As the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection faces congressional scrutiny, we learned from sources within the office that it shelled out over $300,000 last month on ineffective and at times irrelevant training for its staff who work on misconduct and whistleblower retaliation allegations.
Insiders who spoke to POGO described an office in disarray, with the expensive, hastily planned, and ineffective training as the latest symptom of poor management. The VA either knowingly or negligently spent taxpayer dollars to pay instructors without the relevant experience to quote government audit standards at people who are unlikely to conduct that kind of audit in their current jobs.
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Potential corporate defendants have many more opportunities to influence the process than most people have. And it happens before corporations or their executives are charged with violating the law, if they face charges at all.
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If the Small Business Administration does not improve its suspension and debarment process, how much money will be lost to fraud, waste, or abuse is anyone’s guess.
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Meeting the Challenges of Today
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Over the past 38 years, the Project On Government Oversight has worked to stymie corruption in our government so the American people could be confident that decisions being made in Washington are aimed at benefiting them. Over those almost four decades of work, the fight has gotten more difficult as the country has faced new and growing challenges. Read about POGO's accomplishments and impact in 2018.
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Upcoming
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On Saturday, November 9th, the Alexandria Film Festival is hosting a screening of the documentary film Who Killed Lt. Van Dorn? in Alexandria, Virginia. The poignant picture of one family's tragedy uncovers a long history of negligence and institutional failings that led to the fatal crash of a 53E helicopter, the deadliest aircraft in the military. New POGO staffer Jason Paladino will be on a panel discussion following the film. Tickets are available through the Alexandria Film Festival; cost: $12.50 online, $15 at door.
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POGO & Whistleblowers
POGO has a long history of working with whistleblowers and protecting their rights. We believe that whistleblowers are our first line of defense against corruption and abuse by the federal government. We’ve spent years protecting these truth-tellers and the mechanisms to hold government accountable, and today we’re seeing why all of that work matters.
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It’s not new to see the motivations of whistleblowers and inspectors general questioned when their disclosures are politically inconvenient.
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Intelligence community whistleblowers shouldn’t have to go through intermediaries before they can inform Congress of matters that can impact the nation’s security.
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Whistleblowing is not a crime—in many cases, it is a legally-protected right. This interactive quiz can help you learn more about your whistleblower rights and protections as a federal sector employee.
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It is possible to fight wrongdoing from within without sacrificing your career. This survival guide, intended to help and empower conscientious government employees when they encounter wrongdoing in the workplace, covers what federal sector employees should know before blowing the whistle.
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We distilled our survival guide into this e-course, delivering key lessons and tips to your inbox each week.
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Federal employees should never have to risk their careers when doing what's right for our country.
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We need the official channels for disclosing wrongdoing in the government—that’s why POGO continues to fight for increased whistleblower protections. Without increased whistleblower protections, honest citizens trying to protect the integrity of our system could be intimidated into silence while the legal fabric of the country unravels.
Give now to support POGO’s work protecting whistleblowers.
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POGO in the News
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There is a concern that the falling-out between the Air Force and Boeing could give Northrop Grumman too much influence over the Pentagon’s missile programs moving forward.
“From a taxpayer’s point of view, when there are multiple companies competing for something, it’s going to drive prices down,” said Dan Grazier, a retired Marine Corps captain who now works with the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group. “It bothers me immensely that so many of these systems go to a sole-source provider, because there is no incentive to control costs.”
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Giuliani’s early overseas business dealings were largely straightforward: security consulting in places like Honduras, Panama and Colombia. But his more recent international activities, in Eastern Europe in particular, reflect what appears to be a blurring of the lines between Giuliani the consultant and Giuliani the influential voice in the ear of the president, experts say.
“We don’t know what role Giuliani is playing,” said Scott Amey, general counsel for the non-partisan Project on Government Oversight. “To operate as a personal attorney to the president, have private business dealings and operate as a quasi-government employee is a mixture that is inappropriate and shouldn’t be happening.”
Amey noted that Giuliani isn’t subject to the conflict of ethics rules that govern the conduct of official employees of the federal government.
“He blurs the line between what role he’s playing so much, without any rules, that it really calls into question who he’s working for and whose interests he’s trying to represent,” Amey said.
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Danielle Brian is executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan independent watchdog that investigates corruption, misconduct and conflicts of interest in the federal government. A South Florida native and National FOIA Hall of Fame member, Brian has testified before Congress more than 40 times in the 27 years she's been leading the organization, which goes by the memorable acronym POGO. She returned to the group and took the reins in 1993 after interning there a decade earlier. Her answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Q: What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
Danielle Brian: @POGOBlog is a nonpartisan watchdog that fights to fix the federal government. We investigate corruption, abuse of power and when the government silences whistleblowers. We champion reforms to achieve a more effective, ethical and accountable federal government that safeguards constitutional principles.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
Danielle Brian: During my internship for my member of Congress, I persuaded him to change a vote. I thought it was because of the power of my arguments but learned later from the legislative director that it was the passion with which I made my case that won him over.
Read the full profile |
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Mandy Smithberger, an analyst with the nonprofit organization Project on Government Oversight, said there are “a lot of reasons to be skeptical” of such arrangements.
With an OTA contract, “there’s less transparency, less ability to assess the fairness of pricing, less control over pricing,” Smithberger said, adding, “I would say that we’ve seen them used questionably.”
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Monday on MPR News with Kerri Miller, we examine America's conflicted history with whistleblowing — and see how our past affects how we view the whistleblowers at the heart of President Trump's impeachment inquiry today.
Guests:
Allison Stanger, professor of international politics and economics at Middlebury College and author of the new book, “Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump”
Liz Hempowicz, director of public policy at the Project on Government Oversight
Listen to the broadcast |
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Scott Amey, general counsel at the good-government advocacy group Project On Government Oversight, said it would be a clear violation of the code of conduct if Hill had a relationship with a congressional staffer.
“I think it’s unfortunