To root out inefficiency and corruption in government, we turn to inspectors general. Glenn A. Fine served as the Inspector General of the Department of Justice and the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Defense. He’s now a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School and has taught at Stanford Law School and he joins host Krys Boyd to discuss what IGs do, why they are vital for a healthy government – and why he says the Supreme Court needs an Inspector General, too. His book is “Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government.”
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Transcript
Watchdogs Podcast Full.wav
Krys Boyd [00:00:00] When somebody else is spending our money in the form of tax dollars, at the very least, we want to know they’re using it wisely, pursuing projects that actually deliver on their promises, avoiding waste and any hint of corruption. But most of us don’t have the expertise, the resources or the time to dig in and hold federal agencies accountable. For that, we rely on the Office of the Inspector General from Kera in Dallas. This is think. I’m Krys Boyd. Inspectors general are installed within many federal agencies to perform ongoing audits and investigations designed to assess efficiency and root out any fraud or misuse of government assets. Their reports go to Congress and to the head of each agency, but they’re independent of the departments they scrutinize, which is to say, they don’t face any pressure not to call attention to problems they find. And they are not always popular with the bureaucrats whose work they evaluate. What’s really surprising is that as critical as inspectors general are to an honest and effective government, most Americans don’t know very much about what they do or how they work. So today, we’re going to get into all that. And I promise you this essential, but under the radar agency is pretty fascinating to learn about. Glenn A. Fine Is my guest. He served as the inspector general of the Department of Justice and the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense. He is a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and adjunct professor at Georgetown Law and has taught at Stanford Law School. His book is called Watchdogs, Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government. Glenn, welcome to Think Tank.
Glenn A. Fine [00:01:36] Thank you very much for having me.
Krys Boyd [00:01:38] So people might not necessarily think about inspector general work as a passion career path, but you actually chose public service over a shot at playing in the NBA.
Glenn A. Fine [00:01:51] Well, it is true. I was a basketball player and I was drafted in the NBA in the 10th round in 1979 by the San Antonio Spurs. People don’t believe that when they see me. I’m five foot nine inches tall. And when I met many admirals and generals in the Pentagon when I was the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense, they were very skeptical that I was actually a basketball player and drafted in the NBA. So I got to telling them, yes, it’s true. I was drafted in the 10th round in 1979. I’m five foot nine inches tall. Before I started this job as the inspector general, I was six foot, nine inches tall. It always broke the ice. To be honest, my chances of making it in the NBA were slim and none. As a five foot nine point guard out of Harvard. So I thought a career as a lawyer was a better bet.
Krys Boyd [00:02:40] So what sort of work and educational background do inspectors general tend to bring to the job? Are a lot of you lawyers by training?
Glenn A. Fine [00:02:48] Some are lawyers. Inspectors general were created by the Inspector General Act of 1978, which said that inspectors general are nonpartisan officials who should have a demonstrated ability in law, accounting, law enforcement or management. So you can have skills in any of those areas, and there are many from those different areas. To be short, there are many who are lawyers, but there are many who are not lawyers. It’s a challenging job, and it’s often good to have somebody who knows about being an inspector general, often promoted from within. And that’s what happened to me. I was in the office of the inspector General, the Department of Justice, and then I was promoted and nominated by the president, President Clinton, and confirmed by the Senate. And I served for 11 years there under three presidential administrations.
Krys Boyd [00:03:33] So we’ve always had military inspectors general, but now we have inspectors general independently providing oversight over a large number of civilian federal agencies. What did Watergate have to do with that?
Glenn A. Fine [00:03:46] So you’re right. There were military inspectors general for a long time. In fact, they started under King Louis the 14th in France. The British had a military inspector general. So did the Prussians. And in fact, the inspector general was critical to the birth of our country. An inspector general was hired by the Continental Congress and by Washington and improved the organization, the discipline and the morale of the troops when they when they were at Valley Forge and they left as a much more effective fighting force. But there have not been civilian inspectors general until the 1978 act was passed. There is one in each federal agency now. Their mission is to detect and deter waste, fraud and abuse, to promote the economy, efficiency and effectiveness in each of those federal agencies. They were part of a post-Watergate set of reforms, including civil service reform for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reform, other reforms that were good government reforms that were signed into law in the 70s.
Krys Boyd [00:04:43] So on to make sure I’m understanding this, the idea is that inspectors general are installed within federal agencies the Department of Energy, the Treasury, Department of Justice, what have you. And they provide reports to the head of whatever agency, but they do not answer to that agency director.
