← The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Podcast
Lawfare Daily: Trump Admin Attacks on Inspectors General with Cristin Dorgelo and Rob Storch
00:48:59
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- [00:03]
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- [01:03]
Kristen Dorgolo
Those employees and those leaders are working in an environment where the administration is clearly signaling its distrust and its dislike of these oversight processes. And that, for us, raises significant concerns about whether on offices of inspectors general are going to be able to act assertively and quickly and with cooperation from the administration.
- [01:29]
Tyler McBrien
It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Tyler McBrien, managing editor of Lawfair, with Kristen Dorgolo, a former senior advisor for management at the Office of Management and Budget, and Rob Storch, who served as inspector general of the Defense Department until the Trump administration fired him and many of his colleagues in January of this year.
- [01:50]
Rob Storch
For oversight to work effectively, it has to be, as I mentioned at the outset, nonpartisan, and it has to be independent. Now, how that gets defined may depend upon the nature of the agency and what's being overseen, but it's critically important that there be the independence to essentially, as people say, speak truth to power.
- [02:17]
Tyler McBrien
Today we're talking about the Trump administration's attacks on the offices of the inspector general, as well as other attempts to undermine oversight and evade accountability covered in a new report from the center on Budget and Policy Priorities. So, Kristen, I want to start with you to talk a bit about the center on Budget and Policy Priorities recent report that was released at the beginning of November called Trump Administration's Undercutting of hurts Taxpayers and Beneficiaries. So I want to start with a bit of a background question on what motivated this report. Why did CBPP undertake this project?
- [02:53]
Kristen Dorgolo
Well, with my colleagues Devin o' Connor and Kathleen Roebig, we have been looking at what has been transpiring in the Trump administration Related to oversight. We understand that independent oversight is an important process for understanding the effectiveness of federal programs. And we were seeing changes happening in terms of the administration taking steps really, from its first week through more recent months and weeks about its relationship with inspectors general and other oversight offices. Our sense was that many of these changes were happening and being covered in the press in a piecemeal way and in taking a look at this, felt like this was really a systemic set of changes where the administration was making it harder for independent oversight to conduct its business, was undermining the offices of inspectors general, the way in which they collaborate together with agency leadership and also other offices like the Government Accountability Office or gao. So we thought it was important to tell the story of these changes in a systemic way, telling the timeline of the changes, of the removal of inspectors general, of the attempts to decrease funding for offices of inspectors general, of the degrading of IG capacity through staff reductions, and more as a whole picture, because that's really what is occurring, is a full change of relationship between the executive branch and those that oversee its operations.
- [04:30]
Noble Gold Investments Narrator
Yeah.
- [04:31]
Tyler McBrien
Thank you. And I definitely want to dig into each of those findings. It's quite a fulsome report, and there's a lot to talk about there. But first, Rob, I want to turn to you to set the stage on what the Office of the Inspector General does in each department. And feel free to draw on some personal experience, because you have a bit of background here, if I'm not mistaken.
