Transcripts For CSPAN2 Justice Department IG Michael Horowitz On Government Oversight 20240713

Hello. Mr. Bob woodward, congressman Jason Chaffetz American University for the upper well, faculty staff, students honored guests and viewers at home. Good afternoon to you all. My name is Camille Nelson and i have the great privilege of serving as the dean of American University Washington College of law. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the beautiful campus for such an important ivconversation on government oversight and accountability in conjunction withva the launch of our new student publication. Oversight project. Org. This project is yet another stexample of the stellar work of our student leaders in creating a go to source aboutle the workf federal oversight accountability and ethics watchdog. We could not be more proud of our students, their efforts and enthusiasm here at Washington College of law. Our Law School Community is especially grateful that the launch of this project is made possible and is elevated with the leading experts who will share their insight on oversight and credibility with us today. My warm welcome to all of you again please join me in welcoming the organizer of todays event professorm la guardia the faculty director of the Washington College of law and government programs. Thank you, fernando. [applause] thank you very much. Welcome everyone. Im fernando laguardia, director here at American University of Washington College of law. We are pleased youre joining us today to celebrate the launch of oversight project. Org, a student log covering the work of the federal oversight and credibility community. We have a full program and we want to get to it. They say in politics timing is everything and thats about as true as can be with respect to todays topic. We will be hearing from two turning to athen chat with our two other guests followed by russians from the audience. Students who have to leave for a 1 00 oclock class are welcome to do so. We will not be offended. We will close by 13030 p. M. A reminder you can find t our nw blog at oversight project. Org and you can join the conversation on twitter at oversight blog launch. Our first speakersa is Sylvia Burwell american universities 15th president and the first woman to serve as president. A visionary leader with experience in the public and private sectors present burwell joined American University in 2017. She has been confirmed by the senate to two cabinet positions serving as the 22nd secretary of the apartment of health and Human Services and prior to that as director of the office of management and budget. In addition to numerous other positions in government present burwell has held leadership at two of the largest foundations in the world serving 11 years at the bill and Melinda Gates foundation including roles as chief operating officer and president of Global Development and is president of the walmart foundation. She earned a bachelors degree in government from Harvard University and a ba in philosophy politics and economics from the university of oxford as a Rhodes Scholar but please me in welcoming Sylvia Burwell. [applause] thank you for that introduction, professor. I want to thank you for your leadership of our Conference Today and your work on our new wcl blog on our nations Inspector General and the oversight and accountability community. I want to thank are Remarkable Group of guests with bob woodward, former committee chair,won Jason Chaffetz and the department of justice Inspector General, michael horowitz. And the attendees from the council of inspectors general who for efficiency and integrity. Thank you all for coming. Ic a group of this caliber is highly of the importance of the topic at hand, which given recent events i think is at the forefront of our national discourse. While timing is everything as was mentioned we are proud that american universities is exploring the critical topic of making our government in Society Today is no different. I also want to thank everyone in attendance from our students to our staff from our officers here to the offices of special counsel was represented here today to our faculty. Its fitting that today this event is at the Washington College of law because more than a century ago to women were denied access to Legal Education because of their gender. Motivated by their reverence and respect for the law that went ahead and founded a law school on their own and it would be the First Law School founded by women in the first nt female dn in first graduated all female class. That founding of Washington College law and that same fidelity to the lot and the current that led to the founding of wc oh rings us all here today. It is what do the people who often serve in our nations special counsel and Inspector Generals offices to their tireless work for countable, childrens government andl it is work that is vital for our democracy. Ive been fortunate to have firsthand experience with our nations Inspector General and i should probably clarify that all those interactions were routine business. As secretary of health and Human Services under president obama i served with the hhs id and a few years before that in the Clinton Administration i had the chance to work withw the it and it staf at the Treasury Department and in addition to that the first time i was at omb around one i served as the convener of all the ids because the m in omb standing for management brings together all what i mean there was one thing i did and i had a chance to watch all the ids come together to leave them in our efforts to share insight into sheer challengese as well as bet practices. What i saw was a group of Public Servants committed to Good Governments. Committed to being a strong and independent voice and the independent voice that this role requires. I also saw a group would not confuse independence with isolation. R in treasury as well as hhs we saw our id not as distant overseers butt as independent actual assets to the department. We wanted as much as is appropriate and possible to have their expertise and their insight as part of our initial deliberations when you are on the front end of implementing the law. Wanted to ensure that policies and programs we designed and implemented as part of the executive branch that the highest standards of fidelity to the lawn n d and that the fidelo the level of excellence that our nation deserves and in short, we wanted a collaborative relationship and i will admit it wasnt always easy to build it. I designed the relationship between appointees and ig is meant to be challenging. With hard work and with an open door and a shared Foundation Foundation premised on the idea that Good Governments is always the ultimate goal and we could make an impact together for the people that we were in government to serve. Today a couple years removed from my most recent Government Service im thankful to have been a part of the uplifting work and i think will now to be a part of an Academic Community that is defining new ways to advance Public Service and ensure that practitioners on the frontline can connect with leading scholars as well as our students who will be the next generation of Inspector Generals special councils. S. S that is a higher purpose of Higher Education and we are pleased to convene into advanced scholarships and apply those learnings and insight into practice. You will see it in todays conference and inon the new sign institute of policy and politics were leading practitioners and policymakers are coming together with students to address the challenges of our time. You will see it in our