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New Law Set to Clarify and Strengthen Authority of IGs to Access Agency Records

December 19, 2016 by

This month, the U.S. Senate voted by unanimous consent to pass the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016, which originated in the House of Representatives and was sponsored by Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).  The bill now heads to the President’s desk, where it should be signed into law.

The IG Empowerment Act is an important step in strengthening the power and independence of the official “watchdogs” of the administrative state.  The main thrust of the legislation is to reinforce the power of IGs to access any agency records necessary for their oversight efforts.  This is seen as necessary to bypass the roadblocks to accessing records set up by many agencies—including the Department of Justice, Peace Corps, Department of Commerce, Treasury, and EPA—over the past six years.  The Obama Administration’s efforts to prevent IGs from carrying out their statutory duty to combat waste and fraud found their apogee in a July 2015 memorandum circulated by DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, which was strongly condemned by the IG community.  That legal opinion is now superseded by statute.

The recently passed bill also modifies the operation and reporting obligations of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency—or CIGIE—the independent entity within the government composed of all the IGs.  Additionally, the IG Empowerment Act clarifies when agencies and whistleblowers are authorized to disclosure sensitive information to their IG.

According to a recent congressional report, the obstructions faced by IGs, and the more than 15,000 recommendations that have been unimplemented by their agencies, have cost taxpayers $87 billion in lost savings.  While the IG Empowerment Act will likely improve the effectiveness and integrity of the Executive Branch, and save taxpayers a great deal of money, there is still room for improvement.  For example, the new bill fails to address the lack of subpoena power needed to compel testimony from federal employees and contractors, especially in instances where an agency refuses to cooperate with an IG’s ongoing investigation.

Congress should also take further steps to resolve the perineal problem of IG vacancies.  While the new bill requires the Comptroller General, who leads the Government Accountability Office, to examine the effect of these long-vacant posts, additional pressure could be placed on the White House to nominate new IGs and the Senate to confirm them.  For example, the Department of Commerce just received a new IG, and President Obama also announced the nomination of the first-ever IG for the National Security Agency, but too many empty spots remain.  According to CIGIE, nine presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed IG positions are empty.  The Project on Government Oversight calculates that the Department of Interior IG position has been vacant for over 2,800 days.  This is unacceptable.

Organizations like Cause of Action Institute remain committed to public oversight, but their tools are limited.  IGs are in a unique position to work with non-governmental actors and Congress alike to hold the Executive Branch accountable.  Efforts to strengthen the position and authority of IGs should therefore be seen as bolstering open and transparent government.  The IG Empowerment Act is one such effort.  In the its new session under President Trump, Congress ought to consider additional ones.

Filed Under: Blog, Media Tagged With:

CoA Institute Investigates Employee Telework Fraud at U.S. Patent Office

November 22, 2016 by

Washington D.C. – Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) today sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking records from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) after details emerged about extensive attendance and telework abuse by agency employees. The FOIA request seeks records to clarify whether disciplinary action has been taken against those who claimed hours they did not work.

The Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report in August 2016 that found USPTO telework employees were paid for nearly 300,000 unsupported hours of work over a 15-month period. These hours equate to more than $18 million in wages and benefits fraudulently paid to employees.  

CoA Institute Assistant Vice President Henry Kerner: “Such rampant abuse is particularly concerning given the USPTO’s policies to promote more telework for its employees. Over the last decade, the agency has doubled its number of patent examiners largely through teleworking. The American people deserve to understand whether disciplinary action has been taken to hold employees accountable for telework fraud.”

Teleworking is common in many industries and allows employees to work from home, but requires close oversight to prevent abuse by employees.  The USPTO is particularly susceptible to telework abuse because approximately half of its 12,600 employees work from home full-time without ever reporting to a physical office. The OIG report also found that 415 patent examiners who fraudulently reported hours racked up nearly $8 million in bonuses in less than two years.

CoA Institute today requested all records related to time and attendance abuse at USPTO in order to understand the full extent of the abuse and to identify potential policy changes that could address the problem.

The full FOIA request can be found here.

 

Filed Under: Press Release, Media Tagged With: , ,

The Government Should Not Use Americans’ Confidential Tax Information to Sell ObamaCare

November 7, 2016 by

Washington D.C. – Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) today sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and requested two separate Inspector General (IG) investigations after details emerged about the federal government using confidential taxpayer information to market ObamaCare to individuals who have opted out of the program.

