Federal watchdogs complain of access woes - POLITICO.com - 0 views
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Obama inspectors-general whistleblowers war-on-whistleblowers
shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Aug 14
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A group of 47 official federal agency watchdogs sent a rare joint letter to Congress on Tuesday complaining that management at some agencies has delayed or denied access to government records that the watchdogs believe they are legally entitled to see on demand. In the letter to the bipartisan leadership of major committees across Capitol Hill, the inspectors general complain that the access issues have impeded investigations and threaten the ability of the fraud-waste-and-abuse hunters to do their work. "Refusing, restricting, or delaying an Inspector General’s access to documents leads to incomplete, inaccurate, or significantly delayed findings or recommendations, which in turn may prevent the agency from promptly correcting serious problems and deprive Congress of timely information regarding the agency’s performance," the IGs wrote in their letter (posted here).
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The letter was made public by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who said he was troubled by the problems the IGs were facing. "This is an Administration that pledged to be the most transparent in history. Yet, these non-partisan, independent agency watchdogs say they are getting stonewalled. How are the watchdogs supposed to be able to do their jobs without agency cooperation?" Grassley asked in a statement. "I’ll continue working with the committees of jurisdiction to fix the access problems, through oversight and possibly legislation.” While the signers of Tuesday's letter represent a large majority of IGs, not all the federal watchdogs signed on. At least 21 IGs appear to have passed on joining the letter. Some of those represent small agencies, and a few represent congressional branch agencies that may not face the same kinds of access issues. However, the non-signatories include several large Cabinet agencies.