workng to get back to things like work like the programming offered to ids special councils and other federal executives who the key executive leadership program. I can assure you there is nothing sleepy about the college campus. Gone are the days of isolated ivory towers. American university is a place for change makers are on the constantly searching for new ways to make impact. Fortyone years ago when president carter signed the Inspector General act of 1978 he said the audience that day was gathered for quotes, a matter of public trust. Decades since through today our nation Inspector General and special councils have built the bulwark to protect that trust. And so, we are fortunate for their service and thank you for letting me join you all today and i hope that you enjoy the rest of the conversation. Thank you all. [applause] thank you very much, president burwell. Our next beaker former congressman Jason Chaffetz represented utahs third Congressional District from 2009 urthrough 2070. He was chair of the committee on oversight and government reform from 2013 until stepping down of Brigham Young university, Jason Chaffetz was a bit and it Business Executive and chief of staff to utah governor to his prior to his election to congress. A champion of the oversight of executive branches can tribute or to fox news. Please join me in welcoming former congressman Jason Chaffetz. [applause] thank you so much for having me. Wa i hear there is pizza and i would do anything for a slice of pizza. Was not hard to get me here. I congratulate you and hats off on this product. Its one of the most impressive and important things and i was surprised to see it. Very glad to see it because theres always somebody doingmo something somewhere. When you have a federal bureaucracy as big as it is this oversight concept is just pivotal and its pivotal. Back in 1814 the Early Congress decided to create a committee was under a different name there for back in 1814 they created a modernday Oversight Committee and decidedre w every expenditur preparation that would happen in our Congress Needed to have some congressional oversight and that was the purview of what they were supposed to do. The committee grew and expanded and at one point it had 70 plus members on it and contracted it back and they did different gyrations interesting to me back in the mid 1800s there was a man elected from the state of illinois and is a freshman and they put him on a committee not the most glamorous committee with appropriations and these other ones that are supposedly the a committees and they took this young freshman out of illinois and he earned reputation and is a name was spotty and he was not known as honest abe back then but known as Abraham Lincoln the freshman from illinois but they called him spotty and the reason they called him spotty was because he immediately addressed the president because he did not believe that the Mexican American wars started in the spot that the president said it started. He had a series of speeches that they tell me exactly where those shots were fired. I like to go visit those people. You havent produced them so where was the spot. He earned a National Reputation and he trailed the president and he did not have flaws in the same negation and he found friends around the country by chasing them around and hope holding the president s feet to the fire and he was more right than wrong and through this part. Its a very important it shows the gravity of the situation of how important it is and pass for today the Oversight Committeelu theres a lot of good work that has to be done and when i was a freshman first came on the committee we were off to the races. Whether the democrat or republican in our founders believed it easier if you are a monarch or if youre a dictator the United States congress is not built for speed. It was not the easiest to glide past from here to there what it does require is i heard from Ronald Reagan as we need to trustg we need to trust but verify. Of how big the federal government is now twopoint to million federal employeeses. Federal government will spend more than 4. 4 trillion and its hard to get your arms wrapped around how big that is but it would take you more than 3000 years to get to 1 trillion. We spent 1 trillion every 90 days. Its true there are mistakes are made in things that need to be learned here is one challenge as we move this project forward. It needs to be as objective as it can possibly be. Politics in this town is nutty and crazy on both ends of the spectrum. Let congress be the nutty political machine that it is ad thats the way our founders envisioned it but oversight through good oversight is supposed to be as objective as it possibly could and when i came to as an idea what and it sounds like a couple nerds with dreams or green visors on county things and i had no idea. When you go to pull back the layer that pulls back a little bit if you peel the onion you cant do find that there are 72 Inspector General when they appoint them and get them confirmed by the senate. I know there are ten or 12 vacancies but it should be fully staffed at all times and they have 13500 employees in some of these organizations are rather large and they are the eyes and ears and the experts that congress will never be. I have always believed that if we can give more exposure to the American Public asge to what gos on with their government the better off we would be my biggest fear is we have these inspectors general out there doing this the work and that the issued a report after a year or two of investigation and knowledge and then it sat on some self that no one paid attention to it and congress is notorious for being 7 miles wide and about half an inch deep. It doesnt have the bandwidth to dive deep the weight Inspector General can do so. Chen you get excited about with this project is interesting how over the course of time its to give better exposure so the people at home if they have an interest in the interior department and if there interested in service they could dive deep into that. Its the American Peoples government and the i American People who pay the bill and this project has the potential of being one of the best conduits to get that information without the political filtering that Congress Wants to lay on top of it to what is really going on but my challenge for you along the way is to be as objective as possible and lead the subjectivity to it in the political twist and turns to it for comments or other avenue to do it but getting the information and how you do that the credibility you bring with this Great University really has the opportunity as much as anything else out there as we move into a medication era that is so different than how i grew up and the young people in this room you are changing the world we communicate and process information it can blossom into whatever it is you want it to be and if you do so and it doesnt become a partisan bludgeoning tool for one party or the other that you will have achieved a degree of success that will benefit or other americans across the table and have the ability to have the degree of credibility that very few others have along the way. As i conclude let me just say hats off and thanks to those involved in the Inspector General community. Ive got several friends and mechanized double faces here that have appeared before the committee and most of them have a good experience maybe one or two and a particularly mr. Horwitz who is in the hot seat here i want to thank him for his service and the good work that people do within his group and organization and he served on our staff