- [04:54]
Rob Storch
Sure. Happy to do so. And thanks very much for the opportunity to join in this important discussion. So offices of Inspector General were established. They actually go back in the military, back to the founding of our country. But the statutory inspectors general were put in place as one of the reforms following Watergate and other corruption scandals in the 1970s. And the Inspector General act of 1978 is the statutory basis. Initially, they were at a handful of government agencies and exists now in, I believe it's 74 different statutory IGs, covering virtually the entire executive branch, and then a number in the legislative branch as well. And they're nonpartisan jobs. I can't emphasize that enough. I used to always tell my folks so much of what we do is of political interest, that it's critically important that our work be completely nonpartisan and not even be perceived as being partisan. And that's the only way it could be done, that it would be authoritative and that it would be credible. And so these offices exist. As I mentioned, there's 74, a little less than half, 36 of the positions are presidentially appointed Senate confirmed jobs. Those tend to be at the larger departments, all the cabinet departments and agencies, as well as others where Congress has made a determination that it wants to have the power to confirm the individual who's going to be leading those offices. And then the balance, or what is known as DFE or Designated Federal Entities. And they have the same duties and responsibilities. They just are appointed by the head of their agencies, and they can be dismissed by the head of their agencies. So you have this sort of universe of inspectors generals, offices, each led by an ig. And what they do essentially is they detect and determine waste, fraud, abuse and corruption, and they promote the economy, the efficiency, and the effectiveness of their agency's operations. So when, when I've thought about, you know, how to describe how they do that, basically there are two broad categories. One is programmatic oversight, and one is investigative oversight. The programmatic oversight involves audits and evaluations, which are very much similar products. The audits are done pursuant to gagas GAO Yellow Book standards. The evaluations are done under something called the Blue Book, which is similarly held to high standards, but they're sort of more flexible for reviews that would benefit from that. And whether it's an ordinary evaluation, they look at government programs and operations and assess, as I mentioned, the economy, the efficiency and the effectiveness. And where they find issues, they make recommendations that if followed up on by the agency, the IG believes will help them to address that issue. And that's an important point. It's all about improving government on behalf of the American people. Right? And so we never make a, if you will, negative finding. We never without a recommendation that will help the agency to address it. So that's the programmatic oversight. Most of that is what we look at is determined by the IG and their team based upon independent risk assessment with input from the agency, from Congress, from NGOs, from the public, from all sorts of places to try to focus our resources in the areas that will be most impactful in helping to the agency to achieve its mission. And we'll talk more about it. But I would say that's one of the ironies of everything that's happened this year, is that we do help the agency to achieve its missions. Our job is not to promote any particular agenda or priorities of the administration, but through that independent oversight, we identify issues and make recommendations that will help whomever is in control at any particular time to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve. That's up to them. So that's the programmatic oversight. The investigative oversight also divides into two sort of categories, administrative investigations and criminal investigations. The administrative is looking at essentially misconduct by department or agency employees. And as with the programmatic, we don't have the authority to take any action. Our investigators will investigate allegations of misconduct, many times provided by whistleblowers or others. And we will make a. If we substantiate, we'll do a report that goes to the department or agency that we oversee, and it's then up to that department or agency to decide what action is appropriate as a result. The criminal work. Not all IGs have them, but the larger do have units or divisions or components that do criminal investigations. At the dod, where I was most recently, we have the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, which actually predates the dodoig by a little bit, but served as the criminal investigative arm investigating allegations of criminal conduct involving obviously department employees, but also fraud against the department or crimes implicating its programs. And those would be very broad. One of the things I always used to say is the DOD is so big that it essentially does everything government does. And so our investigators would investigate all sorts of criminal conduct. Could be health care fraud, procurement fraud, cybersecurity issues. I mean, just whole range of stuff as well. The other thing we had at DOD and a couple of other IGs is responsibility with regard to overseas contingency operations. And during my time in the chair, there were three of those. There were operations involving ISIS in Iraq and Syria, an operation involving sort of the aftermath of Afghanistan, and then Operation Atlantic Resolve, including US assistance to Ukraine. And initially my office, and then me, obviously, was the lead inspector general for all of those. Congress was debating whether or not to create a new inspector general for the Ukraine. Oversight decided instead, on a bipartisan basis, to have my office and essentially me designated as a special inspector general overseeing U.S. assistance to Ukraine. So that involved doing our oversight of the security along the ways I've just mentioned security assistance, and then working with our colleagues at State, oig, usaid, oig, gao, and others to help to coordinate and then to report out transparently on those operations. So that's sort of the DOD OIG and what IGs do in general. The only other thing you asked me to address, and I'll just do it briefly, is a little bit about my own background. I was privileged to serve as the DoD IG beginning in December of 2022. I actually was a federal prosecutor for two dozen years and then went to the Department of Justice. OIG sounds a little sappy, but basically just trying to Give back. And I think that's why a lot of people enter the IG community is they care about the departments and agencies, and they want to help to promote positive change there. And I was for several years honored to be the Deputy Inspector General at the Department of Justice, working under Michael Horowitz. A truly great ignition. Then had the opportunity to become the Inspector General at the nsa. And that was really an interesting job and perhaps relevant to our discussion. I initially was nominated for that job near the end of the Obama administration, and nothing went anywhere at the end. And so the administration changed and president trumped him in the first time. And I thought, well, I don't know what's going to happen. I mean, you really, honestly, it didn't matter who appointed the president. And that's what sort of what came to pass. Point of the ig. I got a call from the White House under President Trump, from the legal counsel's office, and they asked if I'd still be interested. And I remember saying, yeah, I'd be. I was honored before, I'd be honored now. And honestly, doesn't make any difference to me who the president is. They're nonpartisan positions. And I went over, they asked me to come over and meet with some of the lawyers. I did. We talked about oversight. And a couple weeks later, President Trump renominated me for the NSA job, and I was confirmed by unanimous consent later that year and served almost five years as a Trump nominee as the NSA Inspector General. Truly fascinating job. And then an important job. And then had the opportunity under President Biden to come over and be the DoD IG. So I think the reason you wanted me to talk about that, and I think it is germane to our discussion, is I used to have a. I was privileged and honored to have both a President Trump and a President Biden appointment certificate on my wall sort of facing each other. And I thought it was a nice metaphor because we really are, if the work is to be done effectively, it has to be done in a nonpartisan, independent way.