CoA Institute Assistant Vice President Henry Kerner: “Information obtained from tax returns should not be used to sell health insurance. The federal government is obligated to protect the confidentiality of tax returns. Instead, the Obama administration appears to be mining Americans’ tax returns to advertise and sell ObamaCare to people who don’t want it.”

A fact sheet released by CMS titled “Strengthening the Marketplace by Covering Young Adults” highlights CMS’s plan to boost ObamaCare enrollment by using taxpayer information. According to the fact sheet, “[f]or the first time this fall, we will conduct outreach to individuals and families who paid the fee for being uninsured, or claimed an exemption from that fee, for 2015.”  The law allows for personal tax information to be used only for the limited purpose of determining ObamaCare subsidy eligibility. It does not, however, permit CMS to market subsidies to taxpayers who have already rejected ObamaCare.

The potential disclosure of protected taxpayer information by the IRS raises concerns about whether the information is being appropriately safeguarded. To that end, CoA Institute sent requests for investigation to the Inspectors General of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).

In its FOIA request, CoA Institute requested all records related to the use of taxpayer information by CMS to contact individuals who paid the penalty for being uninsured in 2015, as well as all records relating to the June 2016 CMS report on how to enroll more young adults.

The FOIA to CMS is available HERE

The HHS IG request for investigation is available HERE

The DOJ IG request for investigation is available HERE

Filed Under: Press Release, Media Tagged With:

October Newsletter

October 31, 2016 by

Cause of Action Institute published its October newsletter today. You can read the newsletter here and subscribe to the newsletter here.  The October newsletter highlights:

  • our investigative report, Presidential Access to Taxpayer Information, describing recent IRS misuse and unauthorized release of confidential taxpayer information and the role of a detailee program in the Office of the White House Counsel that could be used to provide access to the protected information;
  • a request for investigation we made to the Department of Justice Inspector General after one of Hillary Clinton’s top supporters, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, made a substantial political donation to the state senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, the wife of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe; and
  • links to a recent op-ed about how EPA regulations affect the employment of millions of Americans, as well as several news articles covering recent CoA Institute actions.
Filed Under: Newsletter, Newsletter Archive

CoA Institute Calls on FBI Official to Recuse Himself from Clinton Email Investigation

October 31, 2016 by

Washington D.C. – In light of potential conflicts of interest, Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) today called on FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to recuse himself from any further involvement in the renewed investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

CoA Institute last week sent a request for investigation to the Department of Justice Inspector General, as well as a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI, after media reports revealed that Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a key supporter of Hillary Clinton, made substantial political donations to the state senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, the wife of FBI Deputy Director McCabe. On top of this potential conflict of interest, the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that FBI agents who were interested in aggressively pursuing an investigation into the Clinton Foundation were instructed by Mr. McCabe to “stand down.”

CoA Institute Vice President John J. Vecchione: “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should recuse himself from further involvement in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Regardless of whether any illegal or unethical conduct occurred, these campaign contributions present a serious potential conflict of interest. Recent complaints within the FBI that Mr. McCabe instructed some agents to ‘stand down’ on further investigations raise additional concerns. Mr. McCabe should recuse himself in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety.”

 

Filed Under: Press Release, Media Tagged With: , ,

CoA Institute Probes Gov. McAuliffe Campaign Contributions to Wife of FBI Official During Clinton Email Investigation

October 25, 2016 by

Washington D.C. – Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) today sent a request for investigation to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG), as well as a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI, seeking an investigation of and records relating to substantial political donations to the state senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, the wife of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The campaign contributions came from the political action committee of one of Hillary Clinton’s top supporters, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.

CoA Institute Vice President John J. Vecchione: “Governor McAuliffe directed significant campaign contributions to an FBI official’s wife during active FBI investigations into both Governor McAuliffe and former Secretary of State Clinton.  Just a few months after those contributions were made, the FBI official apparently played a role in the decision not to recommend prosecution of Secretary Clinton, and he may be in a similar influential position with respect to the ongoing McAuliffe investigation. Regardless of whether any illegal or unethical conduct occurred, the campaign contributions at the very least raise serious questions about conflicts of interest and the propriety of Deputy Director McCabe’s involvement in and influence on those investigations.”