and we got good people here to do a lot of good work and it doesnt go mechanized for the benefit thatt it is but i, for one, represent more people than you know they give a lot of things appreciation for what you do and how you do it and its favorable to a good quality functioning government that would make the american taxpayers proud. Thank you for your service and thank you for having me here today. Congratulations on the kickoff of this new blog. [applause] thank you very much mr. Jason chaffetz. Our next two speakers probably need no introduction even outside washington but i will introduce them as they join me i on stage. As they come up i will provide a brief bio. Bob woodwardas is an associate editor of the Washington Post and works there since 1971. After graduating from Yale University he also served in the navy. He shared into Pulitzer Prizes first and id 73 for coverage of the watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein and second in 2003 as a leader border for coverage of the 911 terrorist attacks. Mr. Woodward has authored or coauthored 19 books all of which have been national nonfiction bestsellers. Hes written books on nine of the most recent president s from nixon to trump. This includes his latest book, fear trump in the white house. Michael horwitz is Inspector General of the department of justicee and shared of the general on integrity and efficiency. As Inspector General he overses more than 450 special agents auditors, inspectors, attorneys and staff Whose Mission is to detect and a waste, fraud, abuse and misconduct. To promote economy and efficiency in the department operations. Prior to serving ass Inspector General he had a distinguished career in private practice inho the form of justice and is a graduate of Brandeis University and received his jd from harvard law school. Please join me in welcoming our guests. [applause] okay. I hope the microphone is on. After some brief remarks and conversations it will turn to the audience for your questions and a reminder to find the website at oversight project. Org and you can join the conversation on twitter at oversight program. Dot launch. Bob woodward thank you for being here. I want to get right to a question on the minds of members in the audience and that is the what has come outm in the news about the situation with respect to ukraine and it doesnt seem to be persuading many republicans that there is a serious problem and it took a while for the watergate inquiries together steam and it wasnt until the case came out that the tide turned and in that instance so what, in your view, would it take your for a republican to be concerned . Well, to a certain extent its easier to describe the creation of the universe. [laughter] its a comp get a question and let me try to be brief because we should hear from michael because you are onle the hot set in you are doing thisef for the government with independence. I know having been been a reporter for not now more than 47 years i still think that the main thing to worry about secret government and even at my age i first thought generally in the morning when i wake up is what are the pastors hiding . That means they are always hiding something and that they are not just turning all the cards off so you have to work on it. What is going on with the impeachment investigation President Trump and the ukraine matter i think is very serious and should be investigated and we shouldnt , as lots of democrats is president burwell still here . No, she went on to better things. She was quizzing me and said wasnt this so serious that it may and the Trump Presidency and that is possible but you have to put it into the context of the one time a president resigned, president nixon, was because of the buildup of all what watergate was and real briefly watergate was not just a burglary in the democratic headquarters but a serious operations designed to destroy the process by which people are selected to run for president in the process for selecting a president. One of the first phases of watergate was 17 wiretaps on reporters and white house officials. A Burglary Team operating in the white house basement that literally went to california, broke into the psychiatrists office of Daniel Ellsberg who had leaked the pentagon papers. You compare it we dont know and we may find out this to be the case that Trump Administration has wiretapped any reporter for white house official to track down leads but we dont know whether they have a Burglary Team that has broken into say a chairman shifts Doctors Office sore the magnitude is not there yet. The watergate operation was part of a massive sabotage and Espionage Campaign that had 50 people working for them and if you get into the details they destroyed the leading candidate for the democratic nominationd, senator muskie and gotr someboy who was much easier to run tiagainst then when they were caught in this there was a massively funded war on justice and the coverup and if you listen to the nixon tapes theres no ambiguity at all. When you do your work you live in a world of ambiguity. The nixon tapes, thousands of hours of him literally saying no, we have to pay blackmail money to obstruct justice and to keep people from talking in the various investigations. It will only cost 1 million and theres one tape where 12 times nixon orders payment of blackmail money. You have a scale of criminality that havent seen in the trump case now. Its always possible but if you look through the narrow keyholes of the ukrainian business you will miss the overall and the last book i did on trump you see how he operates in Foreign Affairs in the economy and ive described it as a governing price in all areas. It all needs to be examined in a very serious but fairminded way and thats difficult. I could go on too long about what happeneddi in the trump whe house in the first 18 months but its the sort of stuff that really causes you to worry. One example, one year into his presidency one of the things trump publicly ended and the National Security Council Meetings was always beating on why are we spending all this money on nato and why do we have allies and why do we have 28000 u. S. Troops in south korea and they kept saying this is the best money we spend and it kept the peace for 70 years and trump would not let go of it and kept saying we are suckers. We are wasting our money and we be so rich if we didnt spend money on all the allies. The secretary of defense, James Madison said at the meeting was trump was so why are we doing this and James Madison said something that is probably one sa the most chilling things i ever heard as a reporter. He said to the president , mr. President , we are doing all the things to prevent world war iii. Number one job of a president is to prevent world war iii in my view. Look at other president s and look at bush senior, George Herbert walker bush, when he was president imagine him meeting and the secretary of defense was dick cheney and imagine dick cheney having to say to president bush by the way,to wee spending all this money and we have all these allies and we are doing this work and have this massive military to prevent world war iii and bush knew that. President s need to know that. That it is not realized and i hope it is now realized by President Trump but you have to put its a matter of scale in a matter of vulnerability but if we ever have Nuclear Weapons used in the world it will should that happen, god help us it does not but should that happen thats not just going to do fine history but it will define civilization. The whole oversight process by the media and by people like michael