[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 72 (Thursday, April 27, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2566-S2567]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



          Defense Department's Office of the Inspector General

  Mr. President, I come to the floor today to spotlight a potential 
failure of leadership at the Defense Department's Office of Inspector 
General in that a large number of hotline cases have been set aside, 
neglected, and possibly forgotten.
  The hotline plays a very critical role in the inspector general's 
core mission of rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse. The hotline is the 
command and control link between whistleblowers on the one hand and 
investigators on the other hand. To succeed, hotline tips need quick 
and decisive action, but speed is not one of the chief assets of this 
unit. Without a quick response, the full value of whistleblower 
information is lessened.
  Last year, at my request, I was given a 12-page spreadsheet dated 
November 8, 2016. It listed 406 hotline cases that had been open for 
more than 2 years or over 730 days. Frankly, I was stunned by what I 
saw on this spreadsheet. I counted 240 cases--over half of the total--
that had been open for more than 1,000 days. Many had been open for 
more than 1,300 days. Some were right at a 4-year marker; that is 1,460 
days. The oldest is now pushing close to 1,600 days. Even--if you can 
believe it--5-year-old cases are not unheard of. So we can see why 
working quickly on these investigations--taking tips from 
whistleblowers and pursuing them on waste, fraud, and abuse--is very 
important, and we shouldn't have this time wasted.

  When cases remain open for years, they become stale. Inattention 
breeds neglect. Work grinds to a halt. Cases slowly fade from memory. 
This is unacceptable, and my colleagues ought to consider it 
unacceptable, and the Secretary of Defense ought to consider it 
unacceptable. The hotline, then, with this waiting period, loses its 
full value.
  The deputy inspector general for administrative investigations, Mrs. 
Marguerite C. Garrison, is in charge of the hotline, so she is 
accountable for the backlog. The backlog shows a lack of commitment to 
the hotline creed and the plight of whistleblowers. Here is why: 
Hotline posters are displayed throughout the Department of Defense. 
They are a bugle call for whistleblowers. They encourage whistleblowers 
to step forward, and they do that at considerable risk. In return, 
then, these patriotic people ought to deserve a quick and honest 
response.
  Allowing their reports to slide into a deep, dark hole, in limbo for 
2, 3, or 4 years--and even more, as I have pointed out--leaves 
whistleblowers exposed, leaves them vulnerable to retaliation, and of 
course distrusting of the system that is designed to protect the 
whistleblowers. So, in the end, this kind of treatment will discourage 
others from stepping forward in the future.
  Hotline officials, including Mrs. Garrison, were questioned about the 
backlog on December 15, 2016. They attempted to deflect responsibility 
elsewhere and showed little interest in the problem. After numerous 
followup inquiries, a second meeting was requested.
  So at a March 30 meeting this year, Hotline officials were singing a 
whole different song. They tried to dispel the notion that a surge in 
cases closures were triggered by my inquiry. To the contrary, they 
said, it was part of routine, ongoing ``cleanup of the hotline mess'' 
that began way back in March of 2013. They reported that 107,000 cases 
were swept up, including the so-called bad dog cases from 2002.
  This explanation may be fiction.
  Mrs. Garrison should know that the 406 cases date back to 2012 and 
2013. After sitting on the hotline docket for up to 4-plus years, these 
cases are anything but routine. They are tough nuts to crack, of 
course, and very difficult to resolve--sort of like the bad dogs way 
back in 2002.
  What they needed was clear direction from the top. They needed to be 
handed off to a tiger team, but that didn't happen. Priorities became 
an afterthought, and the hotline mess got more nourishment.
  Then, finally, the ``routine, ongoing'' cleanup reached the 406 most 
egregious cases--the worst of the worst. The ones that bring me to the 
floor today.
  Since January, I received five updated spreadsheets trumpeting the 
closure of 200 of these so-called bad dogs--done with due diligence, I 
hope. Though late and incomplete, the surge shows what is possible when 
management starts doing what we expect management to do; in other 
words, managing. The backlog can be controlled and eliminated.
  Why did it take top managers so long to see the light and get on the 
stick doing their job? Maybe they just didn't care--at least not until 
the Senator from Iowa started asking questions. Then and only then did 
they indicate what had been characterized as ``aggressive management 
oversight.''
  Well, praise the Lord. Those words--``aggressive management 
oversight''--warm my heart, but the deputy IGs need to exercise 
aggressive oversight at all times, not just when a Senator steps in and 
not just when embarrassing revelations get some daylight. Good managers 
don't need a Senator looking over their shoulders to know what needs to 
be done. That is no way to run a railroad, as we say. The managers 
responsible for the hotline mess need more supervision.

