Nick Schwellenbach
@schwellenbach
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An investigative journalist: https://t.co/nMfo5ZbTgQ Signal: @schwellenbach.27 Encrypted email: [email protected]
Charlottesville, VA
Joined July 2008
BREAKING from @pogowatchdog: Andrew Kloster, a self-described “raging misogynist” with a history of racist comments, has been installed as general counsel for the federal government’s human resources agency, the Office of Personnel Management
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"More than 300 individuals on a leaked membership list of the far-right militia group the Oath Keepers described themselves as current or former employees of the Department of Homeland Security" - @POGOwatchdog reports.
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We found at least 2 current Secret Service agents who were members at the Oath Keepers at one point - including one who told the Oath Keepers that he is "a member and instructor on the Presidential Protective Division’s Counter Assault Team".
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“A group of employees who work for the internal watchdog at the Department of Homeland Security are calling on President Biden to remove their boss, saying they’ve lost hope the ‘ship will right itself.’”.-@RebeccaBeitsch .
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“This probably represents that the tip of the iceberg as far as federal law enforcement officers that have been involved in or supported the activities of far-right, militant groups like the Oath Keepers” fmr FBI agent Mike German (@RethinkIntel) told @POGOwatchdog.
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The Washington Post's @Reinlwapo @CarolLeonnig & @mariasacchetti have a crazy scoop on an investigation into the Homeland Security watchdog Joe Cuffari's last job as a federal employee.
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A Border Patrol agent - who said he teaches "advanced firearms and tactics" - told the Oath Keepers that “Most Border Patrol Agents are Oath Keepers, we just haven’t signed up yet.”. (He said he let his membership lapse & distanced himself from the group).
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A former Secret Service agent whose name appears on the Oath Keepers membership list had his security clearance revoked by another agency for leaking confidential investigative information (there's no public info linking that to the Oath Keepers).
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"Law enforcement agents who have associations with groups that seek to undermine democratic governance pose a heightened threat because they can compromise probes, misdirecting investigations or leaking confidential investigative information to those groups".
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“It’s men like this on the inside who can and do provide information to expose what's going on,” Stewart Rhodes, founder & leader of the Oath Keepers wrote on his group’s blog in 2009, also noting that one of his friends works at DHS.
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.@DHSgov published a report in March 2022 that found that "the Department has significant gaps that have impeded its ability to comprehensively prevent, detect, and respond to potential threats related to domestic violent extremism within DHS.”.
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We talked to Daryl Johnson (@DTAnalytics), author of DHS's 2009 report on far-right domestic terrorism threats. “This threat didn’t recede. It’s grown every year,” he told POGO. “We’re in a much more dangerous position now, and it’s not going to abate anytime soon.”.
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The Oath Keepers is just one militant group that causes concerns & the list @POGOwatchdog examined is 7 years old. Our story recounts that the founder of the white supremacist group, The Base, formerly worked for DHS's Office of Intelligence & Analysis.
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BREAKING 🚨: The National Archives opens an investigation into "the potential unauthorized deletion of United States Secret Service (Secret Service) text messages".
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A number of the people on the leaked list we communicated with said they signed up initially thinking the group's aims were laudable, but then later decided not to maintain their involvement. Some said the group was too extreme.
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Key questions: Were the Secret Service texts related to Jan 6 deleted permanently or not? Were they provided to the Homeland Security Inspector General or not?. On the left, the Secret Service statement defending itself & on the right, the IG's accusations
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FBI agents who have led counterterrorism and counterintelligence efforts in recent years in the FBI's powerful and immensely important New York Field Office have had serious problems . Charges were unsealed today against Charles F. McGonigal.
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FBI records show the FBI's top leaders were sent concerning info pointing to the potential for violence DAYS before Jan. 6 - such as the fact that "domestic terrorism suspects" were coming to D.C. for the Stop the Steal rally.
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NEW: The U.S. Army is still struggling to define, identify, and report extremism within its ranks, per an audit obtained by @POGOwatchdog through #FOIA.