Glenn A. Fine [00:05:00] That is correct. They are independent. They report both to the agency head and to Congress to keep both of them fully and currently informed of problems. But each of them do not direct what the inspector general does unless it’s in a statute. The inspector general has discretion and independents decide what to audit, what to evaluate, what to investigate. And that’s what makes it unique. Sometimes it’s been analogized as akin to straddling a barbed wire fence. I mean, keep both of them fully and currently informed. And I could tell you a story when I when I was the inspector general at the Justice Department and Defense Department, I worked with five attorneys general and four secretaries of defense. And even they didn’t often first recognize the independence of the IG. So I would brief each of them when they first came into office. And I never forget the reaction of one of them, the attorney general, after I was briefing him and telling him how we were independent. He couldn’t tell us what to audit, what to evaluate, what to invest. We decided that he said to me, wait a second, go and wait a second. Are you telling me that I can order everyone else around in this building, the main justice building, and tell them what to do, what to investigate, which audit? But I can’t tell you. And I said to him, Yes, that is what I’m telling you. That’s what the Inspector General Act requires. So he stared at me intently, and then he said, okay, if that’s what the law is, we follow the law around here. And he did, as did the others I worked for. I was very fortunate in that regard.
Krys Boyd [00:06:30] When John Ashcroft was attorney general, he had a certain way of encouraging his staff to think about your audits and your colleagues audits and investigations.
Glenn A. Fine [00:06:40] Yes. Yes, he did. He was he was a supporter of inspectors general. And his first job in public service was as the auditor general of the state of Missouri. When he first met me, he said we had a slogan in the auditor general’s office. He said, our slogan was “In God We trust all else. We verify.” So he knew he knew about the role of the inspector general, the independence, the importance of it. And he would tell his senior staff to cooperate with me, with the inspector General’s office, that we helped improve the operations of the department. And he said kind of humorously but accurately. Getting an inspector general audit or evaluation investigation being subject to that is like going to the dentist. It’s painful when you’re in the dentist chair, but you come out healthier. And I appreciated that. I appreciated that tone that he set from the top because the tone from the top mattered. The one thing that was a little off putting was when I would walk around the halls of the Justice Department. After that, people would say, okay, here comes the dentist. But it was worth it because people did cooperate, because they knew that the attorney general was supportive of our role.
Krys Boyd [00:07:48] For the record, I love my dentist, so.
Glenn A. Fine [00:07:51] I’m sure I’m sure he or she makes you quite healthy. She does. Same with the same with the inspector general. They make the operations better.
Krys Boyd [00:07:59] So tell us about these audits. What kinds of things might inspectors general look into to make sure government agencies are working the way they’re supposed to?
Glenn A. Fine [00:08:08] So the inspector general has auditors, public accountants, evaluators and also investigators, criminal and administrative investigators. Who has the discretion to look at all the programs and operations of the agency? So we would do program evaluations. We would audit the financial statements of the agency to make sure that they were accurate. We would look at the way Agent C programs were operating to make sure they were more effective and efficient. We would look at, for example, at contracts in the Pentagon and potential overcharging of contracts in the in the Pentagon. We would look at the efficiency of the operations as a result of our work. Billions of dollars were returned to the US Treasury and we made numerous recommendations for improvement in the operation and the most sensitive operations of the Justice Department, the Department of Defense, including, for example, the internal security practices of the FBI, and how the most damaging spy in FBI history, Robert Hanssen, was able to evade detection for more than two decades. We did that. We made recommendations to improve those operations. That’s just one example of the value of the work of an inspector general.
Krys Boyd [00:09:17] So can inspectors general access essentially any data they want as they conduct their audits and investigations? Is there anything off limits to you?
Glenn A. Fine [00:09:26] No. The inspector general has access to all information and individuals within the agency, and the agency has to cooperate and has to provide that information. In addition, inspectors general have the ability to subpoena documents outside the agency to make sure outside parties provide relevant documents. And some inspectors general, including the defense inspector general, as the authority to subpoena witnesses outside the agency to cooperate and to provide testimony. So, yes, the inspector general has carte blanche within the agency to access information individuals in the course of the inspector general’s audit and evaluation or investigation and even classified information. The inspector general has access to this. We had the highest classifications, top secret secure compartmented information classification, so that all that information we could use in our evaluations, audits and investigations.
Krys Boyd [00:10:20] Glenn Government agencies generate vast amounts of data regardless of what it is they’re assigned to do. How do IGs decide what information to request?