- [14:41]
Tyler McBrien
So thank you so much for that, Rob. I think that was really useful not only to convey, again, this nonpartisan nature of the office, but also that was a really helpful accounting of all of the broad scope of activities that these offices undertake. And in thinking about that, turning back to the report, I thought the report was really useful to just take stock of on the side of the Trump administration, all of the actions that the Trump administration has taken to either undermine or attack all of these activities that the inspectors general undertaker in. Let's say normal times or before this administration. Kristen, I want to turn back to you to take us through a few of the key actions that the administration has taken over the past year to undermine the offices in terms of firings, leaving vacancies. So I want to start with, I think a moment that most of our listeners will remember. It was just four days into Trump's second term when he fired the inspectors general of 18 federal agencies. This was on January 24th. It was some in the media and in government dubbed it and condemned it as this Friday night purge. So Kristen, can you take us back to that moment and what has happened since then? I think there is a people will be familiar with that event, but maybe won't know, won't have followed as closely all of the other ways in which the administration has undermined these offices since January 24th.
- [16:06]
Kristen Dorgolo
Yeah, I think if we look back to that immediate early removal of those inspectors general that you mentioned, most of which were presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed inspectors general, I want to note how much that is not business as usual. This is the first time in over four decades that a President had removed any IGs at the start of a presidential term. They were violating bipartisan enacted requirements of the inspectors General act that Rob already mentioned because the administration did not provide 30 days of advance notification and detailed in case specific reasons for those terminations. We've seen this being something that follows a pattern evident in the first Trump administration when in early 2020, during President Trump's first term, five inspectors general and acting inspectors general were removed in what appeared to be retaliation over critical report reports. And you know, this is seems to be grounded in an accurate perception about the motivations of inspectors general, which to Rob's comments is ungrounded. In fact, we had an OMB spokesperson accusing inspectors general of having become corrupt and partisan and having lied to the public without providing evidence or support for this claim. So I just want to note how how unusual and how extraordinary that removal early in the administration was. It has been followed by additional action since which really to us show evidence of retaliation in that we have seen two weeks after that mass removal of inspectors general at the start of the term. We also saw the administration remove USAID's inspector general after his office released a report warning that the administration's actions at USAID were having some significant impacts on the ability to deliver humanitarian assistance programming. We have seen retaliation continue and lack of cooperation continue. And I'm happy to dig into more of what we've seen since that first extraordinary set of Removals.
- [18:26]
Tyler McBrien
Yeah. Rob, I want to give you an opportunity to respond here as well as a former ig, what was going through your head when you heard news about the Friday night purge? And if you wanted to add anything to what Kristen just laid out in terms of the attacks that she mentioned or if anything that you wanted to add in addition to those.
