[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 201 (Thursday, December 20, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7982-S7984]
SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY OVERSIGHT SUMMARY
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, oversight is one of the most important
responsibilities of this legislative branch. The Constitution requires
it.
Without oversight, the Members of this body cannot legislate in the
best interests of their constituents, nor can they ensure the
government is accountable to the taxpayers.
In whatever capacity I have served my own fellow citizens of Iowa
over the years, I have always strived to faithfully carry out my duty
to conduct oversight.
The same is true of these last 4 years that I have been honored to
serve as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
The agencies under the committee's jurisdiction are some of the most
powerful and most consequential in the executive branch.
Our Nation's law enforcement agencies have the authority to seek to
search and seize our property and review our communications.
When warranted, they may bring charges that can result in
disgorgement of financial resources or loss of personal liberty.
That is because these agencies have the equally weighty
responsibility to protect us from criminal and intelligence threats of
all stripes.
These agencies help protect the taxpayer from fraud, hunt down
violent offenders and fugitives, protect our senior leaders and judges,
and dismantle illicit networks that traffic in illegal drugs,
endangered wildlife, and worst of all, human beings.
They safeguard our borders, secure our transportation and cyber
networks, and return kidnapped children to their families.
That is just a fraction of the many responsibilities of the
Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.
I am grateful for the faithful public service of thousands of law
enforcement agents, analysts, lawyers, engineers, scientists, officers,
managers, and other employees who make up these agencies.
That includes especially those individuals who have not only done
their jobs, but have truly gone above and beyond.
A lot of times, they don't like being called whistleblowers because
they never meant to be whistleblowers.
But these employees, hundreds of them in the last 4 years, have
courageously raised their hands and disclosed waste, fraud, abuse,
mismanagement, and all sorts of misconduct.
I could not have fulfilled my oversight responsibilities without
them.
Because of whistleblowers, the committee: uncovered a pattern of
wasteful spending at the U.S. Marshals Service.
Turns out, the Marshals Service spent $22,000 on a conference table
for the Asset Forfeiture Division's headquarters in Arlington, VA, and
$50,000 a month on a lavishly furnished training facility in Houston,
TX, that was used for only a few weeks out of the year.
Thanks to the whistleblowers and the work done by this Committee, I
am happy to report that the Marshals Service closed that facility
earlier this year.
Whistleblowers have also highlighted examples of gross mismanagement
within the agency.
For example, we know that, last year, roughly 2,000 deputy marshals
were using expired or soon to be expired body armor. We also uncovered
instances of unfair hiring practices and other serious ethical
violations.
In total, over 100 whistleblowers from the U.S. Marshals Service
courageously came forward. I thank them for their bravery and
commitment to government transparency.
After supervisors ignored their warnings, whistleblowers at the
Department of Homeland Security came forward to raise awareness on how
smugglers prey on unaccompanied minors and migrants.
A courageous whistleblower told my office that Health and Human
Services were not conducting thorough background checks on sponsors
before they took custody of the children.
Now, all sponsors and those living with sponsors, are fingerprinted
before they can bring a child home. This whistleblower also reported a
dangerous tactic used by smugglers to pair kids with unrelated adults
to create the appearance of family units.
Smugglers would use kids like pawns in an effort to help adults avoid
detention when coming across our border. Now, U.S. Government officials
are working with their counterparts in Mexico to investigate and crack
down on the smuggling that occurs on the lengthy journey to the United
States.
Whistleblowers also contacted my office during the Obama
administration about criminals who should be ineligible for DACA, but
due to an oversight by the Department, were still receiving benefits,
like work authorization. Scrutiny of the program led to more thorough
recurrent vetting by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Thanks to more than 10 whistleblowers at the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms who courageously reported that their sexual
harassment claims were being buried internally, then-Attorney General
Lynch updated the sexual harassment policy and a problematic official
in internal affairs was replaced.
The GAO is currently assessing how reports of abuse are reviewed and
adjudicated at ATF.
I have also had the pleasure of working with a number of
whistleblowers at the Department of Veterans Affairs who have had the
courage to stand up and do what is right.
Most recently, my office worked with Brandon Coleman after he was put
on administrative leave for more than a year and kept from running an
addiction treatment program for veterans.
