
    Homeland Security to help address this issue, and it looks like
    we've gotten pretty close.
        Since our hearing in September, there have been a series of
    additional meetings between your office and the Office of
    Homeland Security. Is that right?
        Mr. Elkins. That's correct.
        Mr. Cummings. And on October 15th, EPA Administrator
    McCarthy sent you and the acting associate administrator of OHS
    an email, and it said this, ``I want to confirm that OIG shall,
    consistent with its authority under the Inspector General's
    Act, have access to all information shared between FBI and OHS
    under the 2012 MOU subject to OIG personnel having the
    necessary clearance and the need to know. This is effective
    immediately.''
        So that was a positive step in the right direction, right?
        Mr. Elkins. That was positive. It was positive.
        Mr. Cummings. And our staffers on the committee, both
    Democrat and Republican, received a bipartisan briefing in from
    your office on January 28th, your counsel, Alan Larsen, stated
    that your office has ``seen a lot of progress,'' but he also
    said that you ``haven't yet crossed the finish line.'' Is that
    right?
        Mr. Elkins. That's correct.
        Mr. Cummings. Do you agree with Mr. Larsen?
        Mr. Elkins. Yes, I do.
        Mr. Cummings. So things have improved, but there's still a
    long--there's a ways to go, isn't there?
        Mr. Elkins. There is a ways to go. And, you know, you also
    have to realize trust----
        Mr. Cummings. Very important.
        Mr. Elkins. And over the years, the trust piece has been
    rocked. And so I don't know what I don't know.
        Mr. Cummings. Right. And I'm not--I'm just trying to make
    sure I get a clear picture here, a complete picture. The--so
    when you say that trust has eroded, and I agree, I'm known for
    citing the book, the ``Speed of Trust'' by Covey, which talks
    about when you cannot trust someone or you don't have a
    trusting relationship, it is all downhill and it is almost
    impossible to accomplish anything.
        So you would say a lot of this is--over the years, has been
    caused by this distrust. Is that right?
        Mr. Elkins. That's correct. You know, we've--I've had a lot
    of assurances over the years that didn't pan out, and, you
    know, 4 or 5 years, and here we are today still talking about
    this situation.
        Mr. Cummings. Can you explain the challenge presented by
    the FBI?
        Mr. Elkins. Quite frankly, no, I can't explain it. it is--
    you know, you have to understand that the MOU that this whole
    argument is built on, we weren't a party to that MOU. This was
    a unilateral agreement that was put together by the agency and
    the FBI which pretty much wrote us out with us have been even a
    role in it, so it is difficult for me to understand since I
    wasn't a part of the process, but it is not based on any legal
    authority. From what I understand, the FBI has even said that
    there's no reason that they can't share information with us,
    and they're willing to do so.
        Mr. Cummings. So things stand right now with the FBI
    willing to do so, but----
        Mr. Elkins. But we still have an MOU in place that says
    that they're not. That MOU is still in place. The MOU hasn't
    gone anywhere. As I recall, there is a meeting scheduled in
    March between agency management, myself and the FBI, and we are
    supposed to sit down. Now, subsequent--or maybe, I understand,
    from your office and what I've heard here today that maybe we
    will all get together and have a conversation as well, but
    until that--that happens, the MOU is still in effect.
        Mr. Cummings. Well, the chairman--you heard the chairman in
    his opening Statement, and he agreed to sit down with us and
    see what we could work out. And I can understand you-all's
    position and I understand all of our position is that you
    shouldn't even have to do that, you shouldn't even have to,
    but--but as I always say, sometimes you have to deal with what
    you've got, the cards at that moment. Hopefully we'll get
    something more permanent resolved here, but the question
    becomes what would you like to see done in that meeting,
    accomplished in that meeting?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, first of all, I would like for all
    parties to agree that the IG should have unfettered access to
    information and to people, period. And to the extent we can get
    there, we can move forward. We can't get there, and the MOU
    stands in the way. So if we can get over that hurdle, that's
    what I'd like to see.
        Mr. Cummings. And how soon do you want that meeting to
    happen, the meeting that----
        Mr. Elkins. It should have happened years ago, but I would
    like to see it happen today, tomorrow, as soon as possible.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman
    from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Horowitz, I share your frustration with the Justice
    Department as well. I'm going to shift to a slightly different
    topic, but still in this general area of frustration with lack
    of cooperation and lack of doing what I think they're required
    to do under the law.
        Are you aware of the fact that Lois Lerner's attorney, Bill
    Taylor, reported that Ms. Lerner sat down for a lengthy, and
    that's his term, her attorney's term, lengthy interview with
    the Justice Department regarding the situation of targeting
    conservative groups and that criminal investigation?
        Mr. Horowitz. I'm not personally aware of it, but I think
    I've read somewhere along the way in news reports.
        Mr. Jordan. And my question is do you find that strange
    that Ms. Lerner is willing to sit down with the Justice
    Department but not willing to answer Congress's questions?
        Mr. Horowitz. It would be difficult for me, Congressman, to
    answer that without knowing----
        Mr. Jordan. But just sort of a--I mean, you're an
    accomplished lawyer. Just the general point that, you know, it
    is the Justice Department that can put her in jail. We can't
    put her in jail. we are just trying to get information so that
    the American people can know what happened when the IRS
    systematically targeted people for exercising their First
    Amendment rights. Don't you think that's a little strange?
        Mr. Horowitz. It would be hard for me to opine on what the
    strategy was there on----
        Mr. Jordan. Mr. Horowitz, last year the U.S. House of
    Representatives voted, with 26 Democrats I might add, voted to
    call for a special prosecutor at the Justice Department to look
    into this investigation, and on May 7th, 2014, May 7th of last
    year, 9 months ago, the U.S. House held Lois Lerner in contempt
    of Congress.
        Do you have any information about what U.S. Attorney Ron
    Machen is doing with that Contempt of Congress resolution he
    has as district attorney for the District of Columbia?
        Mr. Horowitz. I don't.
        Mr. Jordan. Do you know how the statute reads, Mr.
    Horowitz? The statute says, Section 194 says that such
    certification having been made, the contempt resolution having
    been made, it shall be the duty to bring the matter before the
    grand jury.
        Are you familiar with Section 194?
        Mr. Horowitz. I'm generally familiar with it.
        Mr. Jordan. And wouldn't that seem to point out rather
    clearly that Mr. Machen should take this to the grand jury?
        Mr. Horowitz. You know, I certainly think there are
    questions there and to ask about the----
        Mr. Jordan. Now, there's--my understanding--and, again,
    you've been at the Justice Department a long time, I've looked
    at your bio before, very accomplished attorney. There is an
    exception for the U.S. attorney to not take this to a grand
    jury. Do you know what that exception is, Mr. Horowitz?
        Mr. Horowitz. I don't off the top my head.
        Mr. Jordan. I will tell you. It is executive privilege. So
    if there's executive privilege, it doesn't have to take it. So,
    again, thinking about recent things Congress has done, that
    executive privilege exception would apply to, say, the contempt
    resolution of Attorney General Holder, correct?
        Mr. Horowitz. I'm not sure I've sort of looked at this,
    frankly----
        Mr. Jordan. Well, let me ask you this: Do you think there's
    any type of executive privilege that exists between--for Lois
    Lerner?
        Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, I'd have to pass on opining on
    that. Frankly----
        Mr. Jordan. But as a lawyer, the only way executive
    privilege would exist for Ms. Lerner is if she had some kind of
    conversation with the President or his key advisors. Isn't that
    correct?
        Mr. Horowitz. My general understanding of executive
    privilege law----
        Mr. Jordan. Okay.
        Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. Would be that.
        Mr. Jordan. Okay. Have you looked into why Mr. Machen has
    not taken this to the grand jury?
        Mr. Horowitz. We have not. And we would not be allowed to
    look into that under the jurisdictional authority of our
    statute, or we would have questions certainly to raise about
    that, about whether we could even look at that.
        Mr. Jordan. If this committee asked you to look into that,
    could you look into it?
        Mr. Horowitz. I don't believe so, although we would
    certainly want to look more closely at it. The issue being that
    under the IG Act, our office is limited to--in what we can do
    to oversee allegations of misconduct by department lawyers.
        Mr. Jordan. Okay. Finally, the last thing I would say is
    this, Mr. Chairman. This is a pattern. The executive branch
    agencies, first they drag their feet, they don't comply with
    things Congress wants. I mean, we have a subpoena--as just a
    recent example, we have a subpoena that came from this
    committee in August 2013 dealing with a situation that took
    place in Benghazi, and we've yet to have the State Department
    comply with that subpoena a year and a half ago.
        So there's all kinds of examples where executive branch
    agencies won't work with Congress, won't comply with the law,
    just like these Inspector Generals are pointing out today, as
    they pointed out in Mr. Horowitz's letter from today, and now,
    and now we find out it is across the board. So this is--this
    is, I mean, a very appropriate hearing and I appreciate the
    chairman doing this. And with that, I would yield back my time.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman. Now recognize the
    gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton, for 5
    minutes.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I want
    to thank Mr. Horowitz and all of those associated with the
    independent councils in our government.
        I am particularly interested in law enforcement material,
    perhaps as a lawyer and perhaps because I regard some of this
    material as extremely sensitive and because I think this
    committee should not simply be exposing problems, but getting
    to remedies for these problems. And as I understand it, the
    Department of Justice has been reluctant to give access to
    certain kinds of information which address, the average person
    would regard them as highly secretive, like grand jury matters,
    wiretapping matters, even credit reporting matters.
        Now, your complaint, as I understand it, is that in order
    for you to get access, this has to go through bureaucratic
    steps all the way to the deputy attorney general. Is that not
    correct?
        Mr. Horowitz. That's the process currently set up, that's
    correct.
        Ms. Norton. And apparently in some of your investigation,
    you regard this delay as compromising your office's
    independence?
        Mr. Horowitz. That's correct.
        Ms. Norton. And this is what I want to--want to seek
    clarification. Your--the statute couldn't be more generically
    clear, without exception. It says, I'm talking about 6--Section
    6(a)(1). It states that the IG shall have access to all
    records, reports, audits, reviews, documents, and papers. And I
    don't know when this statute was passed, but that's what it
    said then. I haven't seen the legislative history. All I know
    is normally access to something like grand jury, and wiretap
    materials is of the utmost secrecy.
        Now, the Justice Department says that if they get an Office
    of Legal Counsel opinion, then they would apparently be ready
    to release this material to the inspector general. Is that not
    correct?
        Mr. Horowitz. That's what they say they're waiting for, is
    the Office of Legal Counsel opinion.
        Ms. Norton. Well, I have to tell you, Mr. Horowitz, I can
    understand an Office of Legal Counsel not wanting that weight
    on his shoulders, whoever he is, when it comes to materials
    that have always been regarded as secret, and no matter what
    the statute says. And I--and, of course, you're still waiting
    and they're still investigating.
        I'm wondering if we shouldn't simply call the question and
    ask for a change in law so that that would not be on the
    shoulders of a single law enforcement officer. When we are
    talking about something that in our society has always been
    regarded as secret for very good reasons, perhaps even before
    there was an independent--an IG statute, should we continue to
    wait and should we be content with an Office of Legal Counsel,
    or would it not be preferable for this Congress to clarify this
    issue once and for all?
        Mr. Horowitz. That's an excellent question, Congresswoman.
    And just to clarify, my office before 2010 got all of this
    information without any legal issue----
        Ms. Norton. Yes. And we don't----
        Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. From the FBI.
        Ms. Norton. So, you know----
        Mr. Horowitz. There was no issue.
        Ms. Norton. And so we don't know--when we are in the--we
    are in an era of growing secrecy, which many of us object to
    precisely because we don't know what the secret is, we don't
    know what has transpired between 2010 and 2014. We have the
    same administration. Has there been a change in administration?
        Mr. Horowitz. There has not.
        Ms. Norton. So, you know, we are talking about the same
    folks, and yet they don't want to give this material over. What
    that says to me is that, you know, the next administration, you
    could go the same Sisyphus uphill climb.
        Isn't it time for some of these matters, at least these
    matters involving historically secret matters, because secret
    matters for very good reason, no matter who we are talking
    about, to simply get a clarification of a statute that is very
    general and does not seem to admit of any exceptions, would
    that not help at least with such--such sensitive materials to
    clarify this matter? And is there any reason for this committee
    not to come forward with a change in law once and for all?
        Mr. Horowitz. And I think the issue for the inspector
    general community has been that the law is clear, the practice
    had always been to give us that information.
        Ms. Norton. We understand that. I'm talking about the
    delays----
        Mr. Horowitz. No. And I'm--right.
        Ms. Norton. Look, look, Mr. Horowitz, unlike some people on
    this committee, I'm remedy-oriented.
        Mr. Horowitz. I know that.
        Ms. Norton. You know, we can have you back here, and you've
    been here before. Now, I'm not talking about the other matters.
        Mr. Horowitz. No. I understand.
        Ms. Norton. I'm talking about these matters which have
    always been considered highly secret. Is there any reason why
    we should delay clarifying this in law?
        Mr. Horowitz. The concern in the inspector general
    community is, yes, if Congress immediately passed something and
    it could go through, that would be great, it would resolve all
    our issues. The problem is what the Department--the FBI and the
    Department and OLC has been looking at is what was Congress's
    intent back in 1978 when it passed the statute? And the concern
    being that if Congress took--took this up to imply or suggest
    for any reason that perhaps the law is unclear, when everybody
    in the inspector general community thinks it is crystal clear
    and the practice has been that it is crystal clear we get
    access to it, that it could, if it didn't pass immediately or
    get addressed immediately, it would be cited as a reason not to
    give us access going forward. And that's a--that's a
    significant concern that we have.