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It was unprecedented for the Secret Service to let one of its own go on leave to take a political job in the White House. It also was dangerous: the Secret Service should be & needs to be apolitical. Ornato is back at the Secret Service as its training director.
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“The higher up you go and the more power you have to do harm, the more you should be held accountable because the stakes are so much greater” -@POGOwatchdog’s @waltshaub .
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A highly disturbing story out of Jackson, Mississippi that is not getting the attention it should. "The discovery of 215 bodies buried in unmarked graves behind a jail outside of Jackson, Mississippi, has left a community in disbelief.".
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The Dept. of Homeland Security Inspector General Joe Cuffari says in his written response to Congress that he's thinking about dropping a report that found that more than 10,000 DHS employees said they experienced sexual misconduct.
NEW: Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari provides written response to Congressional Inquiry:
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This will be a LONG 🧵. Late yesterday and this morning, 2 big stories broke on Homeland Security watchdog Joe Cuffari. 1 is a @POGOwatchdog investigation that & the other is by @Reinlwapo at the Washington Post (I co-authored the 1st & am quoted in Lisa's story).
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If it turns out the Secret Service texts weren't deleted, were they shared in full with the Inspector General?. The Secret Service doesn't answer this question in its statement whereas the IG wrote there is "confusion over whether all records had been produced".
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"The big picture: Two top House Democrats have alleged that Cuffari has refused to cooperate with, and even hindered, probes into the deleted Secret Service texts, and called for him to comply with congressional demands.".
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1/ 🧵EXCLUSIVE: Thru a #FOIA lawsuit, @POGOwatchdog got data on 2.3 million #PPP loans that the Small Business Administration flagged for scrutiny, incl potential fraud. But the SBA botched its review of billions of dollars of flagged loans.
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The role of a Secret Service official named Anthony Ornato is relevant here. The J6 hearings have made the public much more aware of Ornato. During Trump's presidency, Ornato went on leave from the USSS to work in a political capacity as Trump's dep. chief of staff.
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THOUSANDS of DHS employees responded to a DHS watchdog survey that they didn't formally report sexual misconduct b/c they thought it wouldn't make a difference. Now IG Cuffari is on the cusp of throwing those survey results & related findings in the trash can.
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What's significant in @POGOwatchdog's story is DHS watchdog Cuffari not only failed to tell Congress months earlier about the deleted Secret Service texts, but his leadership rejected an alert that his office's attorneys approved on April 1.
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More questions:. When did the Secret Service decide to do its "pre-planned, three-month system migration"?. Why do it during a change in administrations when there's a lot of turmoil esp in an agency that works so closely with the White House?.
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There are reasons to be skeptical of both the Secret Service & the Inspector General's accounts. The Secret Service often tries to evade oversight & accountability. (See @CarolLeonnig's book Zero Fail). Sources say the Secret Service often blocks the OIG from access.
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But the timing of the Inspector General letter is odd. He's under investigation himself for alleged retaliation. He's also facing congressional oversight for suppressing findings re: sexual misconduct & domestic violence by DHS employees.
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“There is, at best, a sizeable percentage” of the FBI’s employees that “felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol,” according to an email forwarded by a top Bureau official to colleagues, and released under the Freedom of Information Act.
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.@McD_Patrice & commenters have rightly pointed out that it is the law (& USSS policy) to back-up the data. That's 1 of the 2 central disputes here. Did USSS comply w/ the law & its own policy & preserve the texts? . And even if it preserved all the texts, has it produced them?.
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Either the Secret Service texts were permanently erased, or they weren't. The inspector general wrote the Secret Service "erased those text messages". The Secret Service says it told the IG "none of the texts it was seeking had been lost in the migration".
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His office's bottled up findings are disturbing. More than 1 in 3 DHS law enforcement employees who replied to a survey - 10,000+ people - say they faced sexual misconduct. Cuffari learned this in Dec 2020, but he didn't tell DHS until @POGOwatchdog released docs this April.
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Secret Service texts could shed light on what actually happened on Jan 6 - and in the lead-up to that day. This is why the stakes are so high & also why the Secret Service is pushing back so hard.