- [18:45]
Rob Storch
Yeah, I was one of the inspectors general who received one of those emails on Friday evening. We'd been working hard all week doing our work and in addition working on all make sure we were in compliance with the different executive orders that were coming out with the new administration and got that email. And just to amplify a little on that, it was from the very beginning I was struck by the notice. First of all, the email, it did not give any notice. And to be clear for your listeners, the notice isn't to me that's required by the law or to any other inspector general. It's noticed to Congress at least 30 days in advance. And as Kristen says, it requires that the president communicate in writing the substantive rationale, including detailed and case specific reasons for the removal of an ig. And it's up to the President what those are. But the idea is, and this was beefed up in 2022 following the events Krista mentioned, the idea was to give Congress an opportunity to engage with the White House regarding the dismissal before it became effective. So by sending us emails on that Friday night, without notifying Congress in advance, much less giving any reasons, the administration, it was really depriving Congress of the opportunity to exercise any role or any say regarding inspectors general. And that's pivotally important for a number of reasons, one of which is the work I described before, our obligation under the law as inspectors general is to keep the department or the agency and Congress fully and timely informed regarding the findings of our work. We're located within the departments and agencies under their general supervision, which is essentially a nominal sort of administrative thing. But we, we're independent. And I would argue for to do effective oversight, we have to be independent in order to in our oversight work. And we report to both of them. And so the way in which it was done really divested Congress of the opportunity to engage with the administration. And that's why in addition to firing 17 or 8, 18 of us in one fell swoop, that was very troubling. And obviously the concern is, and I know we'll talk about this and Kristen's report talks about it, that creates a really significant risk of a chilling effect. And if folks had any Doubt about that. The example Kristen cited is really telling where Paul Martin, a great inspector general, then at usaid, previously at NASA, and before that, the deputy IG at Justice, before I was there, great IG issues a report that says sort of essentially, if you leave food out in the docks, it may get stolen or it may go bad. Not particularly controversial, and he gets dismissed the next day. And so you really do worry about what sort of message that sends to the people who are still there. And I suppose that's the final thing I'd add is I think it's important for listeners to know that while many of these offices were essentially decapitated of their leaders, which obviously a very sort of traumatic thing for the offices, there still are many good women and men across the inspector general community who joined these offices because they wanted to make a difference. I could tell you at dod, about a third of my team, and it was a large team, over 18, 50 people when I was there, you know, about a third of them were veterans. And I know from talking with many of them joined the OIG because they cared deeply about the Department of Defense, and they wanted to do whatever they could after serving in uniform to help the service members, to help to make the DoD stronger and thereby make our nation safer. And many of those people are still there trying to do that work. And the question is whether the conditions, whether the leadership, whether the agencies, whether the Congress will create conditions that enable that to happen.
- [23:06]
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- [23:27]
Rob Storch
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- [23:28]
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- [23:53]
Rob Storch
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- [25:53]
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- [26:23]
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- [27:36]
Tyler McBrien
Yeah, since you brought it up, I wanted to stay on this point. Just another beat. Listeners will likely have, like I said, followed the headlines of the firings and seen these continued attacks and attempts to undermine the working of the inspectors general, and yet also have seen the headline, for example, earlier this month, of the DoD inspector general report on Secretary Hegseth's signal usage, for example. So what is the current state of many of these offices? And I realize we're talking about a number of offices right now, not only the DoD, hobbled as they may be, what kind of work still is getting done and under what conditions. Rob, I'll stay with you for this one. And then, Kristen, I would love to hear your thoughts as well.
- [28:22]
Rob Storch
Yeah. So when the inspectors general were dismissed in this purge, and then the ones that have happened since, and there have been a couple more following IG Martin, you know, we all have succession plans. And so typically, and this was the case at my former office, our deputies, or in my case, principal deputy, you know, stepped in and was responsible for leading the office. And as I say, you know, honestly couldn't be prouder of the people across the oversight community who continue to do that difficult work. It's difficult in the best of times, much less with sort of the very traumatic sort of events of this year and the oversight community and all the upheaval. Right. There have been a handful of folks who've been nominated by the administration and one of to to replace those who were dismissed. One of them has been confirmed, and that's at the vaig. Several others are going through that process right now, and a number actually on the floor. So that is, you know, moving along. And, you know, the question, for those systems to work effectively, it will require that IGs be folks who are willing to do this independent work. It doesn't make you popular, I can tell you. I used to tell people, my family and other people at work that I've got my wife and kids to love me. I want the department and the Congress to respect our work so you don't make friends doing this. But it can have a really positive impact on government. And so there are still people there trying to do that job during this very sort of fraught period this year. And that's where we are right now.
