[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 5 (Monday, January 31, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S130-S132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE PENTAGON'S ACTING INSPECTOR GENERAL
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment with my
colleagues to discuss a recent article that was in the National
Journal. It was about the Pentagon's Acting Inspector General, Mr.
Donald Mancuso. The article was written by Mr. George Wilson. Mr.
Wilson was a senior defense reporter at the Washington Post for many
years. He left the Washington Post in 1991 to write books. He is now a
columnist with the National Journal.
Mr. Wilson is a top-notch reporter. He is respected for being very
thorough and very fair. But, above all, he is respected for an uncanny
ability to find the nub of a complex issue and expose it to public
scrutiny in an interesting
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and also informative way. He had a recent article in the National
Journal that is no exception. It has exposed a very raw nerve. The
article is entitled: ``Tailhook May Soil Choice for Pentagon's Mr.
Clean.'' It appeared in the January 22, 2000, issue of the National
Journal on pages 260 and 261.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have that article printed
in the Record at the end of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit 1.)
Mr. GRASSLEY. The article I refer to raises important questions, even
new questions, about Mr. Mancuso's integrity and judgment. At some
point down the road, this body may be called upon to confirm or not
confirm Mr. Mancuso's nomination because it has been suggested that
President Clinton is expected to nominate him to be the next Department
of Defense Inspector General.
If that happens, then each Member of this body would need to weigh
all the facts bearing on Mr. Mancuso's fitness to serve as the
Pentagon's watchdog, which is also the Pentagon's top cop.
In October, my staff on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative
Oversight and the Courts issued, for me, a report on the Defense
Criminal Investigative Service. I am going to refer to that, as it is
always referred to, as the DCIS--Defense Criminal Investigative
Service.
I strongly urge my colleagues to read this report. It substantiated
allegations of misconduct on the part of senior DCIS management,
including Mr. Mancuso, and at least one of his investigators, Mr.
Mathew Walinsky. Mr. Mancuso at that time was Director of DCIS, and he
was so from 1988 until 1997.
Since that report was issued in October, my staff has been inundated
with new complaints about alleged misconduct by Mr. Mancuso and
mismanagement at DCIS while Mr. Mancuso was the Director of DCIS. My
staff is now in the process of evaluating these allegations to
determine if they have merit. Once that review has been conducted, I
may issue a second report.
Getting back to Mr. Wilson's article in the National Journal, by
comparison, instead of my report opening up a new can of worms, Mr.
Wilson's article has opened an old can of worms--in this case, Navy
worms. It explores Mr. Mancuso's role in the investigation of
misconduct at the infamous Tailhook convention in September 1991. By
reopening this very unfortunate episode in naval history, Mr. Wilson
has shed new light on Mr. Mancuso's fitness to move into the inspector
general's slot.
Mr. Wilson reports that the U.S. Court of Military Appeals condemned
Mr. Mancuso and the DCIS for, in their words, ``heavy-handed
investigative tactics that trampled constitutional rights.'' According
to Mr. Wilson, Mr. Mancuso's tactics included ``threats, intimidation,
falsification of interviews, and overreliance on lie detectors.''
In an opinion issued on January 11, 1994, on the Tailhook case, the
U.S. Court of Military Appeals denounced Mr. Mancuso's tactics. The
court compared the Tailhook case review process, which was set up by
Mr. Mancuso, to sort of an assembly line justice, where investigative
and judicial functions were merged and blurred. ``Merged'' and
``blurred'' are words the court used. ``Assembly line'' are words the
court used. The court called Mr. Mancuso's assembly line justice
``troublesome.''
Going on to quote the court:
At best, it reflects a most curiously careless and
amateurish approach to a very high profile case by
experienced military lawyers and investigators. At worst, it
raises the possibility of a shadiness in respecting the
rights of military members caught up in a criminal
investigation that cannot be condoned.
That is what the U.S. Court of Military Appeals had to say. That is
the highest military court in our land. It is often called the United
States Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces. So this highest court has
condemned Mr. Mancuso for ``shadiness.'' The court said his practices
were ``careless and amateurish'' and even ``troublesome.'' The court
said he and his investigators failed to respect the constitutional
rights of members of the armed services.
I hope the Chair will agree that these are very serious charges about
a person whom the President may nominate for our confirmation as
inspector general of the Department of Defense. The court's criticism--
again referring to the Court of Military Appeals--may help to explain
why the Tailhook investigation was a total failure. The entire
investigation probably cost the taxpayers close to $10 million and
involved several thousand interviews. Unfortunately, not one single
naval aviator who faced an assault charge was ever convicted by a
court-martial.
As the Director of DCIS, Mr. Mancuso led the Tailhook investigation.
He is accountable for failing to conduct it as a professional. A
legitimate question for my colleagues and for the President: Should
that same man, a man who used shady investigative tactics, a man who
failed to respect naval judicial process in Tailhook, be confirmed as
the Pentagon's watchdog? It is legitimate to ask if Mr. Mancuso is the
best person to fill that position.