        Ms. Norton. I thank the gentleman.
        Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you, but I want to say 1978--
    between 1978 and 2014, there's such a world of difference in
    secret matters, I think this needs to be looked into more
    closely. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Now recognize the gentleman from
    Michigan, Mr. Walberg for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the
    panel, each of you, Mr. Horowitz, Mr. Elkins Ms. Buller. Thanks
    for the work you do. Sounds like it is pretty much an uphill
    battle, and with deference to my colleague as well. I really
    think we ought to set the primacy on our discussions here on
    the law. What is the law?
        I would--I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that--that rather
    than pushing ourselves to change the law, when we hear from a
    panel as distinguished as this and the many in the room that
    are simply attempting to use the law that is clear. I mean,
    I'll read again where section 6(a) of the IG Act States clearly
    have--that IG shall have access to all records, reports,
    audits, reviews, documents, papers, recommendations, or other
    material which relate to programs and operations with respect
    to which the inspector general has responsibilities under.
    That's pretty clear, even for a nonattorney like myself.
        As a minister, I've got to settle disputes on the issue of
    Scriptures, but this is the law, and we are doing a good work
    here, pushing back against the idea that things change, and
    yes, they do. I've had birthdays, 63 of them, and I changed,
    but the law is the law, and I think that's our concern for
    today.
        Mr. Horowitz, many times you've raised the issue of the FBI
    restricting your access to certain documents and information.
    You even went so far as to include a formal complaint in your
    most recent semi-annual report, which is extremely rare. How do
    the FBI and DOJ justify withholding grand jury and Title III
    material from you?
        Mr. Horowitz. The position they have taken since 2010 is
    that they have now interpreted those other statutes as placing
    limits on what section 6 says in the IG Act.
        Mr. Walberg. They've interpreted it?
        Mr. Horowitz. That's correct.
        Mr. Walberg. You have not had this problem before?
        Mr. Horowitz. Prior to 2010 we did not have that issue
    raised by the FBI.
        Mr. Walberg. What is the process for obtaining these
    materials if you need them for an investigation?
        Mr. Horowitz. We send the document request to the FBI.
    They've put in place, frankly, what's a costly and timely
    system of now reviewing records before they produce it to us,
    something they hadn't done previously, for the purpose of
    determining whether they needed to withhold those materials
    from us so they could then look at them, confer with the
    Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General, get an opinion
    memorandum from the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General
    authorizing them then to release them to us.
        Mr. Walberg. So it is correct or incorrect that you have to
    convince the Attorney General to release the materials to you
    in any case?
        Mr. Horowitz. They certainly have to explain to the
    Attorney General. The Attorney General has to conclude it in
    each case. We have not yet had us have to go into the room for
    those meetings.
        Mr. Walberg. How that has that process affected the pace of
    your investigations?
        Mr. Horowitz. It has had a significant impact on us.
    Frankly, the biggest impact is on the staff, when you talk
    about the thousands of people who work in the IGs offices. If
    you had some of my staff up here explaining to you how it
    impacts their day-to-day ability to do their jobs, we get
    bogged down, we stop work, you lose valuable time and money and
    resources on our side, You have the FBI ramping up on their
    side. It is a process that just doesn't need to happen and
    didn't happen before 2010?
        Mr. Walberg. It affects your independence?
        Mr. Horowitz. It absolutely affects our independence.
        Mr. Walberg. Which is the rationale that the Congress had
    in mind to make sure we had oversight.
        Mr. Horowitz. That's correct. If we have to go through the
    agency leadership to decide whether we get records, that's a
    serious problem undermining our independence.
        Mr. Walberg. In your testimony you pointed out that section
    218 of the appropriations bill that we are living under now
    prohibited DOJ from using any funds to deny your office access
    to agency materials.
        Do you believe this provision has a positive impact on your
    access to records?
        Mr. Horowitz. I think it generally has had a positive
    impact.
        Mr. Walberg. Why do you believe the President in the budget
    that he has just released yesterday tries to remove this
    provision?
        Mr. Horowitz. I can't explain the motivation. I can tell
    you I think we've had a--it hass had a productive effect on our
    discussions with the Department generally.
        Mr. Walberg. Well, the President attempts to explain the
    change when he says in the budget address that the Department
    is unaware of any specific materials that OIG believed
    necessary to its reviews but to which the OIG has not been
    granted access.
        Have you made the Department aware of access issues?
        Mr. Horowitz. Made aware of the access issues as I've
    talked about in my Statement and in prior hearings? We haven't
    ultimately had anything withheld from us, but that is dependent
    on who sits in the corner offices at the Department.
    Fortunately, the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney
    General have committed to getting us the material, but it turns
    on whether--on a decision by them as opposed to an independent
    decision by inspector general.
        Mr. Walberg. Okay. Well, I would just add, I am very
    interested in why the President would say this when we have a
    hearing like this, and we've had one before, I'm certain that
    the Inspectors General have concerns why the President would
    want to remove that section when it seems so important that
    Congress would address it and say we need to use the Inspectors
    General appropriately and fully and give them access.
        So I thank you for this questioning, and we'll see the
    answer.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman. We now recognize
    the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the ranking
    member for holding this hearing, and I want to thank the
    witnesses for offering your testimony and helping the committee
    with its work.
        This really is a, you know, in a way, a constitutional
    crisis if this is going to be the position of the
    administration or any administration. We had this situation
    back during the Bush Administration when we were trying to do
    oversight on Iraq reconstruction, and now I see in the last
    couple of weeks that--that DOD has taken a position against the
    special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction where
    information that used to come to this committee, and now I'm
    the ranking Democrat on the national security subcommittee,
    that information that we got for the last 6 years is now not
    available to us.
        I guess last night The New York Times reports that there
    has been a reversal in part on the part of the NATO resolute
    support mission to release some of the information that we used
    to get all the time. So we are really hamstrung here. As long
    as--I mean, oversight is really a constitutional responsibility
    of ours. It is inherent in the balancing of the checks and
    balances between the executive, the Congress, and the
    judiciary, and if we can't get that information, if we can't
    have you as our emissaries in a real way to get that
    information to us, we cannot do that part of our constitutional
    responsibility.
        And, you know, it mystifies me how this is happening all
    across the government in all these agencies at the same time
    and just recently. Like I said, for 6 years we were getting
    this information, these reports, these action reports. You
    know, I'm not a conspiracy-minded person, but, you know, I do
    have to say that we know, from your reports--actually Stuart
    Bowen, who is the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, he
    actually helped us determine that in Iraq we had trained 930--
    938,000 Iraqis, military, police, and border patrol.
        We spent $25 billion on training Iraqis. So now when the
    military comes up with this new plan to train some more Iraqis,
    we can push that back on them, and the reason we can is because
    Stuart Bowen and members of this committee did dozens and
    dozens and dozens--and I give credit to John Tierney, who is no
    longer a Member here, but he did some great work on that. The
    reason we know that that system does not work and that
    Americans--American taxpayers' money was wasted was because of
    the work that the inspector generals did, that you-all did.
    That's how we got that information.
        And now they are saying we can't have that information
    because it is embarrassing, it is embarrassing, that that
    information that you gave us allows us to hold the executive
    accountable. That's the way this is supposed to work, and I
    just--I'm troubled by the fact that all of a sudden the
    transparency is shutting down, that you are not allowed to do
    your jobs. And I just want the say that, you know, at the
    outset, both the ranking member and the chairman both said it
    is pretty sad that the Inspectors Generals have to come here to
    Members of Congress to help them to do their job, but that is--
    it might be sad, but this is where we are at. Like the ranking
    member said, sometimes you get--you are what you are, and so we
    have to have a partnership between the inspector general
    community and Congress to make sure that we all do our jobs,
    that we help you help the American people. That's what this is
    all about.
        So maybe it is--maybe it is a legal quandary, maybe we have
    to get reaffirmation from the courts that this is indeed our
    constitutional obligation, but we have to work together. And
    just by closing, I've used up all--almost all my time. I just
    want to say that in prior budgets, we had defunded the ability
    of the inspector general community to do their job. And I know
    that Mr. Elkins eloquently stated that resources are a big part
    of this as well.
        In order to for them to do their job and help us with the
    issues that we are all talking about, we need to fund this part
    of government. You can be against big government, you can be
    against intrusive government, but you can't be against
    functioning government, and functioning government are those
    people out there that do this work every single day. And I just
    want the say that we ought to remember that when the budget
    time comes around. Thank you. I yield back.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. Well said. I appreciate that.
    Mr. Gosar from Arizona is now recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for all that
    you guys do at the inspector general's office.
        Mr. Horowitz, thank you for everything. Specifically my
    next questions come on the Department of Justice. Quick
    question. Is the Department of Justice run from the bottom up
    or from the top down?
        Mr. Horowitz. I think generally from the top down.
        Mr. Gosar. Hmm. And you're a dependent or an independent
    agency?
        Mr. Horowitz. We are an independent agency housed within
    the Justice Department.
        Mr. Gosar. You're no lesser of an attorney than anybody in
    the DOJ?
        Mr. Horowitz. I will let others make that judgment,
    Congressman.
        Mr. Gosar. I think I'd put your credentials against anybody
    from what I see.
        Whistleblower protection. Are you concerned about that?
        Mr. Horowitz. We are deeply concerned about it, and I'm
    deeply concerned it is arisen in this context that I've sent
    the letter today.
        Mr. Gosar. Have you seen the protection of whistleblowers
    get stronger today or are they less so than lets say 2009? And
    I am picking that particularly.
        Mr. Horowitz. Well, we have certainly made efforts to make
    them stronger, but when you see this action where we are trying
    to move forward on a whistleblower retaliation allegation, and
    the--involving an FBI employee and the FBI wants to first
    review the documents to see if we are legally entitled to get
    access to them, that causes me great concern.
        Mr. Gosar. Absolutely. And I go back to something your
    partner right next to you said. Trust is a series of promises
    kept, and to the gentlewoman across that I've seen, what
    happened since 2010, well, there is Fast and Furious, the AP
    reparations, Jane Rose and IRS, Benghazi, it goes on and on and
    on.
        Are you familiar, Mr. Horowitz, with slow walking
    documents?
        Mr. Horowitz. We have certainly had difficulty getting
    prompt access to documents.
        Mr. Gosar. Prompt access to documents also supports proper
    protection for whistleblowers, does it not?
        Mr. Horowitz. That's correct.
        Mr. Gosar. So I'm going to go back to your testimony in
    September 2014 to this committee. You stated, ``the FBI and
    some other department components have refused our request for
    various types of documents. As a result, a number of our
    reviews have been significantly impeded.'' You added that DOJ
    officials caused significant delays in gaining access to
    important documents in the IGs review of Operation Fast and
    Furious.
        Do you believe that the delays caused by the refusal of the
    DOJ officials to release documents were intentionally done by
    some officials within the agency in order to slow down the IGs
    investigations?
        Mr. Horowitz. I actually was not, the IG, back when that
    all played out before----
        Mr. Gosar. But you've seen significant delays?
        Mr. Horowitz. But I have certainly seen significant delays.
        Mr. Gosar. I mean, just like us in those delays, you've
    seen those delays because it took a Freedom of Information Act
    to get that information when it was not available to you or us.
        Mr. Horowitz. I've seen them, and my staff, frankly, has
    lived them.
        Mr. Gosar. Okay. So could these delays and impediments to
    the investigation in the Fast and Furious which continue today,
    amount to obstruction in your opinion?
        Mr. Horowitz. They have certainly----
        Mr. Gosar. I mean, this is not normal course.
        Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. Impacted. Let me just say----
        Mr. Gosar. This is not normal course of procedure, is it
    not?
        Mr. Horowitz. It shouldn't be. Unfortunately, in many
    reviews, we are seeing it over and over again, and it has
    impacted those reviews.
        Mr. Gosar. So let me go back to this DOJ being top down. So
    if the Attorney General wants to set an atmosphere of change
    and compliance, he could, could he not?
        Mr. Horowitz. I think across all of the components, that
    culture that was talked about earlier is critical to set.
        Mr. Gosar. And the same thing with this President. He
    promised an era of transparency, and I've hardly seen, you
    know, the most transparent administration period. So even the
    President could actually expediate this, could he not?
        Mr. Horowitz. I think there are a lot of people in this
    process, I agree, that could have an impact by sending a clear
    message that what happened prior to 2010, which worked just
    fine, no law changing in 2010 is where we should be.
        Mr. Gosar. So you are very familiar with the Vaughn Index,
    right?
        Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
        Mr. Gosar. So was there anything in the Vaughn Index that
    really merited executive privilege?
        Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, I wouldn't opine on that.
    Frankly, I haven't--I'm familiar with the index. I frankly----
        Mr. Gosar. Once again, it goes to that mindset from the top
    down, I mean, so when you start seeing private emails being put
    on executive privilege, I mean, it behooves me that we are not
    following the law. And the way our system is based is that
    everybody in good faith upholds their oath to defend and
    protect this Constitution, to uphold the rule of law, would you
    agree?
        Mr. Horowitz. I agree with that.
        Mr. Gosar. So it starts from the top down, not the bottom
    up.
        Mr. Horowitz. I think, frankly, it is both the top and the
    bottom and everything in between that we've had both----
        Mr. Gosar. But as an executive, you set the tone. You told
    me that----
        Mr. Horowitz. That's correct.
        Mr. Gosar [continuing]. From the top down. So you set the
    tone from the top. And where responsibilities of aggression
    are, responsibilities of accountability need to be placed.