- [30:14]
Tyler McBrien
Yeah. Kristen, I wanted to give you an opportunity to add to that if you want. And I also want to hear from you. I Mean, the report does a great job of taking stock, as I said, of all of these actions in the past year. But this is also still an ongoing crisis in terms of proposed budget cuts. So could you also speak to the ongoing nature of these attacks as well?
- [30:36]
Kristen Dorgolo
Yeah. And appreciate Rob's comments about the good work and continued service of many across offices of Inspectors General. Those employees and those leaders are working in an environment where the administration is clearly signaling its distrust and its dislike of these oversight processes. And that, for us, raises significant concerns about whether offices of Inspectors General are going to be able to act assertively and quickly and with cooperation from the administration. You know, whether we are seeing here a less informed public because of some of the delays in getting some of these offices filled. We, in addition, are aware that offices of Inspectors General have the ability to be quick in moments like this, where a lot of change is happening across federal agencies, where federal and government systems are being adjusted. We'd love to be seeing more agile oversight practices being brought to play. And instead, what we have is a chilling effect. We, rather than seeing increased activity, are seen at agencies like the Social Security Administration, where the acting IG instituted an informal policy not to contradict or criticize the Department of Government Efficiency. That's hard on independence. We have seen massive changes across that agency with DOGE accessing sensitive data, with changes in the largest staffing reduction in that agency's history, and yet a silent Office of the Inspector General. And so we want those offices to be able to proceed with their independent investigations with cooperation from federal agencies. There was a reported refusal by the Department of Education to release information to its Office of Inspector General regarding its reductions in force and the administration's attempts to shutter the agency. This is, you know, directly counter to the public's interest of learning what is working and what is not. Where are these changes leading to benefits for the public and where are they leading to harm? So I'd also note, Tyler, that I'm really concerned about where we are with the environment for whistleblowers in order for inspectors General in Congress to do their jobs, for other offices like the Office of Special Counsel and the GAO to do their jobs. We do want to create an environment where whistleblowers are able to come forward and report concerns about misconduct. And, you know, we saw as we headed into the shutdown, the Trump administration defunding the Council of Inspectors General on integrity and efficiency. This is a cross government effort. They help to train and support offices of Inspector General and their staff. They host important oversight resources. You know, just a huge amount of past reports, but importantly, also whistleblower portals. Those portals were shuttered. The administration did not have to make that change in the context of the shutdown. This was an administrative and potentially illegal decision to make that shift. And we saw offices of Inspector general having to set up temporary places for whistleblowers to find information about how to report harm. We've also seen the Secretary of Defense hegscaths directing changes to due process for how inspectors general process whistleblower reports and placing increased scrutiny on those that make multiple complaints. While I'm all for efficiency and effectiveness of processes, I want to make sure we're getting the information from people who are concerned about misconduct. So these are, you know, real chilling factors at play and something I hope Congress is concerned about and that the public is concerned about.
- [34:44]
Tyler McBrien
Yeah, Rob, Kristen just laid out a few things that she's worried about in terms of the chilling effects, this hostile environment for whistleblowers. What worries you the most, as a former inspector general, about this coordinated campaign? Should it continue unabated?