Glenn A. Fine [00:10:32] Well, it’s information that’s relevant to the investigation or the audit. We look at it, we ask, we have broad document requests. We do interviews of people within the agency to understand how the program operates and understand where the information is. We have access to databases. We also have data analytics staff who can analyze that data. And we also have talented and dedicated and experienced auditors, evaluators and investigators who know the operations of the agency. They’ve been there a long time. They know where to look. They know what’s relevant to their audits and evaluations, and they ask for and receive that information.
Krys Boyd [00:11:10] What happens if an IG investigation uncovers mismanagement or malfeasance? Do you have power to act beyond reporting what your investigation has turned up?
Glenn A. Fine [00:11:20] Well, the inspector general has the power to make reports and make recommendations. To be clear, the inspector general is not management. We’re not part of management. So we cannot impose a solution. We make recommendations to the agency and the agency does not have to implement that recommendations. The only thing they have to do is respond to the recommendation. Do they concurred or they disagree? And if so, why? But once they do agree and most of the time they do agree either with the exact recommendation or maybe a variation of the recommendation to reach the same result. Once they do agree, the inspector general follows up to make sure that the recommendations are actually implemented and the corrective action has been taken. Sometimes we find when we do a follow up review or when we look at the paperwork afterwards that the agency has not actually implemented it. And we will go back and continue to keep that recommendation open and keep the spotlight on it. And so, for example, when I was the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense, I decided that we should accumulate all the recommendations that we had made to the Department of Defense that they had not implemented yet. So we put together a compendium of open recommendations, we called it. We found 1298 recommendations that were still open that had not been implemented, and all but 50 had been agreed to by the agency. And so that’s the power of the inspector general. We shine the spotlight on those open recommendations. We issued a report publicly to Congress and to the agency head and the agency head at the time, the secretary of defense, the secretary, James Mattis. When he got that report, he was not pleased to see how many open recommendations there were. And he talked to his senior officials, the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, the secretaries of defense, secretaries of the services, and said we need to get on top of this and implement the recommendations of the IG. And so that’s the power of the inspector general to shine a spotlight and to keep the pressure on the agency to to implement the recommendations that they have agreed to.
Krys Boyd [00:13:17] How common is it for whistleblowers within agencies to tip off inspectors general on where to shine their spotlight?
Glenn A. Fine [00:13:23] Very often, whistleblowers are critical source of information and complaints to the inspector general’s offices. Some of the biggest cases we handled were as a result of whistleblower complaints. When I was at the justice, we had a whistleblower hotline which received more than 12,000 complaints a year. At at Defense, we had a whistleblower hotline that received more than 14,000 complaints a year. Now, to be sure, some of them are frivolous and many some of them were directed to the wrong entity. But on the other hand, there were some real serious ones that resulted in significant changes. And so it was imperative upon us to take each allegation seriously. Whistle blowers are crucial to the work of inspectors general.
Krys Boyd [00:14:04] It is, of course, important to have somebody keeping tabs even on law enforcement agencies. People may remember the name Robert Hanssen. This was an American who worked at the FBI Fed secrets to the KGB for decades after the case came to light. You and your colleagues were charged with figuring out how he managed to get away with it for more than 20 years.
Glenn A. Fine [00:14:26] Yes. When he was caught, the FBI was asked how did he evade detection as an FBI agent under your nose for so long? And the FBI responded well, he was a counterintelligence agent. He used his spy craft. He was crafty and he evaded detection that way. We were asked to look into that by both the United States Senate and the attorney general to look into the internal security practices of the FBI. What we found was that nothing could have been further from the truth with regard to the FBI’s explanation. He was not a clever and crafty spy. He was a mediocre agent who exhibited all sorts of red flags that should have arouse suspicion. But instead, the FBI ignored those red flags and relied on trust in their internal security practice. They trusted that FBI agents would not commit espionage. As an example, Robert Hanssen deposited large sums of money he received from the Soviets and the Russians for spying for them for more than 20 years. A bank account a block from the FBI, he used phones of the FBI to contact the Russians and the Soviets. He hacked into the FBI’s computer system to read classified information. And when he was caught, he said, well, I did this to show how weak the FBI’s cybersecurity practices were. And the FBI blithely accepted that he was not individual. They sent him off to the State Department on a detail where nobody supervised them and he was able to continue his espionage. He was not given a polygraph. It was not required to issue a financial disclosure statement. And he was only given one perfunctory background investigation and 20 years when it should be done every five years. And they did not follow up on the derogatory information. The FBI’s internal security practices were weak, and that led to his ability to evade detection for so long. We issued a very highly classified report, a lengthy report explaining that we also issued an unclassified summary, 30 page unclassified summary, which which gave our conclusions and that the FBI needed to improve its internal security practices, which eventually they did. And initially they resisted some of our recommendations. Congress got involved. I testified at the hearing, and eventually the FBI agreed to implement the recommendations. In my view, that shows the value and the impact and the importance of an independent inspector general. Whereas the FBI did not want to admit embarrassing episodes and embarrassing failures, and an independent inspector general can directly do that, explain what happened and make actual reasonable recommendations for improvement, which is what happened.
