Transmitted: August 12, 2021
To: The Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) and the offices of inspector general involved in its Integrity Committee investigation of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).
Full Requests (PDF):
Re: The Unreasonable Delay of the CIGIE Integrity Committee in Reporting Findings of FHFA Office of Inspector General (FHFA OIG) Employee Misconduct
SUMMARY
More than five years ago, whistleblowers at the FHFA OIG began reporting misconduct by the Inspector General (IG).
On April 14, 2021, CIGIE’s Integrity Committee, the self-policing body for inspectors general, sent a 29-page report to President Biden substantiating whistleblower allegations against now-former Inspector General Laura Wertheimer, Chief Counsel Leonard DePasquale, and former Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Richard Parker.
The reasons it took CIGIE so long to complete the investigation, which its procedures state should be completed within 150 days, are unclear from the public record. It is also unclear whether CIGIE transmitted similar findings and disciplinary recommendations to the White House during the Trump administration, and if not, why it failed to do so—or, if so, why the Trump administration failed to act on the recommendations.
Accordingly, Empower Oversight has submitted eight separate Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to FHFA OIG and five other offices of inspectors general involved in CIGIE leadership, pertaining to the unconscionable delay in the completion of CIGIE’s investigation and issuance of its report. Empower Oversight sent a ninth FOIA request to CIGIE, requesting communications with Congress about the status of the report. The FOIA requests seek records from January 1, 2017 through present day.
Following pressure from Congress, and Empower Oversight in conjunction with other whistleblower groups, the White House named an independent inspector general from another office to run the FHFA OIG temporarily after the resignation of the FHFA IG took effect at the end of July.
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