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DHS is going to stop wiping the govt phones of political appointees less than a week after @pogowatchdog revealed that Chad Wolf & Ken Cuccinelli's Jan 6 texts got erased . @DHSOIG failed to tell Congress about that for over 5 months.
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Great discussion near the end regarding why removing an inspector general for poor performance or misconduct is far different than removal for retaliation or political reasons .
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All of this is to say he has reasons to burnish his own image right now, making him less-than-ideal as a watchdog over an important agency. Regardless, we need to resolve the factual disputes b/t his office & the Secret Service.
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In 2020, he also quashed reviews proposed by his own staff into the Secret Service role at Lafayette Park & how it handled COVID. Had he not killed off those proposals, President Trump's actions would have been relevant to consider.
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A 2017 Justice Dept inspector general report found Bryan Paarmann, then-special-agent-in-charge of counterterrorism in the FBI's NY Field Office, “improperly disclosed court-sealed and law enforcement sensitive information to the media".
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The DHS Inspector General very vaguely referred to this issue with the Secret Service in its semiannual report covering Oct 2021-March 2022. This passage only discusses a "significant delay," not the deletion of texts.
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ICE's top contractor, GEO Group, is expected to profit from Trump's immigration crackdown. Days before the election, ICE's top official overseeing detention left to work for GEO, @POGOwatchdog reveals - one of many to go through the revolving door.
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The semiannual report raises more questions:. When did IG first learn of the Secret Service records access issue?. Why didn't the IG raise more pointed & public concerns earlier?. The IG first requested records on Feb 26, 2021, according to the Secret Service.
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Cuffari resigned from the Justice Dept Office of Inspector General a few months after this report was finished in April 2013. He told the Senate he was never disciplined while in federal service. That's misleading: If he hadn't resigned, he likely would have been.
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The charges against McGonigal, former FBI NY Field Office special-agent-in-charge of counterintelligence, were made in two indictments - one filed in DC, the other in NYC. The DC indictment can be found here (the SDNY filing is above):.
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This morning, the Washington Post's @Reinlwapo broke another crazy story about DHS watchdog Cuffari's resistance to an ongoing investigation into whether he retaliated against former employees in his office.
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More good qs raised by @RachelLarris . If the Secret Service did not properly preserve all the texts (& other federal records on the phones), could the IG issue a subpoena to the phone company for the records?. And has the IG done that or considering doing so?.
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Some more points:. Were some text messages permanently lost even if most were preserved? Whatever the answer, how do we know?. While the IG letter discusses texts, the Secret Service says other data was lost. What was that data? Call records? Signal messages?.
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👇This is a good example of persistent government accountability reporting.
Sources say that the embattled Department of Homeland Security Inspector General has embarrassed the agency, snubbed the White House, and fueled a lack of faith in Congress about his ability to continue in the role. (Reporting by @PabloReports).
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That unsent April 1 alert language described in great detail how the Secret Service was impeding the DHS Office of Inspector General's January 6 oversight. Remember that date April 1, 2022 as you keep reading.
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Both Paarmann and McGonigal were in these important jobs in the FBI's NY field office for periods that overlapped.
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.@DHSOIG Joe Cuffari: "I am considering closing the review without issuing a report". His office has spent more than 4 years working on this report. He has been in charge for nearly 3 of those years.
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Learn more about what the Homeland Security's watchdog has kept from the public here:
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DHS had confirmed 35 of its agents had violently abused their partners — and then continued to allow most of them access to government-issued firearms. Cuffari ordered those facts to be taken out. And they were.
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The Post story describes how DHS watchdog Cuffari has enlisted the help of GOP senators, esp. Josh Hawley . Hawley led two letters around March 2022 that pushed back against this Integrity Committee investigation into Cuffari's alleged retaliation.
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We pointed this out in an @pogowatchdog story on DHS Inspector General Cuffari's decision to quash the proposed review into the Secret Service role in Lafayette Sq.
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How Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt helped write A.I. laws in Washington without publicly disclosing investments in A.I. startups
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Confusing or not, DHS policy states that DHS should investigate law enforcement agents arrested for domestic violence - whether or not they are convicted - to determine if they should have access to a govt-issued gun and stay in law enforcement.