Krys Boyd [00:17:06] Inspectors general were very busy in the aftermath of the 911 attacks. What were some of the recommendations made to improve practices at the FBI after 911?
Glenn A. Fine [00:17:18] So one of the things we looked at was the treatment of detainees after the 911 attacks and found that many were abused and in in detention in the United States and that they were held without being told the charges against them. They were not given access to phones or attorneys. And and they were not cleared of any charges in a timely way. So we made recommendations to improve the practices of the FBI, who had and the Bureau of Prisons and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, who had detained many immigrants on those charges but did not but had abused them physically and verbally abused them. So when we issued that report, there was a little bit of a backlash against it, saying, why do you care? These were undocumented immigrants. Who cares about that? And we thought, well, number one, we were required to do it by by law. And number two, even in times of crisis, we ought to uphold our values and follow the rule of law. And we issued a very highly publicized report. Some people disagreed with it. The Department of Justice immediately said, well, we don’t make any excuses for what we did. But on the other hand, they agreed with our recommendations and they made changes to how they would deal with the treatment of detainees after the attacks. So that again shows the value of an inspector general. We were not popular. I had some people who were very upset with it, but ultimately, both the Department of Justice and both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill came around to the importance of these recommendations. It shows the value of an inspector general.
Krys Boyd [00:18:56] Is part of the job of an inspector general just to take abuse from people who are angry about the content of IG reports.
Glenn A. Fine [00:19:04] Yeah, I wouldn’t put it that way, that the job is to take abuse. But you are not. I was not the most popular person in the Department of Justice cafeteria or the Pentagon food court. An inspector general is often viewed as the skunk at the picnic. We’re viewed as being too hard or too soft. We’re engaging in a witch hunt or whitewash or junkyard dogs or we’re lap dogs sometimes all of that in the same investigation or audit by different sides. In fact, I’ll tell you a story that relates to this. When I first became the inspector general of the Department of Justice, I was asked to go up to Capitol Hill and brief a senator about a report that we had issued. And I said, sure, I would do that. And aside to bring along with me my deputy, a great guy, terrific guy, been with me for a long time as named Paul Martin. He’s actually now the inspector general of the United States Agency for International Development. And actually, a matter as a matter of fact, my proudest accomplishment as a justice in defense is the ten people who worked for me later became inspectors general themselves of their own agencies. And what more what better thing can you do than put your people in a position of success for their own ambitions? That somebody once called me the Coach K as coach accused me of inspectors general. And I don’t root for Duke basketball, but I consider that a great honor. Anyway, back to the story. It took Paul up to the Capitol Hill with me. I briefed the senator about the report after the briefing. The senator looked at me and said, okay, good briefing. He said. Now, I want to tell you what I think about inspectors general. The point is, Fingar right at me. He said, you have to be independent. You’re going to do things that I don’t like. You’re going to do things that the entire Congress doesn’t like. You’re going to do things that the attorney general doesn’t like. No one’s going to like. You don’t think you’ll be liked because no one will like you. You understand that? No one will like you. And he kept pointing his finger at me and saying that. And eventually my deputy, Paul, I think he had heard enough because he interjected. Don’t worry about that, Senator. Even I don’t like him. The Senate is cracked up and that was the end of the meeting. And while humorous in retrospect, I tell the story because there’s a point to the story. We’re not going to be popular. That’s not our job, to be popular or to be liked. I hope we’re viewed as tough but fair. And I hope we improve the operations of the agency. That’s what we tried to do.
Krys Boyd [00:21:18] Serious question. Did you develop ways to steel yourself for testimony you knew would put you in the hot seat?
Glenn A. Fine [00:21:26] So I wouldn’t say I steal myself, but I recognized that I wasn’t going to please everybody, that the most important thing is to tell the facts, to speak truth to power. And some people will agree, some people will disagree. I testified 55 times before congressional committees. You develop a thick skin. You have to develop a thick skin because people are not going to be happy with what you do. And people will try and use your reports for their own agenda, But your role is to just speak the truth and make recommendations and help improve the agency. And that’s what we tried to do, not to to try to cater to one side or the other, but to play it straight down the middle and maintain your credibility. And and then when you go home, you do other things and have a lovely family and played sports and exercised and went back and did it again the next day.