- [35:00]
Rob Storch
Yeah. So first of all, let me say I really appreciate Kristen and her, you know, her organization's putting a spotlight on some of these concerns and others doing so as well. It's really important. You know, I think people sometimes wonder whether the independence with which inspectors general are at least supposed to operate and need to operate to do their work, whether that sort of operational independence, if you will, and doing oversight means that we're not accountable and nobody is not accountable and nobody should be not accountable. And so, you know, we're paid by the American taxpayer and all the return on investment numbers and everything else show that's a good investment. But we should be held to standards. We should be transparent. And if people have concerns about whether offices, whether under actings or under confirmed inspectors general, are doing what they should be doing to address concerns, it's really important that people bring those concerns to light. So I think that's, you know, that's really an important thing. Congress obviously has responsibility there as well. Hisac on the Senate side and Hoger House Oversight on the House side have responsibility over the IG community. But it's really important that NGOs in public be engaged as well. So I appreciate it. You know, Kristen mentioned the need for agency head support, and I think that's really, really important. Right. Obviously, you need inspectors general who, as I mentioned before, are willing to do what is a tough job. You're not going to win any popularity contests as an inspector general. Right. You're not trying to ding people unnecessarily. I always used to tell my folks, we just want to hit it down the fairway. I can't do it in golf, but we know how to do it in oversight. And so sometimes people, you know, aren't going to like that. Although I think, in my experience, anyway, leaders of whatever, you know, party was in control appreciated hearing from inspectors general about the problems, because so often bad news doesn't travel up in organizations, and we were the only ones telling them about a particular problem. And I can't count the number of times at all three places where I've worked where we brought things to light that the agency or department wasn't otherwise aware of and that enabled them to address it in order to achieve whatever policy goal they want to achieve. And that's up to them. But in order to do that, you really need the support of the agency leadership. OMB previously issued a memo back in 2021 encouraging agency leaders to put out memos in their departments and agencies affirming that support for independent oversight. And it's really important, I can tell you, Evan, been involved in a lot of complex investigations and reviews at all three of the offices. These are big, complicated places. And, you know, sometimes you don't know what you don't know. And so you need people to behave in good faith and to support oversight and the idea of oversight and to set that tone from the top so people know that's the case. You know, conversely, Kristin mentioned education. And if it's. I think it's the same situation, it was really troubling that not only was there at least reportedly, and obviously I'm not in the room anymore, but reportedly a failure to provide information to the ig. And to be clear, the inspector general is statutorily entitled to all information, documents or otherwise. There's a long list, all information that's available to the agency or department we oversee. And we have to decide what we need in order to do credible oversight. The agency can't say, no, you don't need that. Right. So we have to get all that information. So not only in that situation was it reported that the education acting oig, because the IG had been fired along with the rest of us, that the acting did not get the information, but when she reported to Congress that fact, which is required by the law, that she do such a report, she was replaced as the acting Inspector General. And again, when you worry about the chilling effect, you've got somebody who is going to Congress, which throughout the inspector General act, the conceit, whether it's appointment, whether it's these sort of problems, whether it's dismissal, Congress is supposed to service the check so that these IGs are not basically, they don't become captive within the departments and agencies they oversee. So the acting IG reports that concern, and at least I believe the reports were that after reporting those concerns, she was dismissed. So that's extraordinarily troubling. The last two things I'll comment on. One, Whistleblowers. It's incredibly important. I couldn't be more passionate about this. Whistleblowers play a critically important role in coming forward when they see something that they think is wrong, that enables IGs or GAO or OSC or whomever it is, enables them to look into the situation and for appropriate corrective action to be taken. And these are big, complicated agencies and departments. You look at the Department of Defense, it's in the neighborhood of 3 million people, a budget of something like $850 billion, half the discretionary spending of the United States, approximately, and obviously all over the world. Effective oversight requires that people come forward, and as I used to tell my folks from the front lines, and in the case of DoD, they might be on the front lines, come forward to let the IG know when they see something they think is wrong. People should never, ever, ever suffer reprisal for doing that. And so it's critically important, again, toned from the top, that leaders, people for whom these individuals work, encourage them to come forward when they see those problems. And then the final thing I'll mention, Kristin mentioned Siggy, and I do worry a lot about that. Sigy is extraordinarily important. It's not like a voluntary thing, by the way. It's not like a club of IGs. The law, the Inspector General act, requires