is essential to explaining what is going on and i think putting the government in people in government in a position of being more straightforwardd. Sylvia was saying they look at the Inspector Generals somebody helping them. Im not sure thats always the case but i think in a sense just your presence lights a fire. Thank you for that answer. I want to turn from what you are describing is both a big picture of the press as an institution safeguarding against abuse and the work of public and separation of powers to this work for internal embedded in government of oversight and accountability entities and michael, thank you for being here. You are one of the progenitors of this work and i appreciate personally and the students appreciate very much your support of our efforts to launch the project. Can you say a little bit about the outside world should know about inspectors generals at this moment in time. And how that relates to our project of bringing that to the public but also as a matter of Civic Literacy and why is this work so important . Great to be here but at the risk of disappointing peoples i promise not to talk about world war iii. Ukraine or other watergate i believe that at the bottom to do and thats why he won Pulitzer Prizes and he hasnt but this is a very important event and important project for the reasons that bob indicated and sylvia mentioned earlier and Jason Chaffetz mentioned in the need and desire for the public to understand what their government is doing is rose grows more and more everyday. There is some irony in the fact that it was watergate when president carter signed it into law because he said its time confidence in government was at an alltime low. I have not checked those numbers but my guess is some of that confidence has been impacted over frankly, the left has been doing the seven and half years and the public, i think more and more needs independent voices that will be to actually what is occurring in government. That is what we do in the it community. There are 73 of us across or 74 across, congress created a new position last year so when that is filled and the others are filled the vacancies there will be 74. 13000 plus employees and we are there to keep eyes on government and from our standpoint be the peoples watchdogs on what is going on in the federal government. I should make the point theres are state and local ids over light entities across the country who do tremendous work. There Inspector Generals across the country but we exist to look at important issues going on to follow the money and see where money is a statement on it and those dont get the most attention but for example there is or has been a massive audit going on h of the defense department. The first one ever. When you think of the money that goes through that department thats a tremendous undertaking. We have several highprofile managers that have gone on but just think about the work that weve done in the community on the federal level we are doing what hopefully a project like this will highlight which is the work that does not get on the front page of the Washington Post but is nevertheless, critically important, with what goes on. We have reports from hhs id about whats going on and the dhs and were working on a review for that. So what we are there to do in the public is benefiting from our work is our efforts at Greater Transparency to find out where folks are trying to get critical information about what the government is doing and letting the public understand what is really happening with their policies and funding and in my case, for example, the Justice Department the legal authorities that theyve been given whether its a National Security area or criminal side or civil arena or forfeiture that has been given to the department. We think thats what were vy much trying to do. Or tried to make sure that there is transparency in the government and a famous saying since the graduate of justice brand ice and the in fact in and we very much believe that as i jeez and its critical before we became a justice effort and bob woodward and journalist do that every day. Then they let the see what the public is going on. How oversight functionsns are so important and the work that you describe is an example of that. And at the same time, the reality is that we have to deal with Congress Setting policy, being in charge of the overall assessment of the accountability of the government to perform its function. So can you address and, bob, if you can also talk about that interplay between the internal check and balance that is the Oversight Community, especially the inspectors general that are part of government and how they interplay withc that external check that is so important and the role of congress, especially in the current environment. I started our conversation about an oversight blog with a question that does have political implications, but on purpose because we are if in a moment where politics expect substance overlap so how do you do that work, what is the way to enhance congress effectiveness, and is there something, you know, is there a role that we d n play here in informing that process . Well, by law, we report both to our Agency Leadership and to our congressional Oversight Committees. And one of the things you see regularly is on occasion you have cabinet secretaries who are looking to our work and finding our work useful. But frankly, more often than not certainly at the midlevel management you dont quite get that kind of reception. And what i certainly found, i know my fellow i. G. S have found, is that when there is sunlight on our work and our reporting and often thats through congressional hearings and congressional oversight rtings change. We make recommendations in our report that improve government, that improve the operations of the Agency Program weve just reviewed. Were not trying to just write a report and have it be dropped own and nothing happens. What we do is constant followup, to see if the agencies have improved operations. And having the ability to go to congress and having congress invested, frankly, having the press interested when there are news reports about our work, there is more action. When congressional hearings occur, theres more action. People take them more seriously, and thats critical to what we do and how we get things done. I think one of the challenges with congressional oversight is how to keep that moving. How not to have a hearing and then no followup and nothing happens because everybodys nusy, there are a lot of issues floating around, but there really has to be sustained followup to occur. Can i take this . To have michael here, and can i ask you a few questions . Thats your job. [laughter] okay. First of all, could we hook you up to a polygraph . [laughter] no. No, thank you. I know you will answer honestly. But im very interested because in the news business, the newspaper i work for, the Washington Post, its very important to have an environment thats what somewhat free wheeling. A reporter can go to an editor and say, you know, i think theres something that smells . Smells in Homeland Security, i want to look at it. And they will get the go ahead. In your operation if somebody gomes to you and says, you know, i have a up opportunity or my sniffer tells me were not enforcing the Voting Rights act as the law mandates, will you let that person go start to look at it . Great question, and it is a very important part of what we do which is something similar in that, first of all, we get lots of complaints coming in and information coming in from whistleblowers. And whether people call themselves