I leave those thoughts with my colleagues over the next several weeks
as this nomination may come up for consideration.
I yield the floor.
Exhibit No. 1
[From the National Journal, January 22, 2000]
Tailhook May Soil Choice for Pentagon's Mr. Clean
(By George C. Wilson)
The man President Clinton is expected to nominate as
inspector general of the Defense Department--the Pentagon's
top cop--is coming under increased scrutiny in the Senate for
questionable official conduct. Questions surround his role in
the Tailhook sexual assault investigation of the early 1990s
and his handling of his own investigators, one of whom
pleaded guilty to stealing a 13-year-old boy's identity to
obtain a false passport.
Donald Mancuso, the Pentagon's acting inspector general and
probable nominee for the permanent job, formerly led the
Defense Criminal Investigative Service. DCIS, which conducts
most of the fraud and misconduct investigations at the
Defense Department, had taken over the Tailhook investigation
in 1992 after the Navy was accused of botching it.
During the Tailhook investigation, naval aviators accused
Mancuso's agents of heavy-handed tactics that trampled their
constitutional rights. These tactics, they maintained,
included threats, intimidation, falsification of interviews,
and overreliance on lie detectors. In the end, no aviator was
convicted at court-martial for misconduct at the Tailhook
convention, which was held in September 1991 at the Las Vegas
Hilton.
The U.S. Court of Military Appeals, in its review of the
Tailhook cases, criticized military lawyers and the IG's
investigators--who were supervised by Mancuso--for procedures
that were ``troublesome.'' The court faulted investigators
for an approach that was ``curiously careless and
amateurish,'' and that didn't sufficiently respect the rights
of suspects.
Several lawyers who defended Tailhook aviators told
National Journal that they stand ready to cite examples of
misconduct by DCIS agents if the Mancuso nomination moves
forward. Their testimony could widen and escalate a battle
over Mancuso that Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, began at the
end of the past congressional session. White House attorneys
had focused on Grassley's earlier objections, but they
apparently had not looked into Mancuso's Tailhook role when
they told National Journal recently that they saw no reason
to recommend he not be nominated.
Grassley up to now had focused his objections on Mancuso's
supposedly poor judgment while director of the Defense
Criminal Investigative Service from 1988-97. Grassley accused
Mancuso of coddling a deputy after the deputy confessed to
stealing a dead boy's identity in an effort to get a false
passport for still-mysterious reasons.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has mounted a stout
defense of Mancuso and has told Grassley that none of the
Senator's objections should bar him from advancement.
However, the Tailhook connection, which Grassley's
investigators have just begun to probe, may turn the Mancuso
nomination into a ``bolter''--pilot talk for an airplane that
misses the arresting wires stretched across an aircraft-
carrier deck and so fails to land. Grassley will do his best
to exploit the Tailhook connection in hearings and on the
Senate floor. Former Navy Secretary John W. Warner, R-Va.,
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which would
hold confirmation hearings on a Mancuso nomination, is likely
to plead with the President not to nominate anybody who would
pull Congress back into the Tailhook swamp.
The U.S. Court of Military Appeals denounced the tactics of
Mancuso's agents in an opinion issued on Jan. 11, 1994, on a
Tailhook case against Navy Lt. David Samples. The defendant
had been charged with participating in the ``gantlet'' in
which drunken pilots groped, and in some cases assaulted,
dozens of women who ventured down the third-floor hallway at
the Hilton. Samples charged that he endured his own intensive
gantlet of interrogations as one naval
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officer after another advised him to tell what he knew and,
in his view, guaranteed him complete immunity if he did.
After undergoing the Navy interviews, he was immediately
interrogated by DCIS in assembly line fashion.
In court testimony, Special Agent Matthew A. Walinsky of
DCIS attributed the assembly line idea to DCIS Director
Mancuso: ``We felt that, or the director [of the] DCIS felt
that, it was one of the ways that we could have a resolution
in the case and be fair to everybody that was involved in
[the] case, so that they would have a walk-away'' from any
further entanglement in the Tailhook mess.
The U.S. Court of Military Appeals assailed the
arrangement: ``The assembly line technique in this case that
merged and blurred investigative and justice procedures is
troublesome. At best, it reflects a most curiously careless
and amateurish approach to a very high profile case by
experienced military lawyers and investigators. At worst, it
raises the possibility of a shadiness in respecting the
rights of military members caught up in a criminal
investigation that cannot be condoned.''
Mancuso, when asked by National Journal to respond to the
court's denunciation, said: ``The quote [from the decision]
was taken out of context and exhibits a lack of understanding
of the technique being discussed. . . . DCIS played a minor
role in the `assembly line technique' as described in the
opinion. The DCIS investigation of the Tailhook matter was
handled thoroughly and professionally.''
But Charles W. Gittins of Middletown, Va., a defense
attorney in the Tailhook case, charged in an interview with
National Journal that Mancuso's DCIS agents ``routinely
violated naval officers' rights with threats of retribution
for failure to cooperate,'' Gittins said that Mancuso's
supervision of his investigators ``left much to be desired. I
would have concern if Mancuso became IG about his integrity
and commitment to the rule of law.'' He added he would
welcome the chance to give such testimony to Congress.