        Mr. Horowitz. You know, we've taken the position from,
    certainly since I've been there in 2012 with the leadership of
    the Department that given the past practice, given how things
    worked before 2010, there is more than--more than enough good
    faith basis to send a message that the IG, as the Section 6
    states, is entitled to access all of these records. And we've
    always handled them appropriately. We have never violated any
    of the provisions in the grand jury secrecy, Title III, et
    cetera, that are rightly there to protect privacy interests.
    That has never been an issue.
        We have done the Hanssen review, we have done national
    security reviews, we have done FISA Amendment Act reviews, we
    have done PATRIOT Act reviews. I can go on and on about the
    sensitive work my office, primarily, as I said, the staff has
    done for the 25 years of our existence. We have acted
    responsibly and appropriately. Nothing changed in 2010, and
    what we need to do is get back to where we were before 2010
    when there was a culture of openness and a dialog that occurred
    between our office and the components on how we appropriately
    handle those materials, review those materials to ensure that
    among the most sensitive information, which is what we are
    seeing when we are looking at the FBI national security
    matters, we do maintain that carefully, and we should have that
    dialog. But it shouldn't be whether we see it but how we handle
    it and go forward.
        Mr. Gosar. Mr. Chairman, I just would like to say that----
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
        Mr. Gosar [continuing]. This is a very important question
    for the future Attorney General to be asked pointedly about her
    views in openness.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. Recognize the gentleman from
    Virginia, Mr. Connolly for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Mr. Horowitz, is it not true that
    the President is a Kenyan socialist colonialist who lied about
    his birth certificate?
        Mr. Horowitz. I wouldn't even venture to try and answer
    that.
        Mr. Connolly. Oh, so in other words, there is some leading
    questions an IG should not and cannot answer; is that correct?
        Mr. Horowitz. I try not to answer questions that----
        Mr. Connolly. Right.
        Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. Frankly haven't----
        Mr. Connolly. I appreciate the point. I really appreciate
    the work IGs do, but in order for us and the public to have
    confidence, we also need to have confidence in you. We need to
    make sure you are purer than driven snow, and that where there
    are any ethical or professional misconduct questions or even
    questions about methodology that seem not to be right, that
    there has to be a remedy that's accessible and transparent to
    address that and correct it; otherwise, your whole
    investigation is tainted if you are tainted. Would you agree
    with that, Mr. Horowitz?
        Mr. Horowitz. I agree completely.
        Mr. Connolly. And Mr. Horowitz, you are now the chairman of
    something called CIGIE, the Counsel of Inspectors General on
    Integrity and Efficiency. Would you briefly tell us what CIGIE
    does?
        Mr. Horowitz. CIGIE is the umbrella organization of all 72
    Federal IGs the Congress set up when it created the IG Act. We
    have a number of responsibilities that include coordinating
    reviews among IGs, working to get replacements for vacant--IG
    vacancies, and we have an integrity committee that oversees
    allegations against Inspectors General and their most senior
    officials.
        Mr. Connolly. You have an integrity committee as a subset
    of CIGIE?
        Mr. Horowitz. That's correct.
        Mr. Connolly. And who chairs--who chairs the integrity
    committee?
        Mr. Horowitz. The Federal Bureau of Investigation.
        Mr. Connolly. The FBI. I hope the chairman heard that. The
    FBI chairs the integrity committee.
        So when a charge is made about one of your colleagues,
    founded or unfounded, and assuming that it doesn't go to one of
    the specialized agencies, EEOC goes one place and something
    might criminally be referred to another place, but that which
    is left goes to the integrity committee about professional
    conduct and so forth; is that correct?
        Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
        Mr. Connolly. And it is chaired by the FBI. So when that
    committee----
        Mr. Horowitz. Uh-huh.
        Mr. Connolly [continuing]. In the due course of time
    investigates somebody and comes up with a finding, they then
    present the report to you as the chairman of CIGIE for your
    review; is that correct?
        Mr. Horowitz. They actually by statute don't.
        Mr. Connolly. They don't?
        Mr. Horowitz. That's correct. They send their report to the
    Deputy Director for management at OMB, and if it is a
    Presidential appointee, to the President. If it is a non-
    Presidential DSE IG, it goes to the agency. It does not go to
    the CIGIE chair.
        Mr. Connolly. Hmm. So if the broad public wants--let's say
    somebody wants to clear his name. Let's say an unfounded charge
    comes before CIGIE and the integrity committee and it is
    unfounded but it has to be investigated, that report then gets
    buried at OMB and maybe never sees the light of day?
        Mr. Horowitz. Under the statute, the records would be
    maintained by the FBI, and obviously, any recipient of a report
    would have a record of it.
        Mr. Connolly. How often does the integrity committee meet?
        Mr. Horowitz. Frankly, I'm not a member of it. I'm not a
    part of it, but one of the things that I certainly want to do
    is have it meet on a monthly basis so that we can move matters
    more quickly.
        Mr. Connolly. So, for example, if there were a complaint or
    a charge filed against an IG, is there an immediate process
    that gets kicked in, or do we just wait for your biannual
    meeting?
        Mr. Horowitz. Under the procedures currently in place,
    there is a process that kicks in in terms of it going to a
    working group to review it, consider it, and then processes
    that go forward from there.
        Mr. Connolly. And two of us on this committee filed a
    complaint against one of your colleagues, and all we got after
    a fairly detailed six-page, single-spaced complaint on July 31
    of last year, we simply got a one-paragraph thing saying we
    reviewed it and we think his response--his response
    sufficiently addressed the allegations, period. Thank you very
    much. Have a good day.
        Is that how you would conduct your review of an agency such
    as the one you're assigned to?
        Mr. Horowitz. I think that is a issue that's important for
    us to take up in CIGIE, to how--how to better deal with the
    transparency issues that you've raised and I know we are
    concerned, other members were talking about.
        Mr. Connolly. Well, we are going to give you a chance,
    because I assure you Mr. Cartwright and I will refile our
    complaint.
        Let me ask a question. I have here the Council of the
    Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. You're familiar
    with that?
        Mr. Horowitz. Yes, I am.
        Mr. Connolly. In that document, it says ``IG should avoid
    any appearance of partisanship in such engagements. Bipartisan
    meetings and outreach is the most appropriate format for such
    OIG meetings. If a bipartisan meeting is not feasible, it is
    the best practice to ensure the majority and minority
    understand the willingness of the OIG to meet separately.''
        Would you say that a consistent pattern of meeting with
    just one side of the aisle by an IG would be in violation of at
    least the spirit of that guidance?
        Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, it certainly isn't a practice
    that my office would follow. We follow that practices of
    reaching out to both sides.
        Mr. Connolly. Are you aware of the fact that the ranking
    member, Mr. Cummings, and I wrote a year ago, almost to the
    day, February 4th, 2014, complaining about that very fact and
    that very behavior by J. Russell George, the inspector general
    at the tax administration of the Treasury. Are you aware of
    that complaint?
        Mr. Horowitz. I'm not familiar with it.
        Mr. Connolly. I'll make sure you have a copy of it.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
        Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Time has expired. We now recognize the
    gentlewoman from Wyoming, Mrs. Lummis, for 5 minutes.
        Mrs. Lummis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
    the gentleman and women of the Office of the inspector general
    for your work on behalf of the American people, those here
    present and your colleagues as well.
        I'd like to focus my questioning on Mr. Elkins and----
        Mr. Elkins. Yes.
        Mrs. Lummis [continuing]. EPA. Mr. Elkins, is it the case
    that on January 16th you sent a memo to the President in
    followup to your investigation on the use of private email
    addresses by the Chemical Safety Board chairman Moure-Eraso,
    and to the general counsel Richard Loeb of the CSB, and the
    managing director Daniel Horowitz, and that these--the office
    found, your office found information sufficient to support a
    conclusion that these three officials used private non-
    government emails to communicate on Chemical Safety Board
    matters?
        Mr. Elkins. That's correct.
        Mrs. Lummis. And is it a violation of the Federal Records
    Act to do that, to use----
        Mr. Elkins. That was our conclusion, yes.
        Mrs. Lummis. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I have a copy of Arthur
    Elkins' inspector general's report to the President in my hand.
    I would like to enter it into the record.
        Chairman Chaffetz. We would like to ask unanimous consent
    to enter into this into the report pending a review by this
    inspector general to make sure that there is no sensitive
    information that should not be released, but pending that
    review and getting back to our committee, I would ask unanimous
    consent that it be entered into the record.
        Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I have no objection except what
    you just said. I just want to make sure there are privacy
    concerns, should they might adhere to.
        Chairman Chaffetz. So we will review these documents, allow
    the IG to review these documents before they go into the
    printed record. Without objection, that's the way we'll
    proceed, and I thank the gentlewoman.
        Mrs. Lummis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Has the White House responded to your report, Mr. Elkins?
        Mr. Elkins. Yes, the White House has. Actually, yesterday
    afternoon, I received a letter from the counsel to the
    President, a copy of the letter that was sent to the chair
    stating the intent to be compliant with the law in the
    expectation that the White House--the expectation of
    compliance. So I did receive a letter and there was a followup,
    yes. That occurred yesterday.
        Mrs. Lummis. And what followup will you be making to your
    report based on the White House's response?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, at this stage of the process, once our
    report is done and we forward it on to the deciding official,
    in this case it will be the President, it is really in the
    President's ballpark to then make a decision. So there is not
    much we can do beyond that. We've made a recommendation, and
    you know, that recommendation needs to be acted on, so our role
    is pretty much over with.
        Mrs. Lummis. Do you know, are officials still using private
    emails to conduct official business at the Chemical Safety
    Board?
        Mr. Elkins. I can't say conclusively that the issue has
    been fully resolved because, you know, we haven't received--we
    don't know that we received all the information that we
    requested, so that's still an open matter.
        Mrs. Lummis. Okay. Going back to some testimony that you
    provided to this committee in June 2014. You testified that as
    of that date in June that the Chemical Safety Board refused,
    and to that day, continued to refuse to provide documents that
    you requested, and that you determined were necessary to
    investigate these activities. Did they ever provide those
    documents?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, they were supposed to send us an
    affirmation that they have complied with our request. To this
    date, we are still waiting for that affirmation, so one can
    infer that maybe there is still information out there that we
    don't have.
        Mrs. Lummis. You don't know what you don't know.
        Mr. Elkins. Correct.
        Mrs. Lummis. I want to switch over to the EPA's semi-annual
    report to Congress from the first half of 2014. You indicated
    in that report that multiple offices at EPA were obstructing
    the OIG, including Homeland Security, chief financial officer,
    Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, and the Office of
    General Counsel all within EPA. Which of those offices have
    been most problematic to you?
        Mr. Elkins. The office of Homeland Security.
        Mrs. Lummis. Is--so no other offices as egregious as that
    one, but you've had problems with all of them.
        Mr. Elkins. That's a fair assessment, yes.
        Mrs. Lummis. Have any of those offices improved?
        Mr. Elkins. Yes, I think they have all improved. We have
    made progress, and I have to thank this committee for their
    efforts because, but for your efforts, I may have a different
    report; but for your efforts, things have improved greatly,
    yes.
        Mrs. Lummis. You testified about being blocked from access
    to the EPA's office of Homeland Security. I think that was back
    in, well, roughly half a year ago. How were you prevented from
    access to information by them?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, the prevention really has come about from
    just stonewalling, just not providing the information that we
    have requested. It is stonewalling. That's the best way I can
    describe it.
        Mrs. Lummis. Well, and your testimony submitted at that
    time, you said that OHS' investigation of John Beale, this was
    the guy who defrauded the EPA under the guise of being a CIA
    operative.
        Chairman Chaffetz. The gentlewoman may finish her question
    that may be asked, but the gentlewoman's time has expired so--
    --
        Mrs. Lummis. You know, Mr. Chairman, I'll allow one of my
    colleagues to complete this line of questioning. Thank you.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentlewoman.
        Now recognize the gentlewoman from Michigan, Ms. Lawrence
    for 5 minutes.
        Mrs. Lawrence. Thank you, Chairman Chaffetz and our ranking
    member Mr. Cummings. I believe we have an obligation to
    preserve the independence and the effectiveness of the Office
    of the inspector general at the Department of Justice as well
    as other agencies. I want to thank all of you here today for
    your service and for the hard work that you do every day.
        Today I would like to direct my questions--my concerns to
    the Peace Corps, and if I could ask Ms. Kathy Buller. Your
    testimony States that a legal opinion of the previous Peace
    Corps' general counsel is ``standing in our way of fulfilling
    the duties of the inspector general's office.''
        Can you tell us a little bit about the legal issue here and
    why there is a disagreement?
        Ms. Buller. Back in 2011, Congress passed the Kate Puzey
    Volunteer Protection Act, and in that Act they created a system
    for Peace Corps to implement its program for assisting victims
    of sexual assault, and there were a number of requirements
    contained in that legislation. One of them was to create a
    system of restricted reporting that would allow a victim of a
    sexual assault to come and report that they had been assaulted
    and receive whatever services they needed as a result of that
    assault without their information being disseminated widely.
        That legislation also created a mandatory duty for my
    office to do evaluations periodically. Included in those
    evaluations is the requirement that we review a significant
    number of sexual assault cases to assure that volunteers had,
    in fact, received the services that they needed.
        In addition, the legislation also contained exceptions to
    the prohibitions against disclosure of restricted reporting
    information, and one of those exceptions contained the language
    that if--if required by other State or Federal statutes, and
    the argument that we have been having, or had been having with
    the former general counsel, he didn't interpret that particular
    provision to include the IG Act even though it specifically
    said Federal statute.
        Mrs. Lawrence. Thank you.
        In your testimony today, you're saying that the Peace Corps
    has corrected course by issuing policies and procedures that
    grant OIG greater access to information; is that correct?
        Ms. Buller. That's correct.
