Inspector General Oversight in Crosshairs in Congress

The fairness of investigations and the use of data and analytics were two of the main topics at a recent oversight hearing of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE).

CIGIE Chairman Mark Greenblatt, Inspector General (IG) at the Interior Department, faced members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Integrity Committee

Some of the more contentious questions of the hearing focused on CIGIE’s Integrity Committee (IC) which investigates allegations of wrongdoing by an IG or senior official within an IG office.

In focus is an upcoming Integrity Committee report on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) Joseph V. Cuffari, who is being investigated for an alleged culture of harassment at DHS, missing Secret Service texts, and has so far failed to comply with a House Oversight Committee investigation.

Ranking Member Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) said the committee still lacks a clear understanding of CIGIE’s investigation into Cuffari.

“I guess my point here is that, if CIGIE is to be an effective watchdog, it must be transparent to Congress and to its members on both sides of the political aisle,” said Rep. Mfume.

Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ) questioned IG Greenblatt on how the committee decides to pursue investigations, noting that there appears to be subjectiveness in its methods.

“Without a clear written standard to evaluate complaints, how then, is the IC living up to the statutory mandate that is procedures ensure fairness and consistency?” asked Rep. Biggs.

“I would say that there are not bright lines in what we do every day as IG's. We make -- we have to make hard calls. We have to mend -- we have to implement laws that are not expressly defining each and every specific element of every potential violation,” responded Greenblatt.

As for the length of investigations, Chairman Greenblatt admitted they do drag on, but told committee members that it “takes two to tango on an investigation. It could be slow investigators, but it also could be subjects that refuse to turn over.”

Subcommittee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) told Greenblatt to plan to return to the committee later in the fall for continued oversight of the Integrity Committee.

PACE Data Center

While being peppered over investigations, there was praise for the work of the Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellent (PACE) data center, which has been working to recover money from pandemic fraud. 

Chairman Greenblatt said it has been effective and could have saved $5 billion by catching fake Social Security Numbers if it had been in place in 2020.

The focus is now ensuring that the technology is deployed to be proactive and not just reactive.

“We really are pushing for a data hub inside CIGIE that will allow us to be affirmatively preventing some of those bad dollars from going outdoors,” said Chairman Greenblatt.

There was also discussion of moving PACE inside CIGIE to further cut down on fraud. It’s a point that Chairman Greenblatt agreed with.