Brandon's only ``mistake'' was to point out poor treatment of
suicidal veterans.
Eventually, after a concerted effort by my office, Senator Johnson,
and the Office of Special Counsel, Brandon was provided a new position
within the VA's Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection.
That is how it should be done.
Although the False Claims Act isn't new, I want to point out that is
still working hard for the taxpayers.
Because of the 1986 amendments to the act and all of our efforts to
strengthen it, whistleblowers were empowered to help the government
fight fraud.
In the last 4 years, thanks largely to whistleblowers, the government
has recovered $17 billion under the False Claims Act.
That makes $56 billion since the 1986 amendments.
These are only a few examples of what has been achieved because of
whistleblowers. They have saved our money, made us safer, and held our
government accountable.
Our oversight efforts have also helped us write better laws.
[[Page S7983]]
Through my investigations, I learned about problems with how the
Department of Veterans Affairs reports veterans to the national gun ban
list, called the NICS list.
Once you are on the list, you can no longer own and possess a
firearm.
And there is an unfair double standard at work here.
The VA never determines a veteran to be dangerous before taking away
firearms, but to get their firearms back, the veteran is required to
prove that they are not dangerous.
The Obama Social Security Administration created a rule that would
allow it to report beneficiaries to the NICS list without ever finding
the beneficiaries to be mentally ill or dangerous--just like what the
VA does to veterans.
If the Federal Government is going to attempt to take away a
citizen's fundamental constitutional right, it better have one heck of
a compelling reason to do so.
If a person isn't mentally ill, dangerous, or subject to some other
Federal restriction, then the government is on shaky ground.
This Obama Social Security regulation was a pure and simple
unconstitutional gun-grab.
So I worked to pass legislation with bipartisan support to terminate
the regulation, 57 to 43.
I have also worked to pass strong legislation to support the critical
work done by inspectors general. In 2016, a broad bipartisan coalition
of legislators passed the Inspector General Empowerment Act that
reiterated Congress's intent that IGs be able to access ALL agency
records.
It also gave IGs better tools that enable them to do their jobs more
effectively, including the ability to conduct investigations without
getting agency approval. It also strengthened public reporting
requirements to ensure as much transparency as possible.
I have also introduced legislation to create an IG for the Federal
judiciary to offer those employees the same rights offered to their
coequal executive branch counterparts.
After holding a full committee hearing on problems with rampant
sexual harassment in the judiciary and raising awareness on a lack of
an effective reporting mechanism, the Administrative Office of the U.S.
Courts took a step in the right direction by creating the Judicial
Integrity Office.
I hope through the establishment of this office, the AO will
recognize the importance of transparency and accountability.
Another example of where oversight led to a legislative solution is
the Public Safety Officers Benefit Program.
Enacted in 1976, this program provides survivor benefits to the
spouses and children of public safety officers who died in the line of
duty.
Despite the Department's own 1-year deadline to resolve all claims,
we found that over half of all death benefit claims were pending past
the 1-year mark. As a result, I introduced and passed bipartisan
legislation aimed at creating more transparency and accountability in
the administration of this program.
Oversight of the Justice Department also uncovered gross
mismanagement by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, or OJJDP for short.
That office provides millions of dollars in grants to States to
assist them in addressing juvenile delinquency. Thanks to several
whistleblowers, we discovered that OJJDP was issuing millions of
dollars to noncompliant States.
I introduced bipartisan legislation which would require the Justice
Department to hold States more accountable for fulfilling these grant
requirements. A few days ago, this bill unanimously passed both
Chambers of Congress.
Oversight is a critical tool Congress must use to help hold the
Federal Government accountable to ``we the people''.
It is the job of Congress, which represents the people, to ensure the
government is operating above board, transparently, and as a good
steward of taxpayer resources.
Of course, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, over the last 4
years I have focused extensively on the Justice Department proper and
FBI.
Much of that focus has been on how the Department handled the Clinton
investigation and the Russia investigation.
With respect to the Clinton investigation, some of the most
problematic material discovered thus far is classified. However, as
many now know, the Department had personnel on the Clinton
investigation that exhibited extreme political bias against then-
Candidate Trump.