        Mrs. Lawrence. So I'm pleased to hear that progress has
    been made. I'm pleased to hear that. What policies and
    procedures have been issued that has changed and given you the
    position that greater access to the Peace Corps information?
        Ms. Buller. Until we entered into the MOU, we basically had
    a blackout of information concerning restricted reports with
    the exception of three pieces of information, and that those
    three pieces are the country of the occurrence, the type of
    assault that it was, and the type of location, for example, if
    it was on public transportation. That was the only information
    that we got from restricted reports, and we only got that after
    a letter was written by the former chairman of this committee.
    So basically we got no information.
        After we entered into the MOU, we got more information.
    With the exception of certain pieces of PII and explicit
    details of the sexual assault, we can get access to that
    information. There is several problems that still remain with
    that, however. We are dependent on the agency to go through all
    of their records to determine what needs to be redacted from
    the information that we get. We are never going to be fully
    assured that the information that we got is the information
    that was contained in the files. We will never be able to go in
    and just do an audit of the system to make sure that they are
    adequately recording everything that needs to be recorded.
        One of the first things that we did years ago was to do an
    audit of the crime incident reporting system to make sure that
    the crimes that were being reported were being properly
    categorized. We could not do that type of an audit on the
    restricted reporting information. There are just a lot of
    prohibitions to general oversight that we still will not be
    able to do.
        Mrs. Lawrence. I want to thank you for that update. But one
    of the things that I'm hearing from you while we have made
    progress, we still have some issues that we need to deal with,
    so I want to get back, but I want you to know that we truly
    support the work that you do, and this committee is here to
    look at those issues as we move forward. Thank you.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank the gentlewoman. We'll now
    recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Meadows for 5
    minutes.
        Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank each of you for
    your testimony today.
        Mr. Elkins, I'm going to follow up on Mrs. Lummis'
    questioning and complete her question, and it deals with an EPA
    employee who we heard testimony here about him being a CIA
    agent for a lengthy period of time, actually, and you know, as
    a story that can only be made for television or a movie as it
    unfolded. You have been investigating that, but I'm troubled to
    hear, and that's what I want to followup on, is that you
    indicated that you tried to interview the Office of General
    Counsel at the EPA, and that interview was denied. Is that
    correct?
        Mr. Elkins. We tried to interview a--an attorney in the
    Office of General Counsel.
        Mr. Meadows. Right.
        Mr. Elkins. Yes. And we did not get cooperation from that
    attorney.
        Mr. Meadows. And so they--are they claiming the Fifth, or
    why would they not allow you to get to the bottom of what I
    think all Americans believe is just an unbelievable story?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, from what I understand, initially, she
    just did not want to talk to us. I'm not quite sure that there
    was any privilege given, but subsequent to that, I think one of
    the areas of privilege is attorney/client privilege being that,
    you know, she was a agency attorney and the agency was the
    client, and so in some sort of way they thought that----
        Mr. Meadows. In a twisted way, attorney/client privilege.
        Mr. Elkins. It does not apply.
        Mr. Meadows. I'm sure we have a few attorneys out here who
    would have a hard time with that argument; would not you agree?
        Mr. Elkins. So, absolutely.
        Mr. Meadows. Okay. So let us go on a little bit further
    because the chairman, in his opening questioning, talked about
    another employee who had an issue with an intern and 16 other
    alleged offenses of a sexual nature, and yet there was a delay
    there in terms of getting you the information; is that correct,
    Mr. Elkins?
        Mr. Elkins. That's correct. We were not able to get all of
    the information.
        Mr. Meadows. So because of this delay, we put potentially
    other women in harm's way; would you agree with that?
        Mr. Elkins. I would agree with that, yes.
        Mr. Meadows. So if we are doing that, that this delay of
    information that we are hearing that is a consistent theme, not
    only with you but I would imagine with a number of others in
    the audience here, has real consequences; wouldn't you agree
    with that?
        Mr. Elkins. It has very serious consequences.
        Mr. Meadows. So if it has serious consequences, what do we
    need to do to compel compliance, because I think it is very
    clear on both sides, both Democrat and Republican, that we
    think that this is an important issue, that the intent of
    Congress is that you should get all of the information and not
    some, and it shouldn't be subject to legal interpretation. What
    do we need to do to enforce compliance?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, that is the million dollar question.
    You're absolutely right. There is a gap in the IG Act that
    allows these sorts of things to happen. We can only go so far.
    I can only make recommendations if it is not a criminal matter.
    We only have so much authority, and we rely really on this body
    right here to come up with some solutions. We would be glad to
    sit down and talk to you about some ideas.
        Mr. Meadows. Well, here, while you're under oath, and we
    will not take the time today, but I would ask each one of you,
    but also anyone else that happens to be listening, we want
    names. We want you to name names of those that are presenting
    the problem, and let the chairman and the ranking member know
    that, and we will followup.
        So it is imperative that we get to the bottom of this so
    that no one else potentially gets harmed, whether it is a
    whistleblowers or anybody else.
        Mr. Horowitz, let me go back to you because one of my
    colleagues mentioned about the integrity committee and the
    importance of making sure that the IGs do their job and that--
    my understanding is that the head of the integrity committee is
    the FBI.
        Mr. Horowitz. That's correct. They chair the committee.
        Mr. Meadows. So they chair the committee, and I know that
    on January 21st--and I would ask unanimous consent that the
    letter gets put into the record, Mr. Chairman. It was a letter
    from Chairman Chaffetz and Ranking Member Cummings and myself
    that really wanted us to get the report with regards to some
    serious allegations that were made, and I would ask unanimous
    consent.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Without objection, so ordered.
        Mr. Meadows. So do you not find it ironic or troubling that
    the FBI who fails to give you information, Mr. Horowitz, chairs
    this particular committee and yet they have not complied with
    this letter? Do you find that troubling?
        Mr. Horowitz. Certainly is a similar concern to what we
    have and the issues we face.
        Mr. Meadows. So if we are being stonewalled, to use Mr.
    Elkins' language, if we are being stonewalled in terms of
    transparency within CIGIE, would it not be a better place to
    have someone else chair that other than the FBI that may have a
    conflict of interest?
        Mr. Horowitz. I think there was a serious discussion about
    that last year in trying to figure out how to reform and
    address some of the concerns in the integrity committee, and I
    know there are many members who continue to have that question.
        Mr. Meadows. And do you have the----
        Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman's time is expired. We
    still have members hoping to ask questions, so----
        Mr. Meadows. I will yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. We'll now recognize the
    gentleman from California, and I want to make sure I pronounce
    his name properly. Is it Lieu?
        Mr. Lieu. Yes.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Very good. Mr. Lieu from California is
    now recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for
    Ms. Buller. I agree with your interpretation of the Kate Puzey
    Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act. I find it impossible to
    believe that Congress would have intended with this Act, which
    was designed to prevent sexual assault cases in the Peace
    Corps, to somehow obstruct IGs from investigating sexual
    assault cases.
        My question to you, because I believe that prior opinion by
    their prior general counsel is ridiculous. We now have a new
    general counsel. What is your office's relationship with the
    new general counsel at the Peace Corps, and do you know whether
    or not what the view is of the new general counsel about that
    legal opinion?
        Ms. Buller. My relationship with the new general counsel is
    very good so far. He has been there since October, and we have
    had several meetings and discussed a number of issues. I have
    not specifically discussed the legal opinion with him. I have
    spoken to the Director about it a number of times. I think it
    is fair to say that I don't think that she would be opposed to
    having it revisited. I don't know what the position of the new
    general counsel is on that, but that is something that we could
    find out.
        Mr. Lieu. Thank you. And then I have a question for the
    panel. When I served on active duty in the Air Force, I was a
    JAG, and one of my duties was to work with inspector generals
    and to review their reports and make recommendations to the
    commanding officer, but for this IG system to work effectively,
    you needed all employees to feel like they can share whatever
    it is they want with IG, completely free and clear. And my
    concern is, if we have a lot of one off memorandums of
    agreement and different specific issue areas, people get
    confused, they don't know what they can or cannot share, so it
    seems to me that we need to change the law.
        And I understand your concern, following up on what
    Congresswoman Norton said about if we were to try to make a
    change and it didn't happen, it can be used against you. What
    if instead we put in a pretty harsh penalty. We do not change
    the standard of the IG Act, we do not say we meant what we
    said. We basically add a pretty harsh penalty for violating it.
    Would that help you do your job?
        Mr. Horowitz. I think that is certainly one vehicle. That
    is frankly why we were appreciative of section 218 in the
    Appropriations Act because it starts to put forward that notion
    of we mean what we say in Congress in section 6(a), and through
    an appropriations bill you are obviously limited in what you
    can do, but that was a way that Congress tried to take that
    action, and I think what you mentioned, Congressman, is another
    way, vehicle to get at that issue.
        Mr. Lieu. Thank you. I yield back my time.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman. Now recognize the
    gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Mulvaney for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Mulvaney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to talk with
    all the witnesses a little bit about how and when this started.
        Mr. Elkins, I will start with you because you mentioned
    something that I was not familiar with, which was this
    memorandum of understanding, I think if I heard it correctly,
    between Homeland Security and the EPA that you were not
    involved with. When did that happen?
        Mr. Elkins. I don't have the date right off the top of my
    head, but I believe 4 or 5 years ago.
        Mr. Mulvaney. And I think that is what you said to Mr.
    Cummings. You have had this difficulty now from 4 or 5 years
    ago.
        Mr. Elkins. Yes.
        Mr. Mulvaney. Ms. Buller, I ask you the same question. Is
    there a point in time where you saw the practices changing?
        Ms. Buller. Yes, with the passage of the Kate Puzey Act. It
    was November 2011.
        Mr. Mulvaney. Okay. So November 2011.
        Mr. Horowitz, I think you testified that there was a FBI
    general counsel opinion in 2010 that was sort of a touchstone
    for the change in practices within the agencies that you
    oversee. By the way, what was the--what was the subject matter
    of that--of that general counsel's opinion?
        Mr. Horowitz. There were a couple of reviews going on. One
    was Fast and Furious, one was our review of the FBI's use of
    its material witness warrants and whether it was appropriate in
    exercising its national security authority there. The third was
    the FBI's use of national security letters under the PATRIOT
    Act, so again we are trying to conduct oversight over the FBI's
    use of authorities that Congress gave to it.
        Mr. Mulvaney. Mr. Elkins, do you remember, was there
    anything pending at your agency or was there something that
    happened that gave rise to the MOU? I am just trying to figure
    out why it suddenly happened.
        Mr. Elkins. You know, I think it was a matter of turf
    battles. I think it was personalties deciding that they wanted
    to carve out a certain section of authority for themselves, and
    they saw a conflict with the IGs role.
        Mr. Mulvaney. Okay.
        Mr. Elkins. That's my opinion.
        Mr. Mulvaney. All right. But what I'm hearing is it is
    2010, 2010 or 2011, and 2011. Thereabout is where it changed. I
    wish I could ask that question of everybody. We may end up
    doing that, if they saw a particular time when the weather
    changed, for lack of a better word.
        I do want to come back and talk to Mr. Horowitz about the
    question one of my colleagues asked you regarding the
    President's budget, to go back and cover it real quickly. We
    did add the language in section 218 last year. It passed with
    bipartisan support, folks on both sides of the aisle supported
    that language, and the President has taken it out of his
    proposed budget. I originally thought that that might be an
    oversight. The budget, as you have seen it, is something like
    this, and you could easily miss something like that, and I was
    surprised to see the language they included, and I'll read it
    to you again, because I think it merits a little bit of
    discussion.
        This is from the President's proposed budget in explaining
    that language coming out. It says, ``The Department is unaware
    of any specific materials the OIG believed necessary to its
    reviews but to which the OIG has not been granted access.''
        It is just not possible that that is a true statement, is
    it?
        Mr. Horowitz. What that statement does is gloss over how we
    get the documents ultimately.
        Mr. Mulvaney. Okay. Tell me about that.
        Mr. Horowitz. We do not get them pursuant to the IG Act,
    some of these documents. What happens is the FBI decides, based
    on its legal views, that other statutes limit their ability to
    hand it to us, so they go to the Deputy Attorney General or the
    Attorney General and say ``can we give it to them, do you give
    us permission to give it to them?'' The AG or the Deputy makes
    a determination that our review will help them manage the
    Department as opposed to the inspector general making that
    decision, an independent entity, it is being made--the
    Department, in essence, is deciding for itself whether our
    reviews will help them so they will allow us to look at the
    records.
        Mr. Mulvaney. I have been in government to know--long
    enough to know how you can gloss language, and I see exactly
    what you are talking about. I think the bottom line is that you
    still think that the language in 218 is necessary and helpful
    to you.
        Mr. Horowitz. It has been necessary. It has been helpful. I
    can--there have been several issues where--we had with the DEA
    recently where, before December--mid December when this became
    law, we were having difficulty getting those records. In two
    instances in January, we--I engaged with the Administrator of
    the DEA and an associate in the Deputy Attorney General's
    office who were very helpful in working through those issues,
    but we made clear we had a deadline under 218, and in our view,
    we needed the documents by the deadline, and so in those
    instances I can give precise examples where it has been
    helpful.
        Mr. Mulvaney. Let me ask you very quickly in the time I
    have remaining about an issue that you raised about the
    warrantless searches, because there was an article in The New
    York Times just last month about it. There was a new report
    that was released that had been declassified but still redacted
    and sent to The New York Times, and it actually quoted you or
    it cited you, it didn't quote you, that said that in the report
    on the warrantless searches that was delivered to the Times,
    the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, concluded the FBI was
    doing a good job, The New York Times' words, making sure that
    email accounts targeted for warrantless collections belonged to
    non-citizens abroad.