Krys Boyd [00:22:16] So if your job is simply to call it as you see it, based on the evidence we should note, inspectors general also can play an important role in clearing agency suspected of wrongdoing if the evidence supports it. So there were problems with detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay, at Abu Ghraib. You were able to determine that. FBI agents, though, actually raised concerns about this abuse as committed by employees of other agencies.
Glenn A. Fine [00:22:42] Yes, that’s a really good point and a really good question, because most of the time you’re much of the time you’re finding problems or fault. But when you show you’re not afraid to criticize the agency, when you the inspector general clears the agency, it has much more credibility than if the agency itself did an investigation and said there’s nothing to see here. So you’re right. We did do a review of what the FBI did and witnessed with regard to detainees after the 911 attacks, including at Guantanamo. And we determined, exhaustive investigation, interviewed scores of agents and went down there. We went down to Guantanamo. Documents determined that by and large, they maintained their regular practice. They did not, by and large, participate in any abuses and that they adhere to the FBI methods, unlike some of the other agencies. And to be clear, you only have only had jurisdiction within the Justice Department. The actions of, let’s say, the CIA. The department says they’re subject to their own inspector general’s time. We cleared the FBI. We said that they had not committed abuses and in fact, that there was as a result of the report, there was one article in a major newspaper that said these were the heroes of the effect of the treatment of detainees after the 911 attacks, because we had cleared them in a very careful and comprehensive way. And that’s also true with regard to individuals. I mean, we investigated lots of individuals and found misconduct. But one of the most important roles of an inspector general was to clear an individual of misconduct. And that will have credibility if the inspector general does it, rather than the agency itself.
Krys Boyd [00:24:19] So what happens when an IG at one federal agency comes across information about suggesting malfeasance at another agency, like when you were IG of the Justice Department and learned about apparent problems in the CIA, which is under under the Department of Defense.
Glenn A. Fine [00:24:34] Well, the CIA is an independent agency, but it had an inspector general. We would work with them. We would coordinate with them. We would provide that information to them. And it was their responsibility to conduct investigations, which they did. And to be clear, I believe most inspectors general are effective and dedicated. There are a few who probably are not as good as the others. There’s an expression within the IG community. If you’ve seen one IG, you’ve seen one IG. They’re not all the same. But by and large, most of them take their jobs really seriously. They’re difficult jobs and they do an effective job. And that was my experience in government.
Krys Boyd [00:25:11] What role did an inspector general report play in the modification of the warrantless wiretapping practices President Bush authorized after 911?
Glenn A. Fine [00:25:22] So, yes, we were required to look into those practices, and I led a very coordinated review of that by the Justice Department, IG, CIA, DOD IG, andC IG. And we look carefully at those practices and explain what they have. What happened? We issued a very extensive classified report which is still classified, but we also did an unclassified summary. Many of your listeners may remember the infamous hospital scene where Attorney General Ashcroft was hospitalized and White House counsel tried to get the attorney general to resign. Authorization for certain aspects of that program. And and he declined to do it. And the acting attorney general, Jim Comey, also declined to do it. So we issued a report, explained what had happened and made recommendations as well. So I think that’s another example of the value of independent inspector general oversight.
Krys Boyd [00:26:19] Glenn, how did the IG’s office root out corruption and abuse taking place in federal prisons?
Glenn A. Fine [00:26:27] Well, that is a significant challenge. There is corruption in federal prisons of various kinds, including sexual abuse of inmates by correctional officers and introduction of contraband into prison. When I was the Justice IGP, we had authority over the Federal Bureau of Prisons. They had institutions all throughout the country, and we had law enforcement agencies that would investigate those allegations. And we had a significant number of cases dealing with corrupt prison guards who introduced contraband into prison as a result of bribes to them and also sexually abused inmates. In fact, in one of those cases, there was a tragedy. And I tell tell the story about whether agents who died on duty. So we our agents investigated a ring of correctional officers in a prison in Tallahassee, Florida, federal prisons who were sexually abusing female inmates and threatening them with retaliation if they expose their criminal acts. They did. We investigated it. We brought the case to the US attorney. The U.S., in turn attorney indicted six of those officers. Our agents, along with the FBI, went to arrest the officers, the correctional officers who had been indicted at the prison. I just thought that would be the safer place to do it. Our agents arrested the first one without incident, the second one without incident, and then the third one came out from behind. The reception desk in the prison had a gym bag, reach in the gym bag, had a gun, started firing, shot a prison lieutenant in the stomach, and then shot one of our agents who was stationed at the door before the correctional officer could go shoot other agents. Our agent, who fell down after he was hit, leaned backed up, returned fire, shot and killed the correctional officer. And then our agent fell back down and died. His name is Buddy Centner. He was a true hero. He saved the lives of many people and he gave his own life. And in many ways, the term hero is overused. He, in my view, and other law enforcement agents who risked their lives to make our institutions less corrupt, safer, secure, such as what he did, are true heroes. And I tell that story in the book.