My inquiry also found that the Department and FBI oddly limited the
scope of review to the time Secretary Clinton was Secretary of State,
even though evidence of obstruction would have occurred after she left
the State Department.
Perhaps defying all sense of legal logic, the Department and FBI
decided to write in the element of ``intent'' into 18 U.S.C. 793(f),
which covers the mishandling of classified information.
By the FBI's own admission, highly classified information transited
Secretary Clinton's unclassified nongovernment server that she used for
government business.
If any one of us did that to classified information, we would have
the book thrown at us.
Also, the Department and FBI used immunity agreements at an alarming
rate and then-Director Comey began writing an exoneration statement
before interviewing Secretary Clinton and 16 other witnesses.
That same exoneration statement labeled Secretary Clinton's actions
as ``grossly negligent,'' a criminal standard, which was later changed
to ``extremely careless,'' a noncriminal standard.
All told, the Clinton investigation was mismanaged to the detriment
of our country's faith in the FBI.
Perhaps the most breathtaking hypocrisy we identified in the Clinton
investigation is that Comey and other FBI officials were using private
email to conduct government business while they investigated Secretary
Clinton for doing the same.
Congress has an obligation to shine a light on wrongdoing, and I
certainly hope the Department and FBI have learned their lesson.
If not, eventually, Congress will find out. And let me say this: Our
patience is wearing thin.
Aside from the Clinton investigation, in 2015 I began looking into
the Foreign Agents Registration Act before it was made popular by
Robert Mueller.
FARA is a very important law. It requires agents of foreign
governments or enterprises to register with the Justice Department so
we know who they are and who they truly work for.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We ought to know where someone's
loyalty lies.
I held a hearing in July 2017 about the law and potential fixes to
it. As a result, I introduced the Disclosing Foreign Influence Act
That bill does two important things: No. 1, it provides the Attorney
General with civil investigative demand authority; and No. 2, it
creates oversight checks and balances on the use of that authority.
We must do whatever we can do identify foreign agents spreading
propaganda and lobbying on behalf of foreign governments.
During the course of my investigation into violations of FARA, I
became aware of a group of unregistered foreign agents lobbying for the
repeal of the Magnitsky Act. That law, passed by Congress in 2012,
authorized sanctions against a group of Russians responsible for a
particularly egregious case of human rights abuse.
I discovered that those involved in the anti-Magnitsky lobbying
effort were the same cast of characters who organized the now infamous
Trump Tower meeting in 2016. This prompted a full-scale investigation
into the meeting and the reasons behind it.
On May 16 of this year, I am proud to say that the committee released
approximately 2,500 pages of transcripts, written statements, and
exhibits collected during the course of this investigation, as well as
records produced by meeting attendees who were not interviewed. Taken
in their entirety, these materials provided the public with the most
complete picture of events surrounding that meeting to date.
In the end, the evidence supported what we had suspected all along--
that the meeting was just another attempt by this group of unregistered
foreign
[[Page S7984]]
agents trying to overturn a law that they didn't like.
I also conducted oversight into the FBI's handling of its
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
As a result of our and other committees' investigative efforts, we
now know that one of the documents used by the FBI to establish and
broaden its early investigation of President Trump was an
unsubstantiated political opposition research dossier, prepared by
Christopher Steele for the opposition research firm Fusion GPS and paid
for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.
As Senator Graham and I described in our criminal referral of
Christopher Steele earlier this year, this dossier was used by the FBI
to help justify a FISA warrant to surveil a Trump campaign volunteer.
I am proud of the role that the committee has played in bringing
additional details about these events into public view, both through
the criminal referral of Steele and through the official release of the
committee's interview of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, which took
place last August.
My oversight work on this committee has also been bipartisan. Ranking
Member Feinstein and I shared equally in the questioning of witnesses
involved in the Trump Tower meeting, and we worked together to release
the results of the Committee's investigation in May of this year.
Even though I am chairman of Judiciary, my oversight focus extended
to health care related matters.
Nonprofit hospitals have been a particular concern.
One nonprofit chain, called Mosaic Life-Care, had been suing low-
income patients for debts that should have been covered by the
hospital. Tax-exempt hospitals cannot be in the business of profiting
off poor people.
After a 16-month inquiry, Mosaic finally changed its ways and
approved debt forgiveness for over 3,000 patients. That debt
forgiveness was worth approximately $16.9 million.