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He states he was unaware of details of the review for more than 16 months while he led the office. He indicated he never once asked for a briefing on the review during that time. The review had been listed on his office's public website that whole time.
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Congress reacts to @POGOwatchdog's latest investigation:. "DHS Watchdog Failed to Sound Alarm For Months on Secret Service's Purged Jan. 6 Texts".
NEW: Chairs @RepMaloney and @BennieGThompson sent a letter to @DHSOIG and @cigiegov requesting that IG Cuffari step aside from the investigation into erased @SecretService texts related to the #Jan6 Capitol insurrection.
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The April 1 alert language was not included in a June report DHS watchdog Cuffari sent to Congress. That report is *required by law* to disclose when agencies resist oversight or deny a watchdog access to information. Here's the unsent alert.
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More recently, Cassidy Hutchison said Ornato told her that Trump allegedly struggled w/ USSS agents to take control of the presidential SUV on Jan 6. (Unnamed sources deny Ornato said this).
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I added some bare bones annotations to make it easier to find some of the interesting nuggets in this report on Joseph Cuffari, who is the head of @DHSOIG . The 2013 report found ethics violations by him & found his statements untrustworthy.
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In another report on domestic violence, he directed the removal of a finding that DHS confirmed that 35 of its law enforcement agents had violently abused their partners, but were not convicted. His explanation was that this was "confusing" to include.
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The US Atty for Mass. tried "to sabotage the campaign of a political candidate by leaking non-public U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) information to the media to plant a story that the candidate she opposed was facing a DOJ investigation".
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More than 10,000 DHS employees say they've experienced sexual misconduct - more than 1 out of 3 who responded to an official survey, according to leaked records obtained by @POGOwatchdog in a new investigation.
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When law enforcement agents abuse their spouses, it's also a sign they may use excessive force on the job. DHS's watchdog Joe Cuffari concealed these abuses. Hear how @POGOwatchdog uncovered the truth in #BadWatchdog.
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His response blames everyone but himself. His predecessors, subordinates who left in 2020, and career staff for their "intransigence." He's not exactly saying the "buck stops here.".
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.@POGOwatchdog's scoop yesterday got a ton of excellent coverage in the New York Times, CNN, ABC News, the Guardian, The Hill, Politico, Talking Pts Memo and elsewhere. For example, here's @lukebroadwater & @esullivannyt's story.
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It could be a coincidence. But it's an interesting set of circumstances. And worth pointing out especially since it's so perplexing why Cuffari didn't send the April 1 language in June (or earlier).
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It's worth pointing out that GOP Senators Chuck Grassley & Ron Johnson really really really did not like it when another IG resisted Integrity Committee oversight. Here's a letter they wrote in April 2021.
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Could Cuffari have been worried that complaining about the Secret Service's resistance in spring 2022 make his own resistance to the Integrity Committee's oversight seem hypocritical?. I just asked the DHS OIG. I will update this thread if I get a substantive reply.
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The Hawley-led letters from around March 2022 argued that the Integrity Committee sought too many records related to Cuffari. Soon thereafter, Cuffari failed to send April 1, 2022 language complaining about the Secret Service's resistance to oversight.
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POTUS said "we’re going to go after the criminals who stole billions in relief money meant for small businesses" & DOJ "will soon name a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud". Learn more about rampant pandemic fraud @POGOwatchdog:
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Paging the @USNatArchives! . “It’s my normal practice to delete text messages,” DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said. Cuffari also said he was “not sure” if the texts he deletes from his government phone were backed up anywhere.
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$240 million in pandemic aid meant for hungry kids was diverted by 44 accused fraudsters to buy real estate, cars & luxury goods. Especially scummy: a non-profit trusted to conduct oversight was allegedly in on the scam.
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There was a vote on whether to vote for that new Integrity Committee rule in mid-December 2020. Guess who voted against it? DHS watchdog Cuffari, sources tell me. Almost every other inspector general voted to be held to the same standards as other govt employees.