Krys Boyd [00:28:39] What kind of remedies came out of that incident and the report that precluded it, that preceded it, rather, to prevent further abuses?
Glenn A. Fine [00:28:48] Yes, this really was a tragedy that could have been avoided. We had been recommending that the Bureau of Prisons search their staff before they when they entered the prison for their tour of duty, including going through metal detectors. If everyone has to go through a metal detector to get into a federal building or go on an airplane. We thought it was important for correctional officers to do that. The Bureau of Prisons resisted, resisted for a long time, despite our recommendations. And then the tragedy happened with Buddy. And even after that, they resisted for a while and eventually implemented metal detectors in the prisons, but still didn’t implement a search policy to search the possessions like the bags, the gym bags, the coolers of correctional officers who could bring in contraband drugs, cell phones, food, other things cigarettes when they were not searched. So eventually, after my time, after I left, they finally agreed. And even now, though, there’s not a effective search policy. So it goes back to your earlier question. The inspector general can make recommendations. Ultimately, it’s up to the agency to implement those recommendations because the Bureau of Prisons did not implement them in a timely, timely way. It took a tragedy for them to finally change their position.
Krys Boyd [00:30:07] Are situations like that where people seem to close ranks within an agency good times to lean on the fact that you also make your reports to Congress?
Glenn A. Fine [00:30:15] Yes. Something that one of the most important powers and levers for an inspector general is to make things transparent, to provide sunshine, to give these reports both publicly to the public, who, by the way, have a right to know how their government is operating, which is why I think board should be transparent, but also the Congress. And often when Congress became involved, the sense of urgency on the agency part to correct the problem increased. For example, if there was going to be a hearing held, I saw often a lot of action by the agency where the action there had been inaction in the past.
Krys Boyd [00:30:51] Glenn, as you’ve said, it’s important for inspectors general to be truth tellers, to be scrupulous about details and getting reports right. What does it take to keep inspectors general safe from political influence on hirings and firings?
Glenn A. Fine [00:31:08] So inspectors general are supposed to be nonpartisan. They’re selected for their nonpartisan qualifications. That’s why typically when administrations change, the inspector general remains at large. Agencies are nominated by the president, confirmed by the Senate. But when the administration changed, it’s the IG who remains. Even though they’ve been appointed by the president. That is why, for example, I remained under President Clinton’s administration, President Bush’s administration, President Obama’s administration and the Justice Department. And also, when I was in defense in President Obama’s administration for President Trump’s administration. But that is a norm. It’s not by statute. The president does have the right to remove an inspector general. Up until President Trump, that had not happened to any significant extent. President Trump did remove five inspectors general. I was one of them in the last year of his administration, which sent a chill down among other inspectors general as well. So I make recommendations to help improve, protect and extend the role of inspectors general in the book, including giving them a term of office. If the FBI director has a term of office ten years, if the head of the Government Accountability Office has a term of office 15 years. I think inspectors general also ought to have a term of office. So I think it’s important to support inspectors general to give them adequate resources. But also, by the way, to make sure that we have a good answer to the question of who’s watching the watchdog. Inspectors general also need oversight as well. And I make recommendations about that in the book as well.
Krys Boyd [00:32:39] Just to back up in time here for a minute, in 2010, you’d been Justice IG for 11 years. You were ready for a career change. So you go to this big international law firm where presumably the paychecks were better. How did you end up back as an inspector general, this time as acting defense inspector general?
Glenn A. Fine [00:32:57] So you’re right. I stepped down after 11 years as the Justice Department inspector general. I thought change was good, good for an individual, good for an organization. I did go to a large law firm. The paycheck was good, but the satisfaction and the sense of impact was not the same. And I had it in my blood to be a public servant. And I guess what what can I say? I guess I’m a recidivist. So? So. So when I was I was asked to return to the Department of Defense by the inspector general at the time who was interested in leaving but leaving the office to the deputy who could take over, I became the principal deputy inspector general, the Department of Defense, in 2015. And then so almost a few months after I got there, he announced his retirement and I became the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense for in 2016. And I served in that role either as the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense or check out this title. I think it’s the longest title in government. The principal Deputy inspector General form ring the duties of the Inspector General of the United States Department of Defense. In essence, it’s the head of the office. I served in that role for four and a half years until 2020. And by the way, that’s the longest tenure of any inspector general in department defense history, longest continuous tenure, either as the permanent or the acting. So that’s that’s how I got to the position I was in.
