Shri Thanedar Asks Former DHS Inspector General: 'How Does DOGE Differ From Statutory Watchdogs?'

2 days ago

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) spoke about the differences between DOGE and congressionally mandated Inspectors General.

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Transcript

00:00Rath for his five minutes of questioning. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you to all of our

00:06witnesses here for your testimony. Mr. Rath, I thank you for your service.

00:14Earlier today, we heard from the GAO and the DHS Office of IG about their work

00:22rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. These offices were created by Congress

00:30and have legal authority to audit the federal government, as you know. The Trump-Musk

00:36administration and House Republicans claim they want to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:44So, does it make sense to you, Mr. Rath, that one of the first things the new administration did

00:53was fire almost every inspector general?

01:01Firing the inspector generals was a disempowering act. It sent a very clear message that if you

01:08have a politically sensitive audit or investigation or review, bad news is not

01:15welcome in this administration. And what it has done is sent a chilling effect throughout the

01:21oversight community, and that's including the inspector general's office, but also the Office

01:25of Special Counsel, Office of Government Ethics, that they are unwelcome and that oversight is not

01:33apparently welcome. Thank you. Mr. Rath, how does Elon Musk's Doge differ from the statutory

01:43watchdogs Congress created, who have a long history of rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse?

01:50So, one of the primary ways that it's different is the decentralized nature of the OIGs. So,

01:56each OIG is harbored within a specific department. So, for example, for me, it was the Department of

02:02Homeland Security. Someone else, it would be NASA. What that gives you is the opportunity to get

02:07deep knowledge as to the functions and missions of each agency, sort of the pluses and the minuses,

02:13so that you can then go and direct audits, investigations, inspections. The other thing

02:20that the OIG's office brings that Doge can't bring is the kind of rigor that professional

02:24auditing does, and you saw a demonstration of that today in the first panel with the OIG's

02:29office, who is very well informed, had written reports that were vetted and according to

02:35accounting and auditing standards. You don't have any of that with an ad hoc group that isn't bound

02:42by the same kind of professional auditing standards. Mr. Rath, you were the Inspector General for DHS

02:51for a number of years, and you work closely with other statutory watchdogs created by Congress

02:58to protect the American taxpayer, offices like GAO and the offices of special counsel.

03:07Based on your experience, why is independence such a critical feature for the Office of

03:14Inspector General, and how does that differ from the people at Doge? So, there's two answers to

03:25that question. One is sort of the ability to gain information from the agency in which you are

03:32sort of doing oversight on. So, if you were perceived of as independent and neutral, you're

03:38more willing to get whistleblowers to come in and talk about, and this is really the lifeblood of

03:43any oversight, is to be able to get people to trust you and talk about sort of what it is that

03:48they see. And during my tenure at DHS, we had a number of whistleblowers in different places

03:54because I was perceived as being on nobody's side. I wasn't part of the administration. I wasn't part

03:59of the non-administration. Likewise, the Office of Special Counsel has special programs in place to

04:05protect whistleblowers. So, that's one aspect of it, is that people trust you and they'll come to

04:10you so you can root out problems. The second aspect, of course, is just credibility. So, when

04:15the IG or the Office of Special Counsel writes a report, the fact that they don't have a dog in

04:20this fight, the fact that they aren't part of the management, that they're not encumbered by any

04:25financial conflicts of interest or other kind of political conflicts of interest, makes those

04:30reports more credible than otherwise would be. Thank you. Thank you for that. And

04:40it is disturbing because we don't see the same level of competence

04:50again, do you see the same level of competence or the independence in the 19-year-olds and the

04:5820-year-olds that are hired or if you look at their social media profile, you see all kinds of

05:05racism and other horrible background. Are these people qualified to do the job that

05:15they've been assigned to? Again, the process that the Inspector General's offices have is that you

05:21have to have professional auditors who are trained and skilled in the kinds of things that auditors

05:26do. They are reviewed, they are supervised, any report goes through vetting, etc. All right, my

05:33time is up, so I yield back, Chair. The gentleman yields.

Shri Thanedar Asks Former DHS Inspector General: 'How Does DOGE Differ From Statutory Watchdogs?'

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