        And I guess my question is this: In--and I'm not asking you
    to give any classified information. I want to make that clear.
    In conducting the review that is the subject of the report that
    was recently made public, did you get everything that you asked
    for and everything that you felt you needed in order to conduct
    your investigation?
        Mr. Horowitz. To be clear, in each of the areas, we have
    ultimately gotten what we have needed to do our work. The
    problem has been in various reviews, and I don't recall that
    that is one where it came up, but certainly others related to
    the FISA, PATRIOT Act, others are ones where these questions
    have been raised. In fact, one of the categories that has not
    yet played out but that the FBI has indicated it has questions
    about whether it could share information with us is raw data
    from FISA matters, and so what Congress has asked us to do is
    oversee the FBI's authorities in those areas to make sure they
    are exercising appropriately. To do that, we have to know that
    we are getting everything and we are getting everything
    promptly. That is the challenge we keep facing over and over
    and over again.
        Mr. Mulvaney. Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Meadows [presiding]. I thank the gentleman from South
    Carolina. The gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, Ms.
    Plaskett, is recognized for 5 minutes.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much. Good morning. Thank you
    so much for your patience and your professionalism in dealing
    with these issues. I wanted to direct my questions to Mr.
    Horowitz, and thank you for testifying. You testified before
    this committee last September and you raised several concerns
    about your office's ability with the granting of timely access
    to the information. And during that testimony, you stated that
    the FBI and other Department components initially refused the
    office's request; is that correct?
        Mr. Horowitz. That is the issue, yes, that we have been
    having.
        Ms. Plaskett. And that after that refusal, it was then
    elevated to another level and ultimately either to the Deputy
    Attorney General or to the Attorney General's office at which
    time the quote was, you were granted us permission to access
    the records by making the finding that our reviews were of
    assistance to them.
        Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
        Ms. Plaskett. And that the Department further stated that
    their intention to do so in future audits and reviews and that
    the current Department's leadership had supported our ability
    to access those records.
        Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
        Ms. Plaskett. So the issue for the Department of Justice
    and FBI have been the MOU and the legal opinion that was given?
        Mr. Horowitz. The issue is that the FBI believes it needs
    to go through this process that they have set up. There is no
    actual MOU in place. This is a process they've set up in order
    to get that permission here.
        Ms. Plaskett. And that process was set up by what measure?
    What was the reason for them setting it up?
        Mr. Horowitz. There was a--it was in response to the FBI's
    legal opinion.
        Ms. Plaskett. Legal opinion. So the legal opinion----
        Mr. Horowitz. It was not vetted through us.
        Ms. Plaskett. Their legal and their belief constrains them
    from freely giving----
        Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
        Ms. Plaskett [continuing]. Information related to grand
    jury, wiretap, Fair Credit Reporting Act information, those
    types of----
        Mr. Horowitz. And maybe others.
        Ms. Plaskett. And other types of information.
        Now, it is my understanding that the Department has
    ultimately granted access to the requested reports and that has
    there ever been an instance that you already stated that you
    did not receive that?
        Mr. Horowitz. We are not aware of any.
        Ms. Plaskett. You are not aware of any?
        Mr. Horowitz. Right.
        Ms. Plaskett. But it is a timing factor?
        Mr. Horowitz. It is a timing factor, and I will add, it is
    a waste of resources factor.
        Ms. Plaskett. Correct.
        Mr. Horowitz. The time it takes me, and frankly, my staff
    to do it, and the FBI has built this mechanism to review these
    records solely for the purpose of having to go to the Attorney
    General, the Deputy Attorney General to ultimately give them to
    us.
        Ms. Plaskett. Uh-huh.
        Mr. Horowitz. It is--you----
        Ms. Plaskett. Well, having worked on the staff of a Deputy
    Attorney General who has oversight over 9,000 attorneys, many
    different agencies and divisions within the Department of
    Justice, I can imagine that it would take quite a number of
    months in some instances before you would receive--you would
    come up in the cue to receive the information and the
    permission, correct?
        Mr. Horowitz. And to be fair, the Deputy Attorney General,
    the Attorney General have been very supportive of getting that
    material to us. The problem is, at every step of the process
    there is a delay. My staff has to go through the issues. The
    FBI has to review the records. It then gets elevated to me. I
    elevate it to the general counsel in the FBI or the Director or
    the Deputy Director. It then goes from there up. All of that
    takes time.
        Ms. Plaskett. So now, am I understanding also is that the
    Department of Justice has stated that they are in a legal
    review of this to determine if this should be--this process
    should be changed?
        Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
        Ms. Plaskett. And what is the status of that review?
        Mr. Horowitz. To my understanding, all of the briefing, if
    you will, was submitted to the Office of Legal Counsel. My
    office sent materials. CIGIE sent its submissions. I understand
    other components sent submissions back in May of last year. We
    have heard at various times we might get the opinion in the
    fall, later in the year, but we still have no opinion.
        Ms. Plaskett. No deadline has been given for the opinion?
        Mr. Horowitz. Not that I am aware of.
        Ms. Plaskett. So it would be helpful to you for this
    committee to either push forward that opinion to be granted or
    a change in the law?
        Mr. Horowitz. Agree completely, Congresswoman. From our
    standpoint now, any opinion is what we are looking for.
    Hopefully it is a good opinion.
        Ms. Plaskett. Uh-huh.
        Mr. Horowitz. But frankly, if it is not a--we are operating
    under the bad-opinion outcome.
        Ms. Plaskett. Right.
        Mr. Horowitz. That's what's been set up, and we are all
    struggling with it because of the lack of a decision. We get a
    decision, my guess is Congress would then--if it is bad,
    Congress, as we have talked about today, I think would probably
    act pretty promptly.
        Ms. Plaskett. Well, it appears that you are operating under
    a very old law which has broad scope for the Inspector
    General's Office, and contrary to maybe my colleague's opinion,
    the law is not stagnant, and so there is constant changes that
    occur within the law, particularly in areas where technology or
    issues or circumstances change which will allow for opinions or
    further clarification or some other mechanism to make sure that
    the law is applicable to the time in which you are operating.
        Mr. Horowitz. There certainly are some issues where that
    comes up. I do not think, frankly, in the ones that the FBI has
    raised with us, FBI--grand jury, the law has been the same all
    through. Title III, it has been the law all the way through,
    but there are other areas where we havehad discussions about
    how evolving information and technology impacts our access.
        Ms. Plaskett. Well, I am thankful that the Department is
    working with you, and I am hopeful that this committee will be
    able to move that along much faster. Thank you so much, and I
    yield the balance of my time.
        Mr. Meadows. The gentlewoman's time is expired. The chair
    recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina for 5 minutes, Mr.
    Walker.
        Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, panel, and
    to all the IGs who have been sitting out here for right at 2
    hours now. I will not use my full 5 minutes by trying to get
    strictly and directly to the point.
        The pattern here of obstruction is obviously at this point
    not an isolated incident, and specifically I want to dial
    down--Ms. Buller, the ``u,'' a short ``u'' or a long ``u,'' is
    that Buller or Bueller?
        Ms. Buller. It is Buller.
        Mr. Walker. Okay. Buller. All right. Fair enough. I want to
    talk specifically or work toward a question here. I find some
    of the things that you have shared today very concerning. My
    wife helped launch the sexual assault nurse examiner program at
    Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and as a
    minister for 15 years, I have counseled some people who walked
    with some of the darkest times of their life. These victims,
    there are many obstacles, I will put it this way, to come
    forward to share such tragic moments in their life, and I'm
    troubled, I believe your words were, though there have been
    improvements, specifically after the last two committee
    meetings, that there have been improvements, challenges remain.
        And I struggle with the fact that there are challenges
    remaining in such a sensitive and potentially damaging area. I
    do not understand that because we are not dealing with just
    unethical behavior. We are dealing with criminal behavior in
    some of these incidents. So my question for you today is
    because of the obstructions that you continue to face from
    whoever, unnamed sources at this point, hopefully that will be
    resolved in the future, is it fair to say that we could be
    protecting these predators--and I will say predators because
    even, and the FBI has been thrown out a few times today,
    according to the FBI, the one behavior pattern that they have
    no proof can be amended are those who are continually sexually
    assaulting others.
        So my question is, are we, at some point, if we cannot
    remove these barriers or challenges, are we protecting these
    predators who, in remote areas, have no law enforcement people
    to contact?
        Ms. Buller. I think the issue we have is with restricted
    reporting, and the way--the reason it was created was to allow
    people to come forward and get the services they need without
    law enforcement necessarily launching an investigation, and we
    respect the whole concept of reporting and why it was put into
    place.
        The problem being that if law enforcement does not find out
    about it, then there is nothing that law enforcement can do,
    but that is a choice that is being given to the victim, and it
    is a legitimate choice, and Congress saw that as a legitimate
    choice when they created the Kate Puzey Act, and our problem is
    not with restricted reporting. Our problem is with the fact
    that restricted reporting has been used to keep information
    from my office that we need to perform our oversight
    capabilities. Even if we had access to the restricted reported
    information in total, my law enforcement officers, by statute,
    could not go out and investigate.
        Mr. Walker. What do you think may be the first immediate
    approach is as far as resolving the frustration?
        Ms. Buller. What I did would be to have the Peace Corps
    retract the legal opinion, because it is the legal opinion that
    was the impetus for all of the policies and procedures. To date
    it has not been retracted. The general counsel left the agency,
    I believe, in October, and we do have a new general counsel. We
    continue to work with him, and hopefully we can get that
    retracted, but as I said in my testimony, if we get it
    retracted for us, it does nothing to help Art and Mike
    Horowitz.
        Mr. Walker. Right. A real problem. Thank you Mr. Chairman,
    I yield back.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank the gentleman. Will now recognize
    the gentleman from California, Mr. DeSaulnier. Did I pronounce
    that properly?
        Mr. DeSaulnier. That was great, Mr. Chairman. I apologize.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I can not do any better than that. So I
    will now recognize you for 5 minutes.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. I respond to almost anything close to that,
    Mr. Chairman.
        Well, I want to thank you all for the job you do. I really
    do not think we could overstate the importance of the integrity
    of the work you do. As someone who believes in the possibility
    of government being a force of enormous good in this country, I
    think that those who lack that, it really comes down to trust.
        So, Mr. Elkins, I want to talk to you specifically about
    some of your comments about the Chemical Safety Board. As you
    may or may not know, in the area of California that I
    represent, we have a very large intensity of chemical and
    hazardous material facilities. It was very important to my
    predecessor that this group work well. Just last week we had a
    major report from the board on a major incident at the Chevron
    refinery in Richmond that just narrowly missed killing or
    seriously injuring 18 constituents.
        So knowing of the importance, first let me ask you a
    general question. You said about not reaching a judgment, this
    balance that you all have to face and then the erosion of
    trust. Usually it takes two parties, whether it is deliberate
    or not, to have that happen, and some of the other comments by
    some of my colleagues. Could you--you have done this for a
    while. Have there been incidents from your side, from the IG
    community, where you wish that the material you had gotten had
    not been used in a manner that it had been used that helped to
    get us to this point where there is an erosion of trust?
        Mr. Elkins. Off the top of my head, I can not really think
    of any examples where that has occurred, but let me just state
    that we are not above the law.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. Understand.
        Mr. Elkins. We have an obligation as well, and we could be
    subject to sanctions, criminal prosecution if we violate the
    law. So it is--I am not talking double standards here.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. Okay. And then specifically to the CSB, and
    I am familiar some of the personality issues that have happened
    at the board. So in your testimony in September, you issued a
    7-day letter to try to get the information of the private
    emails, and that you said that it was the only time in your
    tenure that you had to issue a 7-day letter. Is that accurate?
        Mr. Elkins. That is accurate, yes.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. So in spite of that, you were able to
    complete your investigation, and that led you to, ``evidence
    sufficient to support a conclusion that the chairman and two of
    his senior officials violated the Federal Records Act in
    implementing regulations by using non-governmental email
    systems.''
        Now, in your investigation, was that deliberate? Did these
    three individuals deliberately use their private emails to
    avoid the Federal Records Act?
        Mr. Elkins. It would sure seem that way, yes.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. And are there consequences for them, either
    individually or the board?
        Mr. Elkins. There definitely are consequences.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. Have there been consequences implemented?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, the consequences are that we sent that
    information on to the White House with--with the ROI, and then
    the White House would then have to take actions. And the White
    House, as I said earlier, has issued a letter directing that
    they comply with the law.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. So this is an issue of compliance. And I
    find in my previous life in local and state government is
    always a big issue, whether it is a civil grand jury or it is a
    legislative body trying to get people to comply, and it goes to
    a little bit about some of the concerns by previous speakers
    about the Peace Corps as well.
        So in terms of compliance specifically to CSB, are you
    satisfied that they are complying now with the letter of the
    law?
        Mr. Elkins. No, I can not say that I am totally satisfied,
    because they, again, have not affirmed that they have complied
    with our requests, so we are still waiting. So until I receive
    that affirmation, I do not know what I do not know.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. Okay. And, Mr. Horowitz, and again, my
    personal experience, whistleblowers are really important, but
    how you handle them is really important. So as you work on your
    working group, and just briefly if you could mention some of
    the struggles, my experience may be accurate or not, but it is
    mine, the front end and the back end are two of the most
    important, so trying to find out if somebody actually is valid
    and has objective material, and I wonder if you could comment
    on that, and then the back end when it comes to retribution.
        And then last, I have a question on a different subject
    matter. Maybe you could tell me, when you allocate resources
    for investigations, what percentage do you put to just getting
    the information, and has that changed over time?