Robert B. Rae of Virginia Beach, Va., another Tailhook
defense attorney and a former U.S. attorney, said that
Mancuso ``abused his position [as DCIS director] and showed a
general disregard for laws of military justice'' during the
Tailhook investigation. ``He intentionally failed to
comply with the judge's order to produce evidence and
documents on several occasions. We need somebody [as
inspector general] who makes the ethical decision, not the
politically correct one. He [Mancuso] was politically
motivated.''
Mancuso told National Journal that ``while I don't remember
being directly involved with either of these defense counsels
during the Tailhook investigation, it is not unusual for
defense counsels to disagree with the government's
investigation techniques. I categorically deny that I have
ever intentionally failed to comply with any judge's order.''
He said that as DCIS director, he worked to ensure that both
sides received all requested information promptly.
As Pentagon inspector general, Mancuso would be responsible
for supervising 1,228 employees, including 323 criminal
investigators, and for overseeing a budget of $136.8 million
annually. He would be paid a salary of $118,400 a year.
Grassley is particularly vexed about what Mancuso did--and
did not do--about Larry Joe Hollingsworth, a deputy at DCIS
who was responsible for keeping agents in line, but who
committed a felony that a hearing judge termed ``bizarre.''
In 1992, Hollingsworth found in the records of a Florida
library the obituary of Charles W. Drew, who died at age 13.
Hollingsworth decided to assume the boy's identity. And by
posing as the deceased boy's half brother, Hollingsworth
obtained the identification papers he needed to apply for a
passport in Charles' name. He appended pictures of himself to
the passport application and signed it in such a muddled way
that the State Department investigated, leading to
Hollingsworth's arrest, indictment, and confession to one
count of fraud.
Why would a 46-year-old, $92,926-a-year Pentagon executive
with more than 20 years' experience investigating other
people's crimes commit one himself? ``In the last few
years,'' Hollingsworth wrote right after his arrest, ``I have
seen repeated news stories about how easy it would be'' to
assume someone else's identity. ``I decided to see if it was
true. This was a Walter Mitty fantasy, however, for
excitement and not to hurt anyone.''
Special Agent Sean O'Brien of the State Department told
investigators with Grassley's Senate Judiciary Administrative
Oversight and the Courts Subcommittee that ``there were at
least 12 overt acts of fraud perpetrated by Mr. Hollingsworth
over the course of one year.'' O'Brien told the investigators
that ``passport fraud is always committed in furtherance of a
more serious crime . . .''
On April 29, 1996, Mancuso wrote, on assistant inspector
general stationery, to federal Judge T.S. Ellis III of the
U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA., while the jurist was
weighing what penalty to impose on Hollingsworth. ``To this
day,'' he wrote, ``there is no evidence that Mr.
Hollingsworth has ever done anything improper relating to his
duties and responsibilities as a DCIS agent and manager. . .
. It is our intention to consider removal action against him
after the conclusion of the criminal charges. . . . I would
ask that you also consider the severity of these
administrative actions as you pronounce sentencing.''
Grassley accused Mancuso of showing poor judgment in
writing what the Senator considered a plea for leniency.
Grassley also criticized Mancuso for letting Hollingsworth
retire at 50 in 1996 with full pay, 12 years ahead of
schedule--a decision that cost the taxpayers an extra
$750,000, Grassley said.
Mancuso denied asking for leniency. He told National
Journal that that ``my intent in writing the letter was to
advise the judge of SA [Special Agent] Hollingsworth's past
job performance while assigned to DCIS, not to ask for
leniency. In fact, nowhere in my letter is the term
`leniency' used.''
Hollingsworth, after pleading guilty, was sentenced in June
1996 to supervised probation for two years and was fined
$5,000, plus $195.30 a month to pay for the cost of
supervising him while on probation. He also had to serve 30
days of jail time on weekends, perform 200 hours of community
service, and pay a $50 special assessment.
The majority staff of Grassley's subcommittee on Nov. 2
filed a 64-page report highly critical of Mancuso's conduct.
Cohen responded to Grassley on Dec. 28 that his staff had
found nothing in the subcommittee's report to shake his
``complete confidence in Mr. Mancuso's abilities and
integrity. Nothing I have seen has caused me to doubt Mr.
Mancuso's ability to ably, fairly, and honestly lead the
Office of the Inspector General.''
``Bill,'' Grassley wrote back to Cohen on Jan. 7, ``you and
I have known each other for many years, I know, if given an
accurate report on the facts in the case, you would not
defend the integrity of the acting IG.''
Since vote-counters have apparently concluded that Grassley
does not have enough Senate allies to defeat the nomination,
the White House intends to nominate Mancuso when Congress
reconvenes. Will the stubborn Iowan resort to a filibuster,
or will he place a simple hold on the nomination, in light of
Tailhook and other charges? ``I don't know yet,'' Grassley
replied.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to
speak as if in morning business for 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________