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Very good point here: were the texts deleted outside of the system migration process?. The Secret Service wrote: "none of the texts it was seeking had been lost in the migration".
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I haven't seen an immediate impact like this from a congressional investigation in a long time. SBA suspended fintech lender support companies that were big players in the PPP & is investigating some of the major lenders that partnered w/ them
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The Society of Professional Journalists:. "Consider sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Reserve anonymity for sources who may face danger, retribution or other harm, and have information that cannot be obtained elsewhere. Explain why anonymity was granted.".
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NPR's @davidfolkenflik covered the federal probe I co-led:. "Pack's seven-and-a-half month stint running the agency exemplified Trump's contempt for the press and for the professional federal workforce that prides itself on nonpartisanship".
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@stuartpb It's one thing to protect a vulnerable whistleblower (who may or may not have less-than-pure motives), quite another to uncritically launder documents for a powerful billionaire who's pushing an agenda.
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@JStein_WaPo What happens if the minimum # of employees to achieve an agency’s core missions is more than the employees they currently have? OSHA comes to mind:
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.@OversightDems & @HomelandDems put out a very useful press release plucking out some key passages & also highlighting what Cuffari told the Senate during the confirmation process.
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It's not just the Secret Service's Jan 6 texts. Chad Wolf & Ken Cuccinelli's are gone too. And why didn't DHS's watchdog tell Congress?. Read the latest @POGOwatchdog investigation here:.
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What’s legal is not always what’s ethical. This executive branch official & his congresswoman wife’s intertwined financial & political interests are cause for concern. Lots of insightful commentary from @POGOwatchdog’s @waltshaub .
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FBI Director Wray's special exec. assistant & the FBI's #2 were emailed on Jan 3 that the Proud Boys "are coming for violence. They will cause mass unrest, destruction, and potentially kill many people in the streets of DC on January 6th.'".
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The Senate reacts to @POGOwatchdog's investigation of suppressed DHS sexual misconduct & domestic violence findings. @JudiciaryDems & @SenJudiciaryGOP issue a bipartisan oversight letter to DHS's watchdog
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Years ago, @POGOwatchdog wrote about ethics concerns w/ then-Attorney General Sessions b/c DOJ was prosecuting employees at his biggest campaign contributors in a case that intersected w/ acts he took as a senator. It was worse than we knew.
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Cuffari wrote: "others who were in a position to report the results to DHS leadership and to Congress in the year leading up to my confirmation never did so.". His office's fact-finding didn't finish until months AFTER he was confirmed by the Senate.
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But why did Cuffari finally tell Congress on July 13 about the Secret Service's deleted texts?. I's unknown if this is the reason: 2 weeks earlier, Cassidy Hutchinson testified & Cuffari's office was already under congressional scrutiny for sitting on other info.
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This other IG's obstruction of an Integrity Committee investigation led the Integrity Committee to adopt a new rule in March 2021 that allows the committee to find a watchdog committee engaged in wrongdoing if they obstruct. here's the rule:.
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@RaviSachidanand There are many, many reasons to be skeptical of the Secret Service's account!.
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Other federal watchdog offices have issued similar reports on workplace sexual misconduct that navigate the concerns he points to as obstacles to issuing this report.
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The Secret Service's Tony Ornato played catch-me-if-you-can for 2 months with the DHS watchdog office. If DHS Inspector General Joe Cuffari had been more aggressive, he could have compelled Ornato to cooperate at any time before Ornato retired today.
Tony Ornato, a top Secret Service official & fmr Trump appointee sought by Jan. 6 investigators, resigned today—just 2 days before a planned interview with investigators. As a private citizen, investigators will no longer be able to compel his testimony.
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YUGGGE story by @POGOwatchdog's Julienne McClure. Waiving the law, the State Dept allowed 500+ ex-servicemembers, including top brass, to work for or receive awards from foreign interests b/t Apr 2010 & Aug 2020, #FOIA records show .
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But the inspector general community doesn't look kindly when agencies withhold information by claiming attorney-client privilege. See what Brian Miller - former GSA IG and the Trump-appointed IG for pandemic recovery - wrote in 2015.
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