        Mr. Horowitz. On the whistleblower issue, I could not agree
    with you more, Congressman. I think it is very important for
    IGs and our staffs to respect allegations that come in,
    thoroughly look at them, evaluate them, respond. I have found
    that simply the response and the interaction with folks coming
    forward is very important even if you ultimately conclude there
    is not merit or there is not sufficient information to
    corroborate the allegation. So that is, I think, very important
    on the front end.
        And then on the back end, I agree with you. If there is
    certainly confirmation of the allegations, making sure that
    there are processes in place and protections in place to ensure
    that whistleblowers who suffer retaliation have a vehicle to
    come forward and get remediation for what occurred and get it
    done promptly. And, frankly, one of the concerns, as I said
    that I have about the issue that is in the letter today, is
    that it comes up in two whistleblower cases where we have
    outstanding requests for several months, and the reason we are
    being asked to wait even longer through this week or next week
    is so the FBI can determine what are things we do not get
    access to so the Attorney General Or the Deputy Attorney
    General can decide we should get access to it. That is a
    problem also in terms of the message to a whistleblower as they
    look at issues if they see that process.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank the gentleman. Appreciate it.
        Chairman Chaffetz. We will now recognize the gentleman from
    Georgia, Mr. Hice, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The law is very clear when it states that all records,
    reports, documents, people and so forth are to provide the
    information that you need, and, of course, that is the issue
    that brings us here. You have stated clearly, each of you, that
    in order to do your job, you need 100 percent of the
    information that you request. That being the case, what
    percentage would you say of that 100 percent do you not receive
    or is delayed to the extent that it is problematic? Just--and I
    realize this is just a guess, but what would you say?
        Mr. Horowitz. Our issue has been the delay issue and the
    timely receipt of it, and the Congressman's----
        Mr. Hice. Okay.
        Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. Question as well, which is it is
    taking a substantial amount of my time as inspector general and
    a significant time of certain teams of mine who get delayed.
    Ultimately they may get the records, but it is taking us, in
    some instances----
        Mr. Hice. Okay. How much is delayed?
        Mr. Horowitz. Months----
        Mr. Hice. Okay.
        Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. Of time.
        Mr. Hice. The rest of you experience a similar type of
    thing?
        Mr. Elkins. Yes.
        Mr. Hice. Okay.
        Ms. Buller. In my case, we do not--up until recently, did
    not get the records, period, until we entered into the MOU.
        Mr. Hice. Okay. So we have a whole gamut of issues here:
    Significant delays to the extent that you are unable to do your
    job or not receiving the material at all?
        All right. Last year Attorney General Holder testified
    before the Judiciary Committee in April at that time regarding
    this type of issue. He said, ``I'm not sure exactly what the
    process is, but I do not think that it is anything that has had
    a negative impact on any investigation that he's tried to
    conduct.''
        What is your assessment of that statement? It sounds like
    it is not true.
        Mr. Horowitz. Well, the impact on our investigations has
    not been that we did not ultimately get the records. The impact
    on our investigations has been the time delay, and if there are
    findings associated with our efforts, that means we do not
    learn of them early enough, the Attorney General does not learn
    of them early enough, and the Congress does not learn of them
    early enough.
        Mr. Hice. But the Attorney General said that he is not
    aware of anything that has had a negative impact at all on the
    investigation, and that would not seem to be true.
        Mr. Horowitz. Well, as I mentioned, that is the impact we
    have had, that it's had on us, has been the delay and the delay
    in our ability to do our work and get our reports done, and
    that does have an impact on--on our ability to do what you--
    what Congress has instructed us to do.
        Mr. Hice. All right. I understand. Mr. Horowitz, you
    mentioned that during this time when you experienced personally
    in 2010 delays and the type of things that you are
    experiencing, that was right in the middle of some of the
    issues that were being dealt with, the PATRIOT Act, national
    security issues, Fast and Furious.
        Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
        Mr. Hice. There were a number of issues taking place at
    that time. And we have also determined today that our system
    around here in Washington operates with authority, people do as
    they are told. Is it reasonable to the average person hearing
    this information today to conclude that it would appear as
    though somewhere someone in whatever position of authority has
    been able to direct agencies to either withhold or delay
    information? Would that be a reasonable conclusion?
        Mr. Horowitz. In my instance, it was an FBI general counsel
    opinion that--and it was from--through the FBI back in 2010.
        Mr. Elkins. In my opinion, generally it starts at the top
    in terms of messaging, in culture. If the top says it is okay
    to do it, then everybody else will fall into line.
        Mr. Hice. Okay.
        Ms. Buller. In my case, it was a general counsel opinion
    that was issued that caused the problem.
        Mr. Hice. Okay. So this--the problem that you are facing is
    coming from somewhere at some higher level that is giving
    directives and it is going through. So as one of my colleagues
    mentioned a while ago, we need some names. If you are aware of
    any, we--in order to get to the root and pull the root of this
    problem up, we need some names, we need something to go by.
        Let me shift gears real quickly in the brief moment that I
    have left. Have--in the midst of your requesting information,
    have you, to your knowledge, ever received back information
    that was edited, altered, redacted in any way?
        Mr. Horowitz. We have initially received redacted
    information. We have also learned through our reviews that
    reports--productions that we were told were complete, it turned
    out when we interviewed witnesses were not complete, and we had
    to go back and ask for supplemental records.
        Mr. Hice. Okay. Mr. Elkins?
        Mr. Elkins. Yes. I ca not think of any instance where we
    have received information that has been redacted.
        Mr. Hice. Okay. Ms. Buller.
        Ms. Buller. Well, in our case, pursuant to the MOU, they do
    redact information before they give it to us.
        Mr. Hice. Okay. So we have a multiple issues of problems
    here, where you are not receiving information, you're receiving
    delayed information, or you're receiving information that, in
    one way or the other, is inaccurate when you receive it?
        Mr. Horowitz. That--we are being told it is complete, and
    it turns out we find other records along the way.
        Mr. Hice. Okay. Thank you.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize
    the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Cartwright, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The premise of the hearing today is getting full and
    efficient access to the information necessary to conduct
    effective oversight, but Congress needs to do oversight on the
    Inspectors General as well. In February 2014, as he said here
    today, Mr. Connolly and I wrote a letter to Deputy Director
    Colbert, inspector general Fong, and Deputy Assistant Director
    Campbell to raise serious concerns over the troubling
    activities of Treasury inspector general for Tax
    Administration, TIGTA for short, J. Russell George, with
    respect to TIGTA's May 14, 2013, final audit report named
    ``Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax Exempt
    Applications for Review.'' This included IG George appearing to
    have officially sanctioned audit processes and procedures that,
    both in appearance and in reality, indicate TIGTA's Office of
    Audit was conducting an audit on behalf of and in consultation
    with Republican members to the exclusion of Democratic members
    and staff.
        We concluded that TIGTA produced a fundamentally flawed
    audit that harmed the public interest to such a severe extent
    that trust and confidence in TIGTA's independence, ethics,
    competence and quality control have been called into question
    and its effectiveness had been threatened.
        We urged the Integrity Committee to investigate the matter.
    Their response was ridiculous. I am going to read it to you.
        ``Dear Ranking Members Connolly and Cartwright, the
    Integrity Committee, IC, of the Council of Inspectors General
    on Integrity and Efficiency recently reviewed the allegations
    you provided about non-conformity to GAGAS and evasiveness in
    testimony before Congress by J. Russell George, inspector
    general for Tax Administration. Your office referred these
    matters for IC consideration on February 5, 2014.
        The IC reviewed the allegations against Mr. George and
    requested his response. The IC reviewed the response from Mr.
    George and determined that his response sufficiently addressed
    the allegations, thus, the IC determined the matter did not
    meet the threshold for further consideration and has closed the
    matter. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely,
    Angela Byers, Acting Chair, Integrity Committee.'' That was
    their response.
        In September 2014, my office and the Connolly office
    requested a copy of the complete unredacted response that was
    submitted to the integrity committee by Mr. J. Russell George,
    and we still have not got a response. If his response was so
    comprehensive and beyond reproach, then why can't we even see
    that response?
        Look, this is about transparency and consistency. We would
    like--we would like to see all the documents related to this.
        Mr. Horowitz, can I get a promise from you that you will
    share that unredacted response with us in a timely fashion?
        Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, I learned about this last night
    from Congressman Connolly's staff. The statute that creates the
    integrity committee makes the FBI as the custodian of records
    for integrity committee matters. So I will follow up and ask
    the FBI about the records, but I--I know nothing more than what
    you just referenced in the letter, and need to follow up on
    that.
        Mr. Cartwright. Will you do--will you follow up?
        Mr. Horowitz. Yes, I will follow up----
        Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. On the request.
        Mr. Cartwright. Because I hope that you and Congressman
    Connolly and I and IG George can work together to get the
    information we need so that Congress can do its necessary
    oversight. Responses like that are just ridiculous and cannot
    be tolerated if we are going to believe in transparency and
    consistency in our oversight process. Do you agree with that?
        Mr. Horowitz. I do. And I have heard concerns raised by
    members of both parties about the Integrity Committee and
    making sure it is operating more effectively in terms of
    timeliness as well as transparency concerns, and something that
    we need to talk about. And I think, frankly, some of them are
    statutory based on how the Integrity Committee was created. So
    I think part of it is us talking with the FBI about the
    processes, but part of it is also talking about whether there
    needs to be any fixes to the statute.
        Mr. Cartwright. Then I thank you for your commitment, Mr.
    Horowitz. And, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the
    gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Russell, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Russell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The three of you and scores of your colleagues that stand
    with you believe that the IG Act is clear in granting you the
    authority to obtain all the documents, and that has been
    discussed many times respective to each department. A
    Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel opinion is
    pending that has been referenced that will either agree or
    disagree with the law. An affirmative ruling solves the
    dispute, a negative ruling will provide legal and congressional
    options to uphold the law against the ruling.
        Given the importance of the OLC ruling to unconstipate the
    timely review of information, what can Congress provide, in
    your view, to help expedite the ruling so you can do your job?
        Mr. Horowitz. I think continued contact with the Justice
    Department by the committee and Members of Congress, as I have
    been doing, to try and find out when we can expect an opinion.
        Mr. Russell. Mr. Elkins?
        Mr. Elkins. I will concur with Mr. Horowitz.
        Mr. Russell. Ms. Buller?
        Ms. Buller. From personal experience, I have noticed that
    every time Congress has gotten involved in our issue, we have
    seen movement, at least as far as Peace Corps is concerned, so
    I concur with what has been said.
        Mr. Russell. Would there be any other options beyond asking
    when a date could be expected? I mean, obviously they have told
    you that it may be in the fall, it may be--we are not sure.
    Congress could also get that type of an answer. What other
    options might be available?
        Mr. Horowitz. Well, certainly something I think we will
    discuss and think about and talk with the committee as to
    whether there are other options and other issues. As I said, I
    think Section 218 in the Appropriation Act has had a positive
    impact generally. Obviously there has been an issue that I have
    addressed today, but that is a vehicle by which there has been
    some change. And I concur fully with what inspector general
    Buller said, which is every time Congress has gotten involved,
    it has resulted in attempts to address some of our concerns.
        Mr. Russell. Other members of the panel?
        Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. This--this marks the halfway
    point of our hearing, and--hang in there. We are getting there.
    We are getting there.
        All right. We will now recognize the gentleman from
    Georgia, Mr. Carter, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And--thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        And thank all of you for being here and thank you for what
    you do. Please don't ever think that what you do is not
    important, please don't ever think that what you do is not
    appreciated. It is very much so.
        I can't help but get the impression, and please correct me
    if I am wrong, but at least in certain circumstances, it seems
    to be us against them. How did that evolve? I mean, what
    happened? What--how did we get to that point? I mean----
        Mr. Horowitz. It would--hard for me to say that, the latter
    part, because I was not there in 2010, but it is interesting
    you say that, because when I talk to my staff and they talk
    about what it was like before 2010, it was, we go--we are part
    of the Department of Justice, we are independent, but we are
    within the Justice Department. We would go to our components
    like the FBI and say, we are investigating the Hanssen spy
    matter. We need access to records. The discussion would be
    about how do we make sure we are looking at them in the
    appropriate place with the right people who have the right
    clearance, not, we have got to look at them, we are not sure if
    you are entitled to them. A completely different dialog and,
    frankly, I will go back to what Art said, culture. Inspector
    general Elkins has it just right. There was a sea--a
    significant change in the attitude with the relationship.
        Mr. Carter. Mr. Elkins?
        Mr. Elkins. In addition to that, I think in some cases
    agencies do not really understand the role of an IG and they
    see the IG has an adversary rather than as a vehicle to help
    the agency be more efficient and more effective, and that
    relates to culture as well, but if you come in with the
    attitude that, you know, the IG is an adversary, then that is
    going to set a--you know, it is going to set a tone. So I think
    that is a part of it.
        Mr. Carter. Okay.
        Ms. Buller. Well, from my perspective in the Peace Corps,
    we really did not have that mentality before the issuance of
    the general counsel's opinion. We had country directors who
    would call us asking for information, asking if this would be
    the type of case that we would normally take, things like that.
        Since the issuance of the general counsel's opinion, that
    kind of communication has pretty much stopped, which is really
    detrimental to volunteer victims of sexual assault in
    particular, because there are so many opportunities that they
    could get information from us on how to do things, how to
    process, for example, a safe kit, a rape kit that a country
    director does not feel comfortable even calling and asking
    anymore.
        Mr. Carter. All right.