that there be a council composed of all the inspectors general. And that council has important statutory functions, including providing training for thousands of auditors and investigators and others that enable us to do credible, authoritative work. Also, it's responsible for the standards that we follow, as I mentioned at the very beginning, and for the peer review process where we review one another's work to make sure that we're adhering to those standards. There also is, as was mentioned, a very important website, oversight.gov. we, by the way, followed that example and did Ukraine oversight.gov for those who are interested. Then there's a pandemic oversight.gov for the pandemic relief effort. That's a committee of SIGE as well, and does incredibly important work But SIGE is responsible for oversight.gov, which aggregates all the reports across the IG community and has other really important information. And then it also hosts, I believe it was up to 18 different Inspector General's websites. And as we saw, when OMB decided to withhold the apportionment, those funds were already appropriated and already available. But OMB decided not to allow the apportionment of those funds at the end of September, totally unrelated to the shutdown, by the way, OMB decided to do that. That made all of those sites go dark. And now, fortunately, OMB relented. There was a letter from the Hill, and they have allowed SIGE to have some of its apportion met, but only through January 30th. And it's critically important for all the reasons I mentioned and also the robust committee structure that SIGE has. I was privileged to lead the Technology Committee, where we explored all sorts of issues related to agency use of technology, how we do oversight over that, how we use it ourselves, artificial intelligence, all sorts of stuff. Critically important issues in our government. And so SIGE plays a really key role in supporting the IG community across a whole range of areas. And it's really critically important that those functions continue.
- [43:46]
Tyler McBrien
Now, the center on Budget and Policy Priorities report has been our jumping off point for this conversation, but I would say, fortunately, this is not the only organization to sound the alarm. I'll reference one in particular. And on May 21, Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, who's a ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, also released a report. This one was called Undermining the watchdogs. The 19 independent inspectors general fired by President Trump uncovered billions in fraud, waste and abuse. People have been sounding the alarm throughout the year, and yet this has continued. So, Kristen, I'm curious first to go to you. What can be done here and by whom? Is this a public education initiative to just have the public better understand the value and the role of inspectors general? Is this something where Congress really needs to step in? Is this something that we can handle through litigation in the courts to maybe reinstate some of these inspectors general? What are the options here, here? And I'll say to complicate this even further, the options to not only push back against this current campaign to undermine, but also to then hopefully strengthen these offices in the future. I think, as Rob said earlier, even under the best of circumstances, budgets are stretched, staff is overextended. So how can we really come out of this crisis with even stronger and more independent inspection?
- [45:16]
Kristen Dorgolo
Tyler, I Think it's really important to have a vision of what the relationship between those leading the executive branch and those overseeing it might be in the future. You know, it's easy to assume that independence equals opposition. And in fact, the leadership of executive agencies and the leadership of offices of inspectors general and other offices like gao, like the Office of Special Counsel, like the Office of Government Ethics, share a goal in government effectiveness, in making sure we are operating with accountability and making sure we're being efficient. In the Biden administration, we saw close cooperation and sharing of information between agency leadership as they started new programs under major initiatives and legislation like the American Rescue Plan, like the bipartisan infrastructure Law. In this proactive spirit of engagement with those who oversee the programs that you are going to run, to ask questions in advance about program design, about opportunities and risks, about goals for those programs and how we can measure what success is, I hope that we are collectively, across Congress, across the board, public, across a future administration, looking to restore that spirit of cooperation in operating the federal government with the public's interest in mind, not in a spirit of opposition and attempting to hold back information that helps us understand how we're performing for the public. And so to your question about what we do now, one, we have to be clear about what success is, is what that vision is for effective oversight. And I think that while our colleagues should absolutely be restored to their seats, it is also of interest to me that we are exchanging ideas for what comes next in the future. The courts, unfortunately, will have an important role to play here. Absent congressional action, we argue that Congress should be stepping forward to take a stronger role in incentive on strong independent oversight, given the many decades of shared bipartisan interest. But absent that, the courts will have an important role to play. And we, across the public and across organizations that care about government effectiveness have a huge role to play in setting this vision for what it should look like in the future, being clear on our expectations for that productive relationship between agency leadership and those who are oversee them. I'm curious for Rob's views, but that's my hopes for where we go from here.