As recently reported in The Wall Street Journal, Governor McAuliffe’s political action committee and the Virginia Democratic Party donated more than $675,000 in money and in-kind contributions to the state senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, a figure that represents “more than a third of all the campaign funds Dr. McCabe raised in the effort.”  Governor McAuliffe also met with Dr. McCabe to urge her to run for office as a Democrat on March 7, 2015, just five days after The New York Times broke the story on former Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email system.

The investigation into former Secretary Clinton’s private email system began in July 2015.  At that time, Deputy Director McCabe ran the FBI’s Washington, D.C. field office, which provided personnel and resources to the Clinton email investigation.   Deputy Director McCabe assumed his current position in February 2016 and became part of the executive leadership team that oversaw the Clinton email investigation.

CoA Institute today requested an immediate investigation from the DOJ IG into the influence that these campaign contributions may have had on Deputy Director McCabe’s oversight of the Secretary Clinton email investigation and on the ongoing investigation of Governor McAuliffe. In its FOIA request to the FBI, CoA Institute seeks all communications surrounding Deputy Director McCabe’s role in the Clinton and McAuliffe investigations, as well the role Governor McAuliffe’s campaign contributions to Deputy Director McCabe’s wife may have played in those investigations.

The request for investigation to the DOJ IG is available HERE
The FOIA to FBI is available HERE

Filed Under: Press Release, Media Tagged With: , ,

DOJ Watchdog Confirms Massive IRS Taxpayer Data Breach, Dismisses Request for Investigation

October 20, 2016 by

Washington D.C. – The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) has confirmed unlawful disclosure of taxpayer information by the IRS, while at the same time dismissing a request by Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) to investigate wrongdoing. The response from the IG concluded that CoA Institute was correct in its allegations that “protected taxpayer information was included” on CDs provided by the IRS, but also determined that the matter “does not warrant further investigation[.]”

Last June, CoA Institute called on the DOJ IG and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) to examine potential legal violations arising from the October 2010 disclosure of more than one million pages of tax returns and return information to the FBI and DOJ Public Integrity Section by Lois Lerner and the IRS.  [For more information, see pages 11-15 of CoA Institute’s recent investigative report]

TIGTA has not yet provided its response to the request.  CoA Institute also requested that the DOJ IG examine whether FBI and DOJ employees violated taxpayer confidentiality laws by inspecting that data.

While the IG admitted that “protected taxpayer information was included” on the IRS CDs, it stated that as soon as DOJ “learned of this, it returned the CDs to the IRS and informed Congress[.]”  Therefore, “[g]iven the absence of available information suggesting that Department employees . . . violate[d] laws, regulations, or policy,” the IG concluded that “this matter does not warrant further investigation[.]”  CoA Institute has filed a FOIA request with the DOJ IG to determine the exact nature of its notification to Congress.

CoA Institute Vice President John J. Vecchione: “The DOJ IG’s response is concerning.  While admitting that the IRS did, in fact, disclose confidential taxpayer information, the IG failed to address the absence of any proper requests for disclosure from the DOJ.  Even more alarming, the IG refused to conduct an investigation into legal violations because of the ‘absence of available information.’  The whole point of an investigation here is to collect the information necessary to determine whether DOJ officials broke the law by inspecting taxpayer data.  Americans deserve to know how Washington handles their most private information.  This incident may be one of the largest and most significant breaches of taxpayer confidentiality laws by the federal government, yet the IG seems to be washing its hands of the matter.”

The DOJ Public Integrity Section and the FBI sought the tax information at issue in order to prosecute non-profit organizations allegedly engaged in prohibited political activity.  As part of its public oversight efforts, CoA Institute obtained records demonstrating that neither agency ever submitted the statutorily-required requests for disclosure of this information to the IRS between 2009 and 2012.

Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code provides a strict rule of confidentiality for tax returns and return information.  Unless a statutory exception applies, government agencies and their employees may not disclose such information.  Violations can include fines, termination from employment, and even imprisonment.

To access CoA Institute’s June 29, 2016 Letter to TIGTA and DOJ-OIG, click here.

To access the DOJ IG’s October 12, 2016 response, click here.

To access CoA Institute’s October 19, 2016 FOIA request to DOJ IG, click here.

Filed Under: Media, Press Release