whistleblowers or not, from individuals at the Justice Department, 110,000 plus people at the Justice Department, we have 450. So our eyes and ears are those people. So often times we get information in, and what we have to do is assess it, we talk about it probably not in dissimilar way, at least from what ive seen in the movies, from the newsroom, and i dont play ben bradlee in that role yes, exactly. And, i mean, can i just tell i mean, atmosphere, leadership atmosphere. And so your answer is, yes. Somebody comes to you and says, you know, i really think we should look at this, youll give them the go ahead for, what, a week, a day, a month . It depends. So a lot of its going to be much the psalm, im sure, here. How much credibility does it have, and if we kick the tires a little, lets kick the tires a little and see what weve got. And then well reassess suppose somebody came to you and said they thought the attorney general was abusing his power, and i think we should look at it. Again, it would depend on [laughter] what the allegation is [inaudible conversations] but you would be free the great thing about this generally, and this is true for all the i. G. S, the critical part of the statute, as you know, is are you [inaudible] fats the foundation. So your answer is yes. Depending upon the facts, the answer is yes. Yeah. We get would you have to tell the attorney general, by the way, youre on our radar . So this is true for any component yeah. In the department. We, absent a reason to keep it secret what would be a good reason . Well, if you have, for example, something undercover, you have reason to think something, some wrong doings ongoing, Traditional Law enforcement reasons for wanting to do something. Frankly, in our situation as i. G. S that doesnt happen that frequently, because by the time something wanders its way to us, its probably known that somebody did something wrong, which is what leads somebody to our doorstep, because someone else hasnt dealt with it, right . Because were study after study will tell you that whistleblowers, and i was in private practice for a while dealing with whistleblowing issues and supporting compliance functions whistleblowers, generally speaking, want to see things fixed in their own organizations first, right . Usually were not the first stop. So attorney general barr, when he sees you in the hallway withs of the Justice Department doesnt happen a rot. Okay. [laughter] but should he, you know, kind of feel internally theres the watchdog, theres potential trouble . Every i would hope all throughout the department any employee when they see us knows were the watchdogs. Do you have any friends in the department . [laughter] i the great thing about this job is these are the rare occasions when people show up and want to be at lunch with me. [laughter] that doesnt happen very frequently. I can clear out the Justice Department lunchroom like that. [laughter] so the answer is you really dont have many friends. No, we dont [laughter] if were doing our job right, were probably not going to have many friends. Can i just tell and i want to say, students, if you have to go to class, were not going to think any less of you. Theyre going to miss something. Theyre going to miss something. [laughter] you mentioned the movies, they made a movie of the book that carl and i did, all the president s men. Have you seen it . A number of people youre very good looking. [laughter] you have no idea how many women ive disappointed. [laughter] serious disappointment, believe me. So theyre making the movie, this is 1975, and theyve got the director is meeting with Dustin Hoffman and redford, and they say who can we get to play ben bradlee, the editor . They knew Jason Robards from broadway. It was a bad time in his life. Hed been in an accident, he was an alcoholic. They called him in because he was almost like their brother. We want you to play ben bradlee, and well pay you 50,000. And robards, it was such a bad time, oh, 50,000, thats great. Give me the script, ill be back tomorrow. So he came back the next day and they said, well, what do you think . He said, well, i cant play bradlee. Why . I read the script. Whats wrong with the script . Im going to quote them in full here, he said, well, all bradlee does is run around and say wheres the fucking story. [laughter] and they said thats what the editor of the Washington Post does. [laughter] and all you have to do is find 15 ways to say wheres the fing story and, ah, okay. Yhats what he did. Youve seen the movie, and he won the a acad maine award. [laughter] academy award. And all he does really, in different ways and, you know, thats your job, right . [laughter] i didnt win an academy award, but i should add also the reason the i. G. Model works is both because of congressional oversight, but also because the leaders of the organization have to be supportive. Yeah. Thats how it works. And ill just say that, you know, im the fourth confirmed guy at justice, but since day one, the 30 years weve been in existence, 30 plus years now, weve had complete support from attorney generals on both sides. Theyll look at things, and the i. G. Models in other agencies have had that. You see it sometimes that doesnt play out. And its us versus them, and that spills out publicly, ultimately, whether its through a congressional hearing or through other means. So its a very fluid model that really requires, like all things frankly inme government, for the people to make sure it works the right way. Im not ill add im independent, but as i tell our folks, were not unmoored from the Justice Department. Im in the executive branch. All the i. G. S are in the executive branch, and its titical for us to understand our role. I read the i. G. Act constantly when issues comp up. So [inaudible conversations] students especially, if you want to ask questions, you can queue up at the microphone. So you cant be fired by the attorney general. You can be fire by President Trump though. Correct. The 36 somebody do. What do you think the chances are of you being fired [laughter] i have no prediction. You mentioned, you i dont want to think about whos going to play michael in the movie now, but im going to think about that. Ill just add this also on the question of firing. So weve been around 40 years now, there have been less than one hand you can count the number of i. G. S in 40 years ero have been removed after ill just add the 1981 initial removals by president reagan which was the first transition posti. G. Act where he removed all 12, there were only 12 at the time. Huge blowback, bipartisan blowback, and he was forced to rehire about half of them, some of whom, we understand, didnt actually want to come back. They had had enough of being the least popular person in the room. But since then, since 1981, only a handful of i. G. S, and none in this administration. Lets just add that. Yeah. So people dont think its happened routinely, you know i mean, sometimes you want to do your job so well that you do get fired. You do dont you . We have to do our job is right way. Yeah. And whether that will cause someone to take action or not cannot go into the discussion point of your thinking. But it can get too chummy, though, cant it . Well, thats the racing, right . Yeah risk. So i. G. S have gotten themselves in trouble in generally two ways. One is becoming, being perceived rightly or wrongly as being too close with their agency heads by congress, by others. But alsor i. G. S have gotten themselves in trouble by being free range actors and not realizing where they sit in the constitutional system. Finish so its a, its a