In The News

“Government watchdog groups asked President Joe Biden to weigh in on allegations against an outgoing agency inspector general. The Federal Housing Finance Authority’s Inspector General Laura Wertheimer is stepping down at the end of this month, after a report from the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency found she fostered a culture of …

“The group’s Empower Oversight, Government Accountability Project, and Project on Government Oversight wrote a letter to Biden telling the president of a “culture of fear and intimidation” at the agency produced by Wertheimer, which went against Biden’s promise to fire government officials if they ‘treat another colleague with disrespect’ or ‘talk down to someone,’ Biden said he would fire them ‘on …

Three wrote to the president following the IG’s resignation announcement.  Three nonprofit organizations are calling on President Biden to take action to restore confidence and morale at the Federal Housing Finance Agency inspector general office following the IG’s upcoming resignation.  Last week, the embattled FHFA IG Laura Wertheimer told her staff she plans to resign effective July …

“A group of experienced Capitol Hill investigators and whistleblowing experts are banding together to fight government and corporate corruption with the creation of a new oversight organization dedicated to giving Americans a ‘check on unelected bureaucrats and corporate elites.’ “’The main thing that we want to do is to become a resource for people who …

“Acolytes of Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who the New York Times once described as “a sort of patron saint of whistleblowers,” launched an organization to advocate for whistleblowers and whistle-blowing on the same day that President Joe Biden signed legislation co-sponsored by the Iowa Republican establishing a whistleblower award program at the Commodity …

Politico: Three former Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) staffers — Jason Foster, Beth Levine and Dean Zerbe — have launched a 501(c)(3) to advocate for whistleblowing, Empower Oversight. The team also includes two of the whistleblowers who testified in the Operation Fast & Furious gun-running scandal, Peter Forcelli and John Dodson.

Group is led by former chief investigator for Sen. Chuck Grassley, supported by successful whistleblowers and law enforcement officials. A group of veteran investigators, attorneys, and law enforcement leaders on Friday launched a new nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog dedicated to strengthening public integrity and aiding “patriotic whistleblowers” across the county. The Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research …

Wall Street Journal: WHISTLEBLOWERS get new organizational support from a team of former staffers to Sen. Chuck Grassley and law-enforcement agencies. The new nonprofit, Empower Oversight, is run by Jason Foster, the former longtime counsel to Grassley, the Iowa Republican who has made whistleblower protections a focus of his decades in the Senate. The organization …

Jason Foster, a former Grassley staffer who interviewed employees in the housing agency’s inspector general office before the CIGIE investigation, said in a statement that White House inaction against Wertheimer “is a disservice to the whistleblowers who spoke up years ago.” Further, he said, it “undermines public confidence in the President’s willingness to enforce basic …