And when Iowans began contacting me about the rising cost of EpiPen,
I began to investigate. In 2007, a pack of two EpiPens cost $100. By
2016, the cost exploded to $600.
In a nutshell, Mylan had classified the EpiPen as a generic under the
Medicaid Drug Rebate Program rather than a brand name drug.
Because of this incorrect classification, Mylan only had to pay a 13-
percent rebate instead of a 23.1-percent rebate.
I asked the Health and Human Services inspector general to look into
these practices.
The inspector general found that the taxpayers may have overpaid for
the EpiPen by as much as $1.27 billion over 10 years because of the
incorrect classification.
Eventually, Mylan settled a False Claims Act case with the Justice
Department for $465 million. Upon learning of that settlement, I
expressed my disappointment that it didn't seem the taxpayers had been
made whole.
On August 16, 2018, the FDA finally approved a generic EpiPen, which
gives consumers more purchasing options.
Simply stated, oversight works.
I also investigated, with Senator Wyden, Gilead's pricing decisions
for its hepatitis C drugs--Sovaldi and Harvoni. Our joint report was a
ground-level view of how a drug is priced and what steps some drug
companies will take to maximize profit possibly to the detriment of
patients in need.
Nursing home social media abuse has also been a focus of mine.
New technologies offer new ways for bad conduct to occur. Steps ought
to be taken to stop that.
After extensive communication with CMS about these issues, the
government issued a guideline that made clear that compromising photos
and recordings of residents is a form of abuse.
But, we didn't stop there.
After reading reports about spending and management problems at the
Wounded Warrior Project, I looked into that too.
Reports had shown Wounded Warrior was not spending 80.6 percent of
their programs expenses on veterans in fiscal year 2014. My
investigation found that Wounded Warrior had been incorporating donated
media and millions of dollars in fundraising to get to that 80.6
percent. A more accurate figure is about 68 percent.
Americans want the Wounded Warrior Project to be successful, and if
its current leaders are listening to this, I want to reiterate my best
wishes that it help as many veterans as possible.
I have also taken a keen interest in the Red Cross over the years.
Most recently, after reports of mismanaged spending after the
earthquake in Haiti, I decided it was time to look under the hood.
What I found was troubling, to say the least.
My inquiry found that the Red Cross did not track costs on a project
by project basis; instead, it used a complex and inaccurate process to
track spending. The Red Cross was simply unable to provide the exact
cost of each project and program in Haiti.
Worst yet, my inquiry found that the head of the Red Cross attempted
to terminate a review by the Government Accountability Office and lied
about it. I will continue to keep my eye on the Red Cross.
During my time as chairman of Judiciary, I have also conducted
extensive oversight of our broken immigration system.
For every major terror attack on American soil by a foreign national,
I reviewed just how the perpetrators entered the country in the first
place. What I found was that often these terrorists and other criminals
would lie or conceal information on their visa applications to enter
the country.
They often knew which visas to exploit to commit their crimes, which
ranged from espionage, to theft of trade secrets, to trafficking.
The committee has also looked into how Homeland Security and State
vet refugees, monitored the mass migration caravans, reviewed hundreds
of pages of visa and immigration documents, and repeatedly raised
concerns with the controversial EB-5 investor visa program.
When Congress created the program, the goal was to spur growth for
rural and underserved areas. Now, the EB-5 program has become an often
illicit funding source for big-moneyed interests in some of the largest
cities around the country. It is no surprise that the Fraud Detection
and National Security Directorate also raised national security
concerns about the program.
Since 2016, I have written eight letters, held three hearings, and
introduced legislation to remedy the glaring problems that plague this
program.
I wait with anticipation on the EB-5 modernization and reform
regulations the Department of Homeland Security promises to publish
very soon.
These are but a few examples of what I have tried to do right by the
people of Iowa and the taxpaying public.
Being chairman of the Judiciary Committee has been a rewarding
experience, one that I will cherish as some of the most productive
years of my career representing the great people and State of Iowa.
I look forward to continuing my oversight work both as chairman of
Finance and as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee in the next
Congress.
After all, as experience has shown, oversight works, and I will
continue to fight the good fight on behalf of ``We the people.''
____________________