challenging issue, famously one former im sorry g. Called it straddling a barbed wire fence. And it feels like that sometimes. Question from the back. Yes, hi. Can everybody hear me all right . It was my job to turn on the mic, so im going to use this opportunity to ask my first question. Im evan, im here at Washington College of law and a member of the oversight project staff. We want to thank you guys for coming in and being here. I had an original question which i thought really hard about, and then mr. Woodward with already asked it, so thanks. [laughter] but ive got another one for you based on that conversation. As congressman chaffetz knows probably more than anybody, Media Outlets have no problem reporting and sometimes overreporting whats going on on rte hill, whats going on in the Oversight Committee. But despite the, you know, expertise and the massive amount of power i. G. S have to up cover fraud, waste uncover fraud, waste and abuse within government agencies, they dont receive the same amount of coverage. So, mr. Woodward, titan of journalism, what can theag press do differently or do better to help raise awareness with the dmerican people what goes on in the inspectors general office. And then second, mr. Horowitz, titan of the i. G. S, what can you do better to hebb our proverbial report branch of government better perform and do its job . Thank you. Okay. In the media environment now, the internet environment of impatients and speed. Give impatience and speed. Ndve it to me in a sentence or headline. And its pretty obvious that President Trump has been somewhat successful in his criticism of the media. Fake news. We do make some mistakes. I think, obviously, its a political ploy by him, and i think what we need to do in the news media is make our product better. We need to work longer and harder on everything that we do, and we needton to we need to be Katherine Graham who owned the post and was the publisher during watergate and for a long time, after nixon resigned she wrote Carl Bernstein myself and a letter on legal, yellow legal stationery. This is a woman 40 had more stationer in in the world, but she wrote it on a legal pad. Dear carl and bob, now that nixons resigned, dont start thinking too highly of yourselves. [laughter] ntd let me give you some advice. And that is, beware the demon pom paucity. And pomposity. In media, academia, government stalks the halls, and we need to find some way to tune the emotions out particularly on television where so much of what people say gets magnified, body language, smugness and finds some way to tell it in i mean, one of the things i like about yourd reports is theyre long. I like long. And i think long means somebody really put time against the problem, looked at perspectives. Ind so often things in the newspaper arent long, and they need to be long. So we have serious worked to work to do. So i think from our standpoint one of the things we did two years ago was launch oversight. Gov. I hope people go there and look at it. Its a place where all 73 i. G. Reports are located. We also launched our own twitter account, although not to send out [inaudible] but, rather, every time a reports posted on oversight. Gov you get a tweet that tells you which i. G. Posted it and what its about. Go there and look at it. Again, a way we want to try and get our message out. We have now 20,000 plus followers on oversight. Gov which may seem small compared to some followers and how much people have gathered over the years, but for the i. G. Community thats now actually the third largest. Theres only three i. G. S with more followers, is so were trying to get9 that out there tore and more. This effort, the oversight project, very important to get the word out there. And we have to keep doing the kind of reports ive mentioned. Weve got to we cant sort of skimp on the facts. Were, i tell people when i get questions about certain reports whether its, you know, some of the higher profile reports or some of the lower profile reports, i often stop and ask those have you actually gone and read any of the reports . Ac its a 30pager, have you read the 30 pages . If its 500, 600 like last years report on the election review that we did, did you read the 30pager or so executive summary . And invariably, almost nobody reads them. Theyve read the news story or watched whichever media outlet they trust, and thats the result thats what their takeaway is and frames their thinking. And thats, you know, for those of us who pend a love of spend a lot of time writing those reports, and to bobs point, we spend a lot of time worrying over the facts. And frankly, at the event we had last year which you were so kind to you write a very mundane, plain way. We dont look to load up our but whats interesting, i think, if listen to what you said. Youre having a hard time getting your story out. Is what youre saying. And thats most interesting to me in that this is the Information System is so immense, its clogged up. And even serious things dont get noticed. And in many respects what frustrates is the most isnt the first page story. Youve got to get the headline out will this, but our reports are across the board all of our i. G. Reports are really rich in detail. To your point of they get all of it out, we rarely get the followup story. We rarely get the thought piece ll what does this report say. We get it occasionally from the opinion writers but not a lot. I think you ought to leak em [laughter] i think if you leaked it a day or two ahead, you give somebody an exclusive x you would get more attention. Just thats the world we live in. This is a man thinking about business. [laughter] can i a bunch of i. G. S out here. [inaudible conversations] i think hi. My name is jack, im here at the Washington College of law part of the oversight project as well. I wrote down my question just to make sure i got it right. This is mostly for mr. Horowitz. The whistleblower laws that regard the Intelligence Community kind of seem to be flawed as weve seen in the news when they are complaining about the highest offices in the government. Be after all, the whistleblower complaint first went to the office of Legal Counsel before it went to congress, and in the office of Legal Counsel they issued a memoranda opinion saying it wasnt of urgent concern and, therefore, shouldnt have gob to congress at all gone to congress at all. But that was written by the office of Legal Counsel which is headed by the attorney general itself. Do you think these whistleblower laws especially in the Intelligence Community need to be rethought toes that they can help protect whistleblowers who complain or help get the complaints out to congress and the public when they target those very highest levels of government . So the whistleblower issues are important to us in the i. G. Community. Its very important we work very closely with the special counsel this is anish hue that we care deeply about. We issued a report in july about how whistle blowing works and why it works. Its on oversight. Gov, and you can see it. We highlight there how important whistleblowers have been to the work weve done and how we protect them from retaliation. And what weve seen as i. G. S and im one of the i. G. S in the Intelligence Community because the fbi and dea has a seat at the table is whistleblowers need to be able to report wrongdoing that they see. I think Senate Grassley issued a very important statement yesterday articulating why thats to important. Its important in the Intelligence Community, its important outside the Intelligence Community congress has made it very clear that regardless of which