- [47:58]
Tyler McBrien
Yeah, Rob, I can turn to you for the last word. Same question here. What can be done? And then what does this robust, well functioning offices of the Inspector General look like to you? What could that vision be? What could it achieve?
- [48:13]
Rob Storch
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for the great remarks, Kristen. I couldn't agree more. More strongly, having served in the leadership of three different inspectors general's offices and as the IG at two of them that independence does not equal opposition. Right. And it has been my uniform experience and I think that of my colleagues, that agency leadership, again, regardless of whether Rs or Ds are in control, they appreciate hearing about the problems and concerns that we identify. And again, it's always constructive. There always are recommendations as to how to, how to improve the situation. And with regard to individuals who engage in misconduct, I happen to believe most people enter public service because they want to make a difference. They want to do something for their country and for their society. Certainly why I've been privileged to do it essentially my whole life is I get paid by the American people to do the right thing. And you know, I think that they leadership have appreciated that people come forward. But when there are problems and when people don't adhere to that standard, we let them know about that. If they're bad apples, they, we, we identify that so they can then can take appropriate action which again helps them to achieve their mission. So independence very much does not equal opposition. Kristen was referring, I think, to the what are sometimes known as best practice meetings. And it really was a great thing. There was nothing good about the pandemic. A lot of people lost their lives and it was such a traumatic thing. But one thing that came out of that, that OMB led, was a requirement that departments and agencies consult with their inspectors General whenever they take on new programs that have significant risks or modify programs in ways that significantly enhance the risks. Because IGs many times will have experience in those areas based on their prior work that can be valuable to the department or agency. And that's something that we did when I was up at Fort Meade with NSA and also at dod. And I found that at both places the departments and agencies appreciated our constructive input. I can think of one instance where they actually asked for three follow up meetings to talk about different things with my folks who really did have significant experience and expertise in the area. So I think those are, those are wonderful suggestions. And in terms of the future, as I've thought about this, I think there are two. There's a lot that's required, but there's sort of two seminal sort of principles. One is that for oversight to work effectively, it has to be, as I mentioned at the outset, nonpartisan and it has to be independent. Now how that gets defined may depend upon the nature of the agency and what's being overseen, but it's critically important that there be the independence to essentially, as people say, speak truth to power. And if oversight is turned into something that simply sort of slavishly advances the priorities of any particular administration. It'll never work. One final quick example I'll give you is I mentioned that we and my office were responsible for coordinating and leading U.S. assistance oversight of U.S. assistance to Ukraine. We did a lot of work in that space and some of it very hard hitting work. And if people thought or if I thought that my job was to advance the Biden administration's policies regarding assistance to Ukraine, we either wouldn't have done that work or if we did it, it wouldn't have been credible or wouldn't have been authoritative. And there are any number of examples like that. But it's critically important that there be that that nonpartisan independence in carrying out the work. And then the other thing is that the agencies support that and give access to the information that's necessary, both documentary and individuals necessary to conduct it. And if that doesn't happen, the final leg of the stool is that Congress needs to be there. Congress has skin in the game. They depend upon inspectors general on a bipartisan basis to inform their constitutional, legislative and oversight responsibilities. And Congress has an important interest in ensuring that inspectors general are able to carry out this work, all of which is done for the American people. So those are my thoughts.
- [53:12]
Tyler McBrien
Well, if there's any silver lining to be found here, it's that I hope at least this situation in which these offices are being thrust into the spotlight will hopefully lead to just a better understanding among the American public of their value and their vital role in our democracy. So with that, Rob and Kristen, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.
- [53:34]
Kristen Dorgolo
Thank you, Tyler.
- [53:35]
Rob Storch
It was a pleasure. Thank you.
- [53:39]
Tyler McBrien
The lawfare podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. You can get ad free versions of this and other Lawfare podcasts by becoming a Lawfair material supporter at our website lawfairmedia.org support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcast. Look out for our other shows, including Rational Security, Allies, the Aftermath and Escalation. Our latest Lawfare Presents podcast series about the war in Ukraine. Check out our written work@lawfaremedia.org the podcast is edited by Jen Patya. Our theme song is from Alibi Music. As always, thanks for listening.
- [54:32]
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