Krys Boyd [00:34:23] There almost couldn’t be a bigger job. The defense inspector general oversees what amounts to half this country’s discretionary spending, including 4800 military bases. What does it take to get your head around just the many acronyms you need to know, let alone the scope of the job?
Glenn A. Fine [00:34:40] Yeah, yeah, it is a huge job. And that’s when people ask me what the differences were between the Department of Justice Department, Defense. And there was several differences, but one is just the size of it. As you said, the Department of Defense is a huge operation. It’s the biggest organization in terms of employees in the world. It has more than 3 million people. What it does is vast. It has half of the discretionary spending of the United States government. And I was there if you compared the the budget of the Department of Defense, which was over $800 billion annually to the gross domestic product of every country in the world, it would have been the 21st biggest country in the world, right behind Saudi Arabia, right off of Argentina. So it does take a lot to get your arms around that. We had over 1700 employees in the Department of Defense office, the inspector general reporting to me. And you’re right, it one of the things you have to learn is the acronyms. Boy do they use a lot of acronyms in the Department of Defense? Everything is turned into an acronym. I got to the point where I would have my daily schedule by my military eight. I had a military eight, and at the bottom of the schedule she would put what she called the acronym of the day, and she would use an acronym and explain it to me. And I would think, my goodness, It’s like I’m back in high school learning the SATs. And I comment on this. I said, you know, everything gets turned into an acronym in the Department of Defense. Why is that? And one of my military aide said, well, we’re very. BGOA Here. And I said BGOA. What does that mean? And he said, We’re very big on acronyms. But, you know, eventually you learn it. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s a language. I guess all disciplines have their own language and you, you develop a proficiency with it as well.
Krys Boyd [00:36:27] You care deeply about ethics within the Department of Defense. Can you remind folks who haven’t heard of it why the so-called Fat Leonard case was so important?
Glenn A. Fine [00:36:36] Yes, that was the most damaging corruption scandal in Navy history. Fat Leonard as he was known his names Leonard Glen Francis owned a ship servicing company in the Pacific Service. Navy ships in port provided them fuel, water, sewage treatment, tugboat services. But he corrupted so many Navy officers to get the contracts, to get information on his competitors, to steer Navy ships into his ports so he could service them to overlook exorbitant charges. And he was like an intelligence agent. He would know what the Navy officers weakness was. He would groom the officer who would first give them dinners and lavish dinners and tickets and cash and sometimes prostitutes. And then they were on the hook and he demanded something in return. Over 30 people were convicted of crimes. More were administratively sanctioned and ended their careers in the scope of the misconduct. It was mind boggling and went on for over a decade and it hung up on many, many Navy officers.
Krys Boyd [00:37:39] By many accounts, who served with distinction as acting defense inspector general. What do you know about why President Trump decided he wanted you out of that job?
Glenn A. Fine [00:37:51] So I was the acting inspector general when Covid of the department finished. When Covid hit, we all remember that where we were and how the economy shut down. Congress appropriated over $2 trillion in Covid relief funds. But it also created what it called the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, which was a committee of inspectors general to oversee the use of that money to try and detect and deter fraud and abuse in the use of that money. As part of the legislation. Congress required that one inspector general had to be the chair of that committee. Well, I drew the short straw. My fellow IG selected me as the chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. And also, remain as the acting department defense inspector general. My selection was announced on a Monday within a week. President Trump, who famously said that he didn’t we didn’t need the oversight, He said, I’ll be the oversight, replaced me as the acting Defense Department inspector general, meaning that I could not be on the Pandemic Response Committee Accountability Committee. I could not chair it. My career as the acting inspector, Defense Department inspector general came to a screeching halt. I was never given the reasons why. In fact, nobody ever contacted me directly. I heard about it from another inspector general who had heard about it. And I saw the the document with the signature on it. So people speculated why. But no one ever told me why I was removed. However, I was not the only person and only inspector general removed at that time. The short period of time he removed the intelligence community inspector general who had brought the Ukraine whistleblower matter to Congress. He removed the State Department inspector general. He removed the Transportation Department acting inspector general, and he denounced and tried to replace the Health and Human Services inspector general. This was unusual. It was contrary to the norm that inspectors general remained unless they committed some kind of misconduct. And one article called it the slow motion Friday night massacre of inspectors general, because most of them were announced on a Friday night. But it was not it did not violate the law. It violated norms, but it was not illegal. And so that was the end of my career as an inspector general. Having said that, you know, when one door closes, others open. As you pointed out, I now I’m a fellow at the Brookings Institution. I teach at Georgetown Law School. I taught at Stanford Law School. And I would do so again. And I get to and I had time to write this book to try and expose more people to the importance of inspectors general, the role they play, and the need to support, protect and extend their role.