party is in power, they expect federal employees to be able to report wrongdoing to them as part of what congressman chaffetz talk d about as part of their oversight function. I heard from congressman chaffetz about whiting rdowers whistleblowers who had gone to his Committee First with information that he was sending back to us. I heard about it from ranking members who came from both parties. Is and so thats a are important part a very important part of what we do as i. G. S. We regularly sit and talk about issues with the various whistleblower laws. There are a lot of themd out there that are, have been sort hi layered over the years to try and cover situations as they arise. This one presents, you know, a challenge in that i. G. S dont oversee the executive office of the president. Theres not an i. G. For the executive office of the president. We are im sorry g. S for each of we are i. G. S for each or our agencies. But i look forward i know Michael Atkinson is Intelligence Community i. G. And henry kerner and the office of special counsel will continue to work with the whistleblower caucuses in the house and the senate which chairman grassley cochairs to see does there need to be reform. Is this a parallel here totween the Current Situation and what transpired previously with respect to production of documents where there was reluctance to produce all documents to i. G. S under the Inspector General act until congress amended the statute to make very clear finish. 16, yeah. That all means all . D it an opportunity to revisit it . The 99 Intelligence Community whistleblower act does make very clear that congress has a, an equity in the issue of rotecting, air guarding National Safeguarding National Defense protecting whistleblowers is essential to that, but perhaps that language isnt clear enough and there needs to be legislation around you want. Having legislation around it. These issues come up and thats why you see the whistleblower laws and new statute coming on board. Not just in the last several years but various grannies organizations and it has come that are actually as many or more federal employees and many agencies that are contractors and guarantees that report with that retaliation. These issues come up and congress then has to decide how to legislate. Its a big challenge as congressman chaffetz said to have a faster process. Obviously Legal Counsel is going to conduct a statute back where it was passed and have various concerns of being passed back then and then in the Clinton Administration. Where they cross administrations and we would not have our business and the press would be in their business if there werent folks were looking to say what was going on. Im going to switch over to the side. Hi, thank you guys for coming and im a part of the oversight project as well. I was curious as to what you guys thought were key issues that i know we spoke about it with the whistleblower before but other issues in the Oversight Community that we should be focusing on with reform or maybe just a little bit more support from media, congress or the general public. I think it would be really important that you lets just take the Affordable Care act of obamacare and i think there has been some ig reports on that so far. Id also like them to make an assessment of how well its working. I know that they think its outside of your lane. Not necessarily. Okay, i think there should be for more this is a report how this about a big topic. Larger than the and im imagination. I havent seen that with something that so central to the government and not only obamacare but some of these projects i would love to talk about this Intelligence Community whistleblower and would be great to get some sort of assessment from it and the ig about how is intelligence and analysts is working. Where is it good . Where is not good . They do some of this internally and they are classified that they will fill the public. The ideas can speak to this here that a lot of work on the obama care law and im not frankly as familiar with it but that is one of our functions and responsibilities and having done that through various Department Programs and i mentioned that weve done a number of reviews on that in terms of how its working. Weve done several reports recently that are outlined of handling of confidential resources with atf and had a number of issues so we do look at the program issues and those are beyond the frustrations at times that those kind of reports and the overview reports which have the catchy headline or the gotcha moment which sometimes dont get the coverage that i personally think should get. Im not the editor of the Washington Post. The dea had a report that is opposed and rightly so about the topic thats very significant in the public imagination and that is very welltimed and thoughtful. Hhs a done its work . Yes. What grade would you give obamacare. Im not the only one. Im honored to answer your question. Thats okay, please. Hows obamacare doing . What would degrade be . The way we look at obamacare is in regards to the intent of obamacare. Its a bell you driven care and that type of care actually transcends across Medicare Medicaid and actually is some of the areas that could say center for disease of control so, its a very broad vision as far as bringing value to the customer and to the patient. And actually to the individual because obamacare had the vision of trying to keep people out of hospitals and keep them from being sick and permitting illness. What grade would you give it overall . What grade . I think as far as how its been carried on and through this administration there is value in obamacare as far as the preexisting condition and there are a lot of pieces of the Law Enforcement perspective which gave us more stringent oversight responsibility and more administrative amenities that we have implemented as well so it would help us with a fraudulent landscape. Over a grade i would give it a b plus. Thats helpful. Youll get that in the paper tomorrow. laughs come to a law school and get cold calls. Can we get you on the deans list here . But i would say about health and Human Services and the struggle from the ig perspective and staff as well as people that are there is that people are mission focused and focus on Good Government and keeping people healthy throughout their life span. Its a good mission and covers a third of our economy and we take it very seriously and i appreciate your effort to talk about how what we do is very broad and how delivering health Team Hurricane people. President trump wants to repeal and replace obamacare so maybe you will be fired tomorrow. You gave it too high a grade. My job is to do my job and all just worry about that. Im ben reyes and im part of wti and my question to you is with the graph and scope of the government, how do the resources of the ig deal with the wide range of the rise . Thats a great question. Its a bit about what i mentioned earlier. They look at risk and where are the greatest risks in the organization and how they spend their money and the Justice Department is about a couple of billion dollars is a small number compared to other agencies. Where is the greatest risk of the Justice Department . Its not just about going out the door but its about how do they apply laws and attracting several liberties. Is it a humane system . How are the congressional officers managing it . How are the inmates transitioning for people who are in prison in these opportunities. All those issues that arent just for us and the justice and bottom line dollars. We are looking at a lot of profiles and to some ieds its raised