[[Page S2567]]

  One of Mrs. Garrison's other directorates--the whistleblower reprisal 
investigations, or what we call the WRI unit--is always crying out for 
help. It is facing its own hotline-style tsunami. It has a staff of 56 
personnel, but only 28 of those 56--or about 50 percent--are actually 
assigned to investigative teams. They complete 50 to 60 reports per 
year. With some 120 cases under investigation at any one time, a large 
number inevitably get rolled forward from year to year. The backlog 
could easily double or triple over the next few years.
  In November, 38 cases were beyond acceptable limits. As of March 28, 
the oldest one was 1,394 days old. While many of these cases were 
recently closed, new ones keep popping up on the list. Despite very 
substantial increases in money and personnel since 2013, the deputy IG 
still seems overwhelmed by the volume of work.

  While beefing up the whistleblower reprisal investigations may be 
necessary, Mr. Fine and his deputies need to do more with what they 
have. With an annual budget of $320 million and a 1,500-person 
workforce, efficiencies can be found.
  Some units are said to be top-heavy and ripe for belt-tightening. The 
investigative processes are notoriously cumbersome and could be 
streamlined.
  The audit office, with 520 workers, turns out mostly second-rate 
reports. It needs strong leadership and it needs redirection. The Obama 
administration never seemed to take these problems very seriously. I 
hope this new administration coming in to drain the swamp will do 
better.
  Weak leadership gave us the hotline backlog. Weak leadership is 
giving us the continuing mismatch between the workforce and the 
workload. Both are messy extensions of a much more harmful leadership 
problem--a festering sore that is eating away at integrity and 
independence.
  This is what I am hearing:
  Top managers have allegedly been tampering with investigative reports 
and then retaliating against supervisory investigators who call them to 
account. This is sparking allegations that a culture of corruption is 
thriving in the Office of the Inspector General. I gave my colleagues a 
glimpse of this problem in a speech on April 6 of last year. I used the 
fifth and final report of Admiral Losey's investigation to illuminate 
this problem.
  That report was allegedly doctored by senior managers. Investigators 
were allegedly ordered to change facts and remove evidence of suspected 
retaliation.
  Can my colleagues believe this?
  Mrs. Garrison even sent a letter that cleared the admiral long before 
investigators had even completed the review of the evidence. This was a 
very serious error in judgment, giving the appearance of impropriety.
  Was this then a coverup to facilitate the admiral's pending 
promotion?
  Thankfully, Acting Inspector General Fine intervened. He showed real 
courage. After taking a firsthand look, he backed up the investigators, 
overturning some--but not all--unsupported charges. He helped to bring 
evidence and findings back into sync. I thank Inspector General Fine 
from the bottom of my heart.
  But Mr. Fine still has more work to do.
  The alleged doctoring of the Losey report, I am told, is not an 
isolated case. There are at least five others just like it--and 
probably more--that all need oversight.
  As I understand it, the Office of Special Counsel is contemplating a 
review of these matters and could rule in favor of whistleblower 
reprisal investigations. They blew the whistle on all of the alleged 
tampering going on--and do my colleagues know what these patriotic 
people got for it? They got hammered for it. They got hammered for 
protecting Federal workers.
  If top managers are tampering with reports and retaliating against 
their own people who report it, then how can they be trusted to run the 
agency's premier whistleblower oversight unit?
  All of the pertinent issues need to be resolved, and they demand 
high-level attention. So I call on the new Secretary of Defense and the 
acting inspector general to work together to address these problems.
  No. 1, the hotline needs to be brought up to acceptable standards 
under stronger management; No. 2, all potential solutions to the 
workload-workforce mismatch need to be explored, including internal 
realignments; No. 3, an independent review of all cases where alleged 
tampering occurred should be conducted, to include an examination of 
the Garrison letter clearing an admiral in the midst of an 
investigation. If tampering and retaliation did in fact occur, then the 
culprits should be fired.
  I look forward to receiving a full report.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.