Krys Boyd [00:40:30] So did you write this book in defense of the importance of inspectors general?
Glenn A. Fine [00:40:36] I wrote it because I wanted to expose more people to their critical world. As you’ve said. They have been called some of the most important public servants you’ve never heard of. I want people to know about them. And I also want there to be reforms in the system. And I also make a provocative recommendation in the book that we ought to extend the role of inspectors general, that all organizations need oversight most resisted. Now, I believe that the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court would benefit from an inspector general. And I make that recommendation as well.
Krys Boyd [00:41:06] Yeah. From your perspective, Glenn, you think the fact that there is no IG overseeing the Supreme Court or the federal judiciary is a glaring oversight? What what sort of job do you imagine an inspector general doing if one were, in fact, appointed to oversee the judiciary?
Glenn A. Fine [00:41:24] I think the inspector general for the Supreme Court, the judiciary would have several beneficial results. First, the judiciary is a huge operation. It has a $8 billion budget, 30,000 employees. More than 2000 federal judges. It deals with judicial security, court security, information technology, security personnel systems. Any organization at large is going to have problems. An inspector general could improve operations, deter waste, and do what inspector general and other agencies do. In addition, I think the Supreme Court would benefit from an inspector general. It now does not have an enforceable code of conduct or ethical rules that are enforceable. It recently adopted a code of conduct, but there’s no enforcement mechanism and violates a fundamental precept in our law that no person should be the judge of his or her own case. So when there are ethical allegations against a justice of the Supreme Court, we leave it to the justices himself or herself to decide whether there’s been an ethics violation, how the ethics rules apply. And I believe that an inspector general would benefit the court because it would establish the facts and reduce partizan disagreements about that rather than what we do now, which is just let the justice themselves say there’s nothing to see here or not even to respond or maybe respond in selected media outlets. Trust in the Supreme Court has reached an all time low, according to polls. My view part of the reason is controversy about controversial decisions. But another part of the reason is unaddressed ethical allegations. So I recommend that there be an inspector general within the court, perhaps reporting to the chief justice of the court. The inspector general would not have the authority to impose a solution or decision or discipline on the justices, but at least would determine the facts. And recently, a few justices, two justices have proposed a lower level panel of judges to make decisions on ethics, ethics allegations. But there needs to be a professional, consistent mechanism to investigate those allegations, which is why I think we need the Supreme Court inspector general and also a judiciary inspector general. I think they could the IG could serve both roles.
Krys Boyd [00:43:38] So your recommendations include, you know, plentiful resources for inspectors general, making sure that the work is done in a timely fashion. And transparency that you think would aid IG’s in serving the country. Your final recommendation is for inspectors general to not expect to be popular. This has been a theme throughout our conversation. You seem like a very likable guy. Who cares what people think of you? But I wonder, do you think, Glenn, that it takes a certain kind of personality to be okay with making lots of powerful people unhappy?
Glenn A. Fine [00:44:10] You just have to understand that that’s part of the role. It comes with the territory. You do have to develop a thick skin. I hope I hope I’m a likable guy, but that’s not why I’m in it. Now, I do think it’s important to have a good relationship, a professional relationship with the agency leaders, and you have to maintain your professional distance. You’re not their friend. You perform a very valuable role and a difficult role. And you’re not you’re not the same as other people within the agency. You are independent. You’re different. You have to maintain some distance. And so you just have to understand that, accept that and perform that role in the best way possible. And also get your, you know, your friendships somewhere else, not not from within the agency. It’s also a fascinating role and a really a role that you feel good about because you’re involved with the issues of the day, making important recommendations and helping improve critical operations of our government. And I feel proud of being able to do that. I think IGs are one of the essential pillars of our democracy and an essential check and balance on governance. So that’s why I love doing it for so long.
Krys Boyd [00:45:17] Glenn Fine served as inspector general of the Department of Justice and acting inspector general of the Department of Defense. He’s a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School. His book is called “Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government.” Glenn, thank you for the conversation.
Glenn A. Fine [00:45:36] Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure.
Krys Boyd [00:45:38] Think is distributed by PRX, the public radio exchange. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram and wherever you get podcasts, just search for KERA Think again. I’m Krys Boyd. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.