from a famous movie of follow the money and you water the money goes. But for us, we are looking at a variety of issues. The money is coming from the prison system and from inmates and from the union ban managers and from the concern groups and the citizenry to give you an example. Well here from advocates who are concerned about asset chicer and reform on that will hear from members of congress about what issues theyre hearing about. One of the things that we talk about all the time when these issues come up internally is when writing something with relevant policy and we can write an area thats with me or my folks but i have 450 or 500 people oversee 110,000 and what are the policies. I write a report, does it matter to the leadership of the component of the fbi or dea. To the Oversight Committees in my organization care about that . Is this something that the public needs to know about even if they dont know either organization cares about it. Those are the kinds of things that were thinking about. We dont have a lot a bandwidth with a lot of reviews and a number of people that we have. We have to be very careful. Or getting close to the end of our time so it will get another question. Thank you. My name is elise, i work at the center at the university in detroit. Its named after senator car 11 and its a strengthen oversight and the state level and elsewhere. My question to you its about the events of congress wrote a lot trying to require the complaints about the intelligence of views which is actually getting to congress. Where the issue of executive privilege that came up in the latest series of events and occurs to me that executive privilege must be an issue that comes up all the time when i just think about having to report things to congress. Im wondering what are the principles you can think about or the procedures that we should all know about . Like you. Good question about privileges and how they have in the ig and i just want to mention the olc opinion was the interpretation the executive privilege question. But they do come up for us and they come up in the context and an agency of the Justice Department which is about lawyers and folks who are looking at legal issues and the privilege question occasionally executive privilege which will not come up that frequently and it comes up occasionally but we may clear across the executive branch in the community is that worthy in the executive branch and exposure to an ig we believe is a privilege. Because were still in the executive branch and its from several years ago that says that in the context. So, as we frame it the, question isnt to that information. Can we include it in a report and take it to congress and go to the public. That is where the challenge lies. As i said, its not necessarily the attorney executive privilege area, its for my world an example the Attorney Client privilege and we will do what we can to make sure that the information gets out in a way that wont waver privilege. We will have it writing around and dont talk about the issue and we write it in a way that we go back and forth with the department. They do have a privilege and to recognize privilege and we as i jeez are the owners of the privilege. Understand that. We cant, those of us who are lawyers, do that because we risk our barr licenses on top of violating someone else is privileged. As you just cant do it. Do you ever ask to have it waved . Do you ever go to the attorney general of the white house and say, you want to disclose. Im going to give you just a minute because i want to get that last question. As an example, what we will do is, this happen in the fast and furious report, we had a chapter in there about the handling of a response from congress and explained why he got it wrong. And that chapter went to the white house for consideration of whether president obama would invoke in privilege, he did not, it went as it is. I didnt ask them do you think its privileged or not, i just need to know can i send it. There are times, though, when you could have that discussion about that but usually its in the context of either you have already waved Attorney Client privilege is for Something Else that he is done or isnt really privileged. Michael . Hi, great. My name is michael carroll, im a member of the faculty here at American University. Bob, i grew up in washington. I remember reading all of your reporting back in the seventies and have been a fan ever since, so thank you for being here. Its a great honor. My question is on behalf of my colleague Robert Vaughan who has been about oversight and accountability he is the van in the vaughan index, and he is an expert on the merits Protection Systems board, and i am interested in, to mr. Horowitz, the mspb is part of the infrastructure that supports whistleblowers and is currently completely understaffed, so it has a 2000 case back load and is not processing any of this. Is there anything the ig community can do to bring more attention to that sort of hollowing out of the protection thats an important part of it . And mr. Woodward, how in the heck can the press tell a story about what this means for this sort of Chilling Effect that it might have, so its both, isnt really having a Chilling Effect and if it, is how do you tell that story to a broader audience . One minute each. Yeah, no we certainly care about these issues, ive actually talked about it we offer special counsel and talk about how to bring that information to the publics attention, as well as, frankly, i will go to my own parochial in tests which is i do vacancies and making sure those are filled as well. We have a number that we are looking forward to getting filled and we are trying to work through some of these issues. And highlight the challenges. I dont even need a minute, thank you. I mean, if its relevant and you can explain something to me, we would try to do a story about it. Im going to thank you very much and thank you for joining us. I hope you will agree that its been both and informative and entertaining conversation, and i hope that you will join us online at oversight project thought or. You will follow, us you will send us don your articles for topics that we can cover. I have been writing some as they come up here and i know my students have, as well. Thank you very much and following the conversation, hashtag oversight blog launch. Please join me in thanking our. applause . Im going to go back to the office and march around the hall saying, where is the report . I have to remember that one. Heres a look at our live coverage friday on cspan at noon erin, legal experts discuss some of the cases on the supreme courts upcoming docket when a new term begins next week, followed by President Trump speak at the white house x. On cspan2, hillary and Chelsea Clinton will talk about their latest book about the we have theyre most inspired by the women theyre most inspired by at 6 p. M. Eastern. And now to a house hearing on i. C. E. Detention facilities. A Homeland Security panel heard from an assistant Inspector General about conditions at migrant detention facilities and what needs to be done going forward. This hearing is about 90 minutes. The subcommittee on oversight, management and accountability will come to order. The subcommittee meeting today to receivebc testimony on oversight of i. C. E. Detention facilities. Is dhs doing enough. Good afternoon. We are here to discuss the oversight of immigration and customs ebb forcements detention facilities and whether dhs is doing enough to insure that i. C. E. s own detention standards being met. Before we start, id like to take a moment to acknoed