Transcripts For CSPAN3 Justice Department IG Michael Horowit

Hello. Mr. Bob woodward, congressman chavez, Michael Horowitz, 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 pi great pleasure to welcome you to this beautiful campus for such an important conversation on government oversight and accountability in conjunction with the launch of our new student publication, oversight project. Org. This project is yet another example of the stellar work of our student leaders in creating a go to source about the work of federal oversight, accountability and ethics wash dogs. We do not be more proud of our students, their effort and enthusiasm here at Washington College of law. And our law Cool Community is a especially gracteful that the launch of this project is made possible and elevated with the cadre of leading experts who will share their insights on oversight and accountability with us today. So my warm welcome to all of you, again, please join me in welcoming the organizer of todays event, professor Fernando Laguardia the faculty director of law, law and government program. Thank you, fernando. [ applause ] thank you very much, dean nelson. Welcome everybody. Im faculty director of the program on law and government here at American University Washington College of law. Were pleased youre joining us today to celebrate the launch of oversightproject. Org. A student blog covering the work of federal Oversight Community. We have a full program. They say in politics timing is everything. And thats about as true as can be with respect to todays topic. Well be hearing from two speakers and then turning to a chat with our two other guests, followed by question from the audience. Students who have to leave for a 1 00 class are welcomed to do so. We wont be offended. Well close by 1 30. A reminder that you can find our new blog at oversightproject. Org, and you can join the conversation on twitter at oversightbloglaunch. So our first speaker is sylvia burwell, American Universitys 5th president and first woman to serve as president. A visionary leader with experience in the public and privatesectors, president burwell joined American University in 2017. Shes been confirmed by the senate to two cabinet positions, serving as the 22nd secretary of the department 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, president burwell has held leadership at two of the largest foundations in the world, serving 11 years the at the bill and Melinda Gates foundation and as president of the walmart foundation. She earned a bachelors degree in government from Harvard University and a b. A. In philosophy, politics and economics from the university of oxford as a rhodes secular. Please join me in welcoming sylvia burwell. [ applause ]. Thank you for that introduction, professor. And i also want to thank you for your leadership of our Conference Today and your work on our new wc blog on our nations Inspector Generals and oversight and accountability community. I want to thank our remark wrabl group of guests for coming today. Bob woodward, former Committee Chair jason chavez and Michael Horowitz and the attend agrees the council of Inspector General for efficiency and integrity. Thank you all for coming. A group of this caliber speaks highly of the importance of the topic at hand, which given recent events, i think, is at the forefront of our national discourse. While time is everything as mentioned were proud American University is always exploring the most critical topics affecting our government and society and today is no different. I also want to thank everyone in attendance from our students to our staff to the office of special counsel who is represented here today, to our faculty. And its fitting that today this event is actually at the Washington College of law, because more than a century ago two women were denied access to Legal Education because of their gender. And motivated by their reverence and respect for the law they went ahead and founded a law school on their own and it would be the first law cool found by women and the first to have a female dean and the first to graduate an all female class. And that founding of Washington College of law and that satisfy dea same fidelity to the law brings us here today. Its what drew the people who often serve in our nations special council and Inspector General offices to their tireless work for accountable, transparent government, and its work that is vital for our democracy. Ive been the fortunate to have firsthand experience with our nations Inspector Generals. I should probably clarify that all of those interactions were routine business. As secretary of health and Human Services under president obama i served with the hhs iq and in the Clinton Administration i worked with the ig at the treasury department. In addition to that, the first time i was at o. Mb, round one, i actually served as the convener of all the igs because the o in omb brings together all the igs and in my role as deputy that was one of the things i did and i had the chance to watch all of the igs come together to lead them in our efforts to share insights and to share challenges as well as best practices. And what i saw the there was a group of Public Servants committed to Good Government, committed to being a strong and independent voice, the independent voice that this role requires. But i also saw a group who would not confuse independence with isolation. And in treasury as well as hhs we saw our ig not as distant overseers but as independent actual assets to the department. We wanted as much as appropriate and possible to have their expertise and their insight as part of our initial deliberation. When youre on the front end of implementing laws. We wanted to ensure policies and programs we designed and implemented as part of the executive branch met the high skeft standards of fidelity to the law. In short, we wanted to have a collaborative relationship and i will admit it wasnt always easy to build it. By design the relationship between appointees and igs is meant to be challenging. But with hard work, with an open door, and a shared foundation, a foundation premised on the idea that Good Government is always the ultimate goal, we could make an impact together for feminine that we were in government to serve. And today a couple of years removed from my most recent Government Service im thankful to have been a part of the uplifting work and im thankful now to be a part of an Academic Community thats finds new ways to advance Public Service and ensure that practitioners on the front lines can connect with scholars as well as our students who will be the next generation of Inspector General. Thats the purpose of higher education. Were a place to convene, advance scholarship and apply them in practice. Youll see it in todays conference. Youll see it in our new institute of policies where policymakers are coming together with students to address the challenges of our time. And youll see it in our work to give back through things like our executive education work, like the programming offered to actual igs, special counsels and other federal executives through the key executive leadership program. And i can assure you that the theres nothing sleepy about a college campus. Gone are the days of isolated ivory towers. American university is a place where change makers are on the move, constantly searching for new ways to make impact. 41 years ago when president carter signed the Inspector General act of 1978, he said that the audience that day was gathered for quota matter of public trust. For decades since, through today, our nations Inspector Generals and special counsels have built the bulwa rx to protect that trust. Were fortunate for their service. Thank you for letting me join you today and i hope you enjoy the rest of the conversations. Thank you all. [ applause ] thank you. Former congressman jason chavez represented utah 3rd district. He was chair on oversight and government reform from 2015 until stepping down. A graduate of Brigham Young university he was a business executive, and then chief of staff to utah governor John Huntsman friar his election to congress. A champion of congressional oversight of the executive branch, hes currently contributor to fox news. Please join me in welcoming former congressman jason chavez to Washington University college of law. [ applause ]. . Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I hear theres pizza and i would do just about anything for a slice of pizza. So it wasnt hard to get me here. I do appreciate you. I congratulate you. Congratulations, hats off. Its one of the more impressive things to he site. Theres always somebody doing something stupid somewhere and when you have a federal bureaucracy as big as it is, this oversight concept is just pivotal. It really is pivotal. Back in 1814, the Early Congress decided to create a committee. It was under a different name there but back in 1814 they created what is todays modernday oversight committee. They decided that every expenditure, every appropriation that happened in our Congress Needed to have some congressional oversight. That was the purview of what they were supposed to do. The committee grew. It expanded. At one point it had some 70 plus members on it. Then they contracted it back. Theres been different names of it. Interesting to me, back in the mid1800s there was a young man who was elected from the state of illinois, and he was a freshman and they put him on this committee. Not the most glamorous committee. Appropriations and these other ones are supposedly the acommittees. They took this young freshman out of illinois and put him on there and very quickly earned a reputation. His nickname was spotty. He wasnt known as abe, honest abe back then, he was known as Abraham Lincoln the freshman from illinois but they called him spotty. The reason they called him spotty is he immediately addressed the president because he did not believe that the mexicanamerican war started in the spot that the president said it started. And so he had a series of speeches to say tell me exactly where those shots were fired, because i would like to visit those people. You havent produced them. Where was the spot . And he actually earned a National Reputation because he started traveling the country trailing the president , communication was much different back then, we didnt have blog, right . Didnt have the kind of communication. Thats what he did. He sort of found some friends around the country by chasing them around and holding the president s feet to the fire and ended up Abraham Lincoln was more right than wrong. He drew this point. I think its a very important illustration to the gravity of the situation and how important it is. Fast forward to todays modernday, the oversight committee. Theres a lot of good work that has to be done. When i was a freshman first came out of this committee, boom, we were off to the races. I dont think it matters who is in the presidency. Okay. Whether its a democrat or a republican, got to kind of set that aside. Our founders believed that this new nation was different. Its easier, it is easier if youre a monarch, easier if youre a dictator. United States Congress was not built for speed. It was not the easiest glide path to get from here to there. What it does require, as i like to hear from Ronald Reagan we need the to trust but verify. Think about how big the federal government is now. 2. 2 million federal employees. Federal government will spend more than 4. 4 trillion. Hard to get your arms wrapped around how big a trillion is. If you spend a Million Dollars a day every day it would take you more than 3,000 years to get to 1 trillion. We spend 1 trillion every 90 days. So when i say theres always somebody doing something stupid somewhere its true. There are mistakes that are made. There are things that need to be learned. Heres one of the challenges as you move this project forward. It needs to be as objective as it can possibly be. Politics in this town is just nutty. Its crazy on both end of the spectrum. Let congress be the nutty political machine that it is. Thats the way our founders envisioned it. But oversight, true good oversight is to supposed to be as objective as it possibly could. When i first came to congress i had no idea what Inspector General did. It sounded like a couple of nerds with green visors on counting things. I had no idea. When you go and pull back the layer, pull it back a little bit, peel the onion theres 72 when they are appointed. Theres ten vacancies right now. Should be fully staffed at all times. There have 13,500 employees. Some of these organizations are rather large. 450 or so employees in different groups. They are the eyes and ears and experts that congress will never ever be. And ive always believed that if we could give more exposure to the American Public as to whats going on with their government the better off well be. My biggest fear is we had these Inspector Generals out there doing all this good work and they issue a report after a year or two of investigation. Then it sat on somebodys shelf and nobody paid attention to it. Congress is no forrous for being seven miles wide and an inch deputy. It doesnt have the bandwidth the way an Inspector General can do so. What i get excited about with this project and be interesting to see how it morphs over the course of time is to give better exposure if people at home have an interest in the interior department they can dive deep on that. If they want to help Human Services they can dive deep into that. Its the American Peoples government. Its the 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 whats really going on. But my challenge for you along the way is to be as objective as possible. Leave the subjectivity to it, the political twists and turns for it to comments or another avenue to do it but getting the information and how you do that, i think the credibility that you can bring with this Great University really has the opportunity as much as anything else ive seen out there to take this to a whole other level as we move into a Communications Era thats so different than how i grew up. The young people in this room, youre changing the world the way we communicate, the way we process information. So it can blossom into whatever it is you want it to be. But if you do so, and it doesnt become a partisan bludgeoning tool for one party or the oh, then i think youll have achieved a degree of success that will benefit all americans across the table and have the ability to actually 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. I got several friends and recognizable faces here that have appeared before the committee. Most of them i think had a good experience. Maybe one or two. I see one might want to have a word with me afterwards. But particularly mr. Horowitz who is in the hot seat here, i want to thank him for his service and all the good work that people do within his group and his organization. Henry kerner served on our staff and now take on other roles. We got a lot of good people here, doing a lot of good work and it doesnt go recognized for the benefit that it is but i for one hopefully represent more people than you know that give a lot of thanks and appreciation for what you do and how you do it. It is pivotal to a good quality functioning government that would make the american taxpayers proud. So thank you for your service. Thank you for having me here today. Congratulations on the kickoff of this new blog. Appreciate it. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you very much mr. Chaffetz. Our next two speakers, probably need no introduction even outside washington but im going introduce them as i ask them to please join me on stage. As they come up ill provide a brief bio. Bob woodward is an associate editor of the