        Mr. Horowitz. I was just going to say, and I want to make
    clear also, I have got a lot of components in the Justice
    Department. Most of them are still having that relationship. So
    we are doing a lot of work, for example, on the Federal Bureau
    of Prisons. We have a very strong working relationship with
    them. I could name many more components like that. So I do not
    want to leave that impression, but we do so much work with the
    FBI and the DEA, that that is where a lot of our work ends up
    focusing.
        Mr. Carter. Okay. Well, very quickly, and, you know, any
    time we are in a situation like this, we want to do some self-
    assessment. Mr. Horowitz, you said there were 72 IGs and that
    40-some-odd had signed off to this. Let's talk about those who
    did not. What are they doing differently? Are they not having
    any problems, or were they intimidated to not sign, or can we
    get any best practices from them? You know, let us----
        Mr. Horowitz. I think, frankly, you'd have to talk to the
    others who decided not to sign to understand why. I do not
    think it was necessarily because they--that the issues they
    were facing were the reason, or were not facing, were the
    reasons for their decision, but I think I would suggest you
    would really need to talk to them.
        Mr. Carter. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay.
        Very quickly, because I want to get this in. The
    recommendations that you make, particularly as it pertains to
    saving money, which is one of the primary reasons, if not the
    primary reasons that I am in Congress, it is because of an $18
    trillion debt that I do not want to leave for my children, I do
    not want to leave to my grandchildren, none of you do. Are
    those recommendations being looked at? Are they being adhered
    to? What----
        Mr. Horowitz. We followup on all our recommendations and we
    find, generally speaking, they are implemented and they are
    followed. We have issues at times, but we have a very strong
    track record of--at the Department of following up on them.
        I will add one way to save money and time, frankly, is
    resolve this issue, because it is causing a waste of resources
    and time on all sides.
        Mr. Carter. Great.
        Well, Mr. Chairman, that was the quickest 5 minutes I have
    ever seen, but nevertheless----
        Chairman Chaffetz. They get faster and faster, I guarantee
    you.
        Mr. Carter. Okay. Nevertheless, please understand, whatever
    the ruling is of the OLC, regardless, what you do is important,
    what you do is appreciated. If you continue to have problems,
    please, please come back to us.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the
    gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Palmer. First of all, thank each one of you for your
    service and for coming today.
        Mr. Elkins, I believe you were asked earlier about the
    EPA's Office of Homeland Security. Is this the office that
    utilizes armed agents?
        Mr. Elkins. No. They should not have any armed agents.
        Mr. Palmer. Are you aware, or do you know what office or
    division of EPA has armed agents?
        Mr. Elkins. Sure. That would be the CID division.
        Mr. Palmer. Okay. Has anyone contacted your office about
    the use of these armed agents against private citizens or
    municipal governments at any level?
        Mr. Elkins. Not that I am aware, but we may have hotline
    complaints that just have not reached their way to me as of
    yet.
        Mr. Palmer. Okay. There is an issue of this that I would
    like to address later, Mr. Chairman, this may not be the
    appropriate forum for that, of the EPA using armed agents,
    particularly against a small town in Alabama where they showed
    up at a waste treatment facility, full body armor and weapons
    drawn, and I would think that would be an area that would be of
    interest to the Inspector General's office in terms of
    oversight. That is a little heavy-handed.
        Ms. Buller, in regard to the situation at the Peace Corps,
    were any of the people who were involved in the sexual assault
    prosecuted?
        Ms. Buller. We have had instances where we have had
    prosecutions for sexual assault. Most of the instances of
    sexual assault involved host country nationals, so they are
    prosecuted in their country.
        Mr. Palmer. Were there any cases where the prosecution may
    have been impeded?
        Ms. Buller. As far as the--this new policy that's been
    implemented?
        Mr. Palmer. Right.
        Ms. Buller. it is only been in place for about a year. And
    if a volunteer chooses to go restricted reporting, there is no
    prosecution that's done.
        Mr. Palmer. Okay. Then can you speculate, or maybe you can
    give an answer as to why your investigation would have been
    impeded?
        Ms. Buller. It would not necessarily have been my
    investigation, it would have been the investigation of the host
    country where the incident occurred, but when a person decides
    to file a restricted report, it does not go outside of a
    specific chain of people, so there would be no possibility for
    the local law enforcement to get the information.
        Mr. Palmer. Okay. And, Mr. Horowitz, I have a question for
    you in regard to the overall discussion that we have had here
    today. Do you think any of these delays would constitute
    obstruction?
        Mr. Horowitz. They certainly have had a significant impact
    on our reviews. The--the time ranges are very significant.
    Ultimately we have gotten--or we are told we have gotten the
    records, so I think that is where it stands at this point. They
    have certainly--for the time when we are not getting them, they
    have obstructed us and prevented us from completing our work in
    a timely fashion.
        Mr. Palmer. In regard to a timely fashion, then,
    particularly where it involves political appointees, would
    that--could that be considered an act of running out the clock?
        Mr. Horowitz. I do not know specifically what the motive is
    for why this is occurring. Frankly, it started with the FBI
    with the general counsel, who is not a political appointee, who
    came in. But there certainly could be more done to resolve this
    quickly in terms of the OLC opinion, it seems to me. We--again,
    we just need an opinion. Hopefully it will be good, but if it
    is not good, that will allow Congress to look at what is
    problematic from the Department's standpoint and then correct
    the problem.
        Mr. Palmer. Well, to echo what Congressman Carter said, we
    do appreciate the work that you are doing. I think it is
    absolutely critical that we have transparency and oversight and
    accountability, and anything that can be done to expedite your
    work needs to be done. I think we owe it to the American people
    to restore confidence in our government. And I thank you for
    the job you are doing and for your willingness to come before
    us today.
        I yield the rest of my time, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. Now recognize the gentleman
    from Texas, Mr. Hurd, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Hurd. I'd like to add my thanks to you all on coming
    here today. My first question is actually for Mr. Elkins. As a
    former CIA officer for 9 years, I was undercover. The case of
    John Beale is very interesting to me. It is usually the other
    way around. We are saying we are someone else rather than
    someone saying they are one of us. What do you need in order to
    continue that investigation and bring that to closure?
        Mr. Elkins. Well, the--Mr. Beale's case has been closed. He
    is serving time in prison----
        Mr. Hurd. Okay.
        Mr. Elkins [continuing]. Right now.
        Mr. Hurd. Well, good work.
        And my next question is for Ms. Buller. You know, in the
    documents you provided talking about, our push for access is
    about fulfilling our collective responsibility to ensure that
    we, Congress, the Peace Corps and the OIG do everything we can
    to ensure our volunteers, who sacrifice so much time when
    serving in remote corners of the world, receive the services
    they need when they are victims of assault. And my question to
    you is how can we better fulfill our collective responsibility?
    You had mentioned earlier about having the Peace Corps retract
    their general counsel opinion. What else--what else can be
    done?
        Ms. Buller. Well, short of Peace Corps retracting the
    general counsel opinion, the only other alternative I can see
    is Congress taking some sort of action to make it perfectly
    clear that the IG Act means what the IG Act says, and that we
    have access to all of the information.
        Mr. Hurd. Excellent. Thank you for that.
        Mr. Horowitz, my next question, in your opening statements,
    you talked about the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection
    Act. And how is that specifically hindering the ability of the
    IG community to execute its responsibilities?
        Mr. Horowitz. The issue there is that IGs in one department
    have access to certain information; IGs in another department
    have access to information. And one of the things that we try
    and do, for example, is try and detect improper payments. Where
    are individuals getting payments from two agencies that are
    duplicative, that they should not get both, they might be
    entitled to neither, but they are certainly not entitled to
    both. And so that would be an example where if we could
    exchange that information and speak about--and match the data
    in an easier way through our own initiative, that would be
    helpful to us.
        Mr. Hurd. So do IGs not have the ability to directly access
    information from servers?
        Mr. Horowitz. We do not have the--that is a major issue for
    several IGs directly, which is we do not have the ability to
    directly access that in our own agencies, and we also do not
    have the ability to access data or information across agency
    without going through the process in the Computer Matching Act
    which requires us, for example, to go to the agency's
    leadership to decide if they should give us the authority to be
    able to match information that would look at potential
    misconduct or wrongdoing within the agencies.
        Mr. Hurd. So why do some IGs have direct access and others
    don't?
        Mr. Horowitz. By statute as well as by approval through the
    various processes that are laid out in the statute.
        Mr. Hurd. So does this impact an IGs independence?
        Mr. Horowitz. It would certainly strengthen and--our
    ability to be more independent, because to get those approvals
    for many of us, we need to go through our agency head. It is
    not something that I as IG have the authority to decide. I have
    to go through the agency leadership to get that authority, and
    so that does impair our independence.
        Mr. Hurd. So if the IG has to request access to information
    from someone within the agency itself, does this tip off the
    agency that the IG is conducting an investigation?
        Mr. Horowitz. They would normally be aware generally of our
    review. it is, frankly, more a concern that they are managing
    the documents. And, as my colleagues said, you do not know what
    you do not know. We do not know how thorough it is, how
    promptly it is being done.
        In my situation, we are being told we are getting
    everything. In Ms. Buller's situation, she was being told she
    was not getting everything. And that is the concern. It should
    be the Inspectors General who are deciding what documents we
    need to do our work. The system that is set up for several of
    us now is that the agency is deciding what documents it thinks
    we should get for our work.
        Mr. Hurd. Well, as the chairman of the Information
    Technology Subcommittee of this committee, I am looking forward
    to having further conversations on this topic, something that
    is very important in order for you all to continue to do your
    jobs of making sure that the money we collect from citizens is
    being used effectively and efficiently. So appreciate your time
    and what you guys do.
        I yield back the rest of my time.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank the gentleman from Texas. And now
    recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, for 5
    minutes.
        Mr. Grothman. Thanks much.
        Chairman Chaffetz. If you can hit your button there, talk
    button there.
        Mr. Grothman. There we are. Okay. There we are.
        You talked about expanding--Mr. Horowitz, you talked about
    expanding IG authority and compelling more testimony. Can you
    give me examples of how that would benefit your work?
        Mr. Horowitz. So, for example, we often--we have often
    faced the problem where on the eve of an interview, employees
    have retired or resigned. At that point, we do not have
    access--we can ask them for a voluntary interview, but we can
    not compel them to testify, which they would have to do had
    they still been an employee. And what we want to ask them about
    is conduct while they were employed. And that is the difficulty
    we are facing.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Can you give me any specific example
    where you really wish you had that authority?
        Mr. Horowitz. Well, one that comes to mind, in the--one of
    the reviews we did after Fast and Furious, we wanted to
    interview the U.S. attorney from Arizona, who had already
    resigned from the Department, and he declined our voluntary
    request for an interview. We have no further ability to get
    that information. He had actually provided testimony to the
    Congress, I believe to this committee, and the committee then
    allowed us to see the testimony he had given to you, but that
    is how we got his information.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. That applies when somebody is no longer
    in government service or no longer at their job, or what is
    the----
        Mr. Horowitz. Correct. it is someone who once was in
    government service, we want to talk to them about what they did
    while they were in government service, but then left the
    service. And at that point--we can subpoena those people, by
    the way, for their records, we just can not get their
    testimony.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. And you still have the authority over
    them if they are working anywhere in the government or do they
    have to be in the executive branch or----
        Mr. Horowitz. If they are within the executive branch, we
    have had instances where we have gone to other IGs in other
    agencies and worked with them to compel the testimony, because
    they are still employed within the government, within the
    Federal Government.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. Could you give me another example of
    appropriate boundaries you think where any more authority would
    be?
        Mr. Horowitz. Well, I think there needs to be some
    assurances, protections built in that were--that there are
    careful consideration before we are running out and subpoenaing
    individuals who are no longer with the government, for example.
    We have got to make sure that we are not compelling testimony
    where there is a Justice Department prosecution that could be
    impaired. So there are a couple of things that we need to do,
    in my personal opinion, to take those steps.
        Mr. Grothman. I do not know. Do you ever abuse your
    discretion now, you know?
        Mr. Horowitz. No. I agree. I mean, I think--but it is the
    same thing. For example, subpoena authority that my office has,
    there are certain categories of subpoenas that come to me
    personally for my personal review. There are others that we
    allow folks other than myself to authorize. And I think those
    are the kind of controls we--where we want to make sure exist
    so that it is elevated to a high level and there is careful
    consideration given to it.
        Mr. Grothman. Okay. We are almost done here. You are on the
    home stretch. I'll ask you--I'll ask you just a broad question
    for each one of the three of you.
        Obviously, you know, your testimony today is just scary,
    because, you know, we rely on you guys so much to make sure our
    government is functioning and it is functioning with integrity.
    Do you have any broad comments on how you see individuals
    responding today? I mean, you have all had a given period of
    time in this position, over a given period of years. Say today
    compared to 4 years ago, 8 years ago, what have you, do you see
    any trends going on?
        Mr. Elkins. I do not know if I would call it trends. Ever
    since I have been in this role, I have seen these issues that
    we are talking about today, they have always been there.
        So if there is any trend, the trend is is that having the
    support of this committee has made a positive difference,
    because to the extent that we are seeing arguments or
    obstructions, those instances are actually becoming fewer, and
    there is a sense from the agency head at least to want to talk
    about cooperation. That would not have happened but for your
    involvement. So that is the trend that I am seeing.
        Mr. Grothman. Thank you. Go ahead.
        Ms. Buller. From my perspective, the trend has been toward
    not--it--the staff of the Peace Corps has been very confused by
    the general counsel's opinion as to whether or not they can
    cooperate with us, whether they can give us any information,
    not just the information related to sexual assault. Before the
    opinion, we had a fairly good working relationship with the
    staff of the Peace Corps. We would have, as all IGs do, little
    times where they have questions about what we are doing, but
    they were readily answered and we got what we needed. it is
    changed now.
        Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank the gentleman. I thank the
    gentleman. I will now recognize the gentleman from South
    Carolina, Mr. Gowdy, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to take this
    opportunity to congratulate you and the ranking member on
    your--your new title, the ranking member's continuing title,
    and thank both of you for having this very important hearing,
    which was consistent with your work when you were on the
    committee before you were the chairman.
        I apologize to our three witnesses. There is a simultaneous
    hearing going on in Judiciary, which required my time, but
    before I left, Mr. Chairman, I made a note that perhaps at a
    future hearing, if you decided it was worthwhile, it might be
    productive for us to have the Department and have the Bureau
    and have the appropriators here so we can all kind of have this
    conversation at the same time. You know, for Mr. Horowitz to
    have a position that is not held by the Department of Justice,
    I don't know who would win that debate. Mr. Horowitz has a
    tendency to win most debates he is in, but I think it would be
    helpful for everybody to be at the table together.
        With that in mind, Mr. Horowitz, it is been a long time
    since I took a class on statutory construction, so I am going
    to ask you to help me with that. Here is the phrase: all
    records, reports, documents, or materials. What do you think
    the word ``all'' means?
        Mr. Horowitz. it is been a long time as well for me, but
    ``all'' means everything, all.
        Mr. Gowdy. Now, you had a very distinguished career in the
    Southern District of New York. I think you were a white collar
    prosecutor. I suspect that when you were doing investigations,
    you wanted as many documents as you could have before you made
    a charging decision. Right?
        Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
        Mr. Gowdy. And you worked for the Department of Justice,
    and I assume that when it came time for you to meet your
    discovery obligations to the defense, you did not kind of pick
    and choose which documents you wanted to turn over, you turned
    over all those that you were legally required to do so.
        Mr. Horowitz. That is correct. In fact, my practice was to
    invite the lawyers in and they could look through the file
    cabinets.
        Mr. Gowdy. An open file policy.
        Mr. Horowitz. Open file policy.
        Mr. Gowdy. All right. I want to ask you specifically with
    respect to material witness warrants, for those watching at
    home who do not know what that is and do not know why it is
    important, what is it and what do you want access to that you
    are not gaining access to?
        Mr. Horowitz. So material witness warrants are a process by
    which an agent and a prosecutor can go to a court to arrest an
    individual, not for committing a crime, but because they have
    relevant evidence that relates to a criminal investigation.
    That provision has various restrictions on it.
        One of the allegations that occurred after 9/11 was whether
    the Department and law enforcement components were abusing that
    authority to arrest witnesses. We undertook a review. We asked
    for information relating to grand jury proceedings, which is
    critical to understanding what is being done, because the very
    purpose of arresting the individual is to put them before the
    grand jury to get testimony. So in order to understand whether
    it is being abused or not, you need to know what's happening in
    the grand jury. We asked for that information back. This
    occurred right in the outset of some of these issues, 2010,
    2011. It took, if I recall correctly, nearly a year to get
    resolution on that so we could gain access to those grand jury
    records so we could evaluate whether the work was being done
    properly or whether we had concerns about it.
        Mr. Gowdy. There is an old adage that justice delayed is
    justice denied, and evidently we have bought in--we have bought
    into that as a country, because there is a Speedy Trial Act
    for--for prosecutors----
        Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
        Mr. Gowdy [continuing]. So you can get the case to court.
        Mr. Horowitz. Right.
        Mr. Gowdy. Explain to us why it is not only important that
    you get the information, the ``all'' in that statute, but also
    get it in a timely fashion?
        Mr. Horowitz. We get allegations about waste, fraud, abuse,
    about misconduct, about whistleblower retaliation, just to give
    you some examples. We are reviewing those to see if, in fact,
    they are accurate. I think everyone would agree that if there
    are allegations of whistleblower retaliation that prove to be
    true, waste, fraud, abuse going on in the Justice Department,
    everybody would want to see that uncovered as quickly as
    possible so it could be remediated, so it could be addressed,
    so it could be fixed. That is the kind of delay that--that is
    the kind of impact we are having when we are delayed.
        Mr. Gowdy. I think it is important for the folks at home to
    understand that the three of you, Jason uses the word sometimes
    ``auditor.'' Because he is not a lawyer, he uses words that are
    easier for him to understand. I think of you as being more
    independent, neutral arbiters. You do not work for anybody
    except for your fellow citizens. And I really--you know, I do
    not know whether I will live long enough to see a Republican
    administration or not, but this really should transcend
    politics. You cannot do your job without timely access to the
    documents. And I do not know the other two inspector generals
    as well as I know Mr. Horowitz, but you have a reputation of
    being a total, complete strait arrow who calls balls and
    strikes exactly as you see it.
        Mr. Horowitz. Sure.
        Mr. Gowdy. I am completely comfortable with you in your
    job. I'd be more comfortable if you had access to all the
    documents in a timely fashion. And I wish all three of you
    luck.
        Mr. Cummings. Will the gentleman yield?
        Mr. Gowdy. Certainly.
        Mr. Cummings. The--first of all, I think the gentleman's
    made some excellent points. And going back to your initial
    point with regard to having everybody in the room, I think that
    is a great idea. As a matter of fact, the chairman and I had
    talked about it a little earlier today, not on the record, that
    we were going to try to get these folks on the other side of
    this to get an understanding of what is happening there so that
    we could move forward, and the chairman has said that perhaps
    we would have a hearing, but we would bring those folks in,
    because I agree, we have got to get past this, we--and so I
    just wanted to make you aware of that.
        Mr. Gowdy. Well, I know that when you and Chairman Chaffetz
    put your minds in the same direction, there is nothing that
    cannot be accomplished. So I----
        Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman's time----
        Mr. Gowdy [continuing]. Look forward to----
        Chairman Chaffetz [continuing]. Has expired. I now
    recognize the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Buck, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Buck. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Horowitz, I wanted to visit with you a little bit. I
    may be the only Member of Congress that worked in an IGs office
    a number of years ago before I became a prosecutor, and I have
    a concern. Without seeing the IGs subpoena and without hearing
    from the other side, do your subpoenas, in any way, inhibit an
    investigation? In other words, you are all--you were also a
    prosecutor, you understand the discovery requirements that can
    be created if there is a parallel investigation, you understand
    the concerns with grand jury secrecy and the disclosure that
    must be made to a court. Do your--are your requests narrowly
    enough drawn so that they do not inhibit FBI prosecutions and
    counterintelligence, counterterrorism, very serious areas?
        Mr. Horowitz. Very fair question and something as a former
    prosecutor, I am acutely aware of. We do a couple of things to
    try and be careful in that regard. We tend not to undertake
    investigations or reviews while there are criminal cases
    ongoing or criminal prosecutions ongoing; we try to make sure
    where that is happening but we need to investigate, we do it in
    a manner that does not trample into an area that could harm the
    case. Best example I can give is, and I was not here at the
    time, but post-9/11, we were asked to look at the issues at the
    same time the Moussaoui prosecution was going forward. And
    everything I have heard from my staff is an example of,
    frankly, their longing for the good old days where we did work
    together in a manner that the FBI respected our ability to have
    to plow--move forward, get the work done, but we also
    understood and worked with the agency to make sure that we did
    it in a responsible, careful way, but never compromising our
    independence, never compromising our thoroughness and making
    sure we did everything to get to the bottom of issues.
        Mr. Buck. And a perfect example might be a subpoena for--a
    grand jury subpoena for financial records. We would typically
    ask for 3 or 4 years of financial records, and then get a
    monthly statement and then go through the monthly statement and
    ask for specific items that we are looking for.
        Do you have that relationship with the Bureau at this point
    where you can actually ask for a broader area to go through
    specifically and say this is what we are really after, can you
    help us, or is that something that you do not want to do? Does
    that give away your investigation?
        Mr. Horowitz. No. We have had that discussion. Indeed, I
    will give you a good example. Just recently with the DEA, and
    Section 218, we had a deadline approaching, I talked with the
    administrator, I talked with an associate in the Deputy
    Attorney General's Office with constructive ideas on how to
    make sure we saw and had access to the information we needed to
    assure ourselves that we were getting that, but then allow them
    to keep custody, take custody of the records that were
    unrelated and were not of interest to us going forward so that
    we could make sure that we had satisfied our needs in terms of
    thoroughness, review, et cetera, but also respecting their
    concerns about how the records were maintained and stored and
    kept.
        And those are the kinds of dialogs that should be
    occurring; not can we get access, but how do we make sure our
    access is done in a manner that is consistent with our
    independence, consistent with your expectations of what we need
    to do to get to the bottom of issues, but also understanding
    that there are countervailing issues and concerns out there.
        Mr. Buck. With the short time I have left, I want to ask a
    question of the whole panel. And you mentioned the word
    ``independence.'' From the agency's perspective, often it is
    not independence, it is a thorn in their side. What you
    discover may embarrass them, what you discover may be something
    that they--that is turned around in the press and embarrasses
    them in a way that indicates that they are not doing their job
    properly, or it could be used for political purposes by others.
        How do we overcome that issue? And I throw this open. How
    do we--how do we really address the--what we all want, which is
    achieving an efficient and accountable government?
        Mr. Elkins. I think it boils down to trust ultimately. If
    the two parties trust that we are all on the same page--because
    at the end of the day, we are all on the same page. You know,
    we all work for an agency, and the mission of the agency is our
    mission. For EPA, it is to protect public health and the
    environment. That is my job to do that as well. But my job is a
    little different, because I am focused on identifying where
    funds are not being used to the full extent and then making
    recommendations that they can. So it really kind of boils down
    to trust. If you have got the trust in the relationship, things
    can work out. If you do not have trust, it is going to be
    rocky.
        Mr. Buck. I yield.
        Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. Thank you. Well said. I now
    recognize the gentleman, Mr. Cummings from Maryland.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
    thank all of you for being here today. You know, when I was
    sitting here listening to you all, I could not help but think
    about when I was teaching my--one of my sisters to drive. And
    so she is driving along and I am sitting in the driver's seat--
    I mean, in the passenger's seat, and a man steps out and she
    almost hits him. And I stepped on her foot, literally. You
    know, I put my foot on--on the brake, and I said, ``Why did you
    do that?'' And she said, ``He should not have been there. I
    said, He was there.''
        My point is is that, you know, we do have a problem here,
    and that is why I have spent so much time, and the chairman and
    our committee trying to help resolve the problem, because we do
    have a problem. So on the one hand, hopefully we get to some
    type of permanent solution, but in the meantime, we want to do
    everything in our power to help you do your jobs.
        And I understand the frustration. I really do. I understand
    you have your--you've got the IG law, which seems to be very
    clear, but on the other hand, I have to believe that there are
    people on the other side of these arguments who might make very
    strong arguments saying that they are trying to obey the law
    and trying to do what they believe is right. I have asked you,
    I asked you all earlier whether you felt that somebody was
    trying to hide something and all that, and you basically said
    no. So--so we have got to get past this.
        I just want to commit to you that I'm--I am committed to
    both--both sides, in other words, to both avenues: one, to do
    whatever we have to do right now to get you where you have got
    to go and at the same time trying to come up with a permanent
    solution. I think we have got to do both. I do not think that
    we can stand around and not try to do something to help you get
    past some of these immediate problems that you are
    experiencing.
        And, again, I want to--I want you all to do your jobs. You
    have very, very important jobs. I mean, we sit here, and I know
    the chairman will agree with me, there are many times we get
    very frustrated trying to figure out how do we make sure that
    government does what government is supposed to do. And then--
    you know, and then--so the now is--now we are at a point where
    we--we've got to try to figure out how can we get these issues
    resolved as fast as possible.
        It is going to be interesting to hear the other side. I
    want to hear what they have got to say. I am absolutely
    curious, Mr. Horowitz, as to why the same things that you are
    requesting that you used to be able to get now you can not get
    them. I am curious. I want to know that. I really do.
        I also do not want us to move away from what Ms. Norton
    said. It may be a situation where there have been some things
    that have changed. I do not know. I thought maybe it was
    because of 9/11, but this stuff just happened. So--I mean, it
    started in 2010, right?
        Mr. Horowitz. [no verbal response.]
        Mr. Cummings. So, again, and I'm saying to the departments
    that are listening to us today, get ready, because we want
    maximum cooperation with the IGs, but we also want everybody to
    be able to do their job in an effective and efficient manner.
        So, again, I want to thank all of you. I want to make sure
    that, not just the witnesses, but all the IGs who have taken
    the time out to be here today, I want to thank you for making a
    difference in our country. I know that many of you all get--
    have frustrations, but the fact is that you all are making a
    big, big difference, and we want to help you make an even
    bigger difference. And may God bless you and God bless all of
    those who work with you and support you. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman. And I want to
    echo and--the sentiment that you feel, I think, on both sides
    of the aisle. We truly do appreciate the good work, the hard
    work, the diligent work that is done within the IG community.
    We have more than 13,000 people who dedicate their time and
    their lives. They are patriotic Americans. They're trying to
    root out the waste, the fraud, the abuse, the bad apples that
    might be there, and for that, we thank you and appreciate that.
    I know a lot of you work for a long period of time and wonder
    does anybody pay attention to that, does anybody read that, and
    I assure you that it is of the utmost importance.
        As I said at the beginning, if you can not do your job,
    then we can not do our job in Congress. And we rely so heavily
    on your perspective, your non-partisan view of the world and
    the objective viewpoint that you take. And to that extent, I
    hope you all carry back how much we love, care and appreciate
    those that work day in and day out.
        So this has been a bit of a long hearing, and this
    committee now stands adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 1:13 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

                                    APPENDIX

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                   Material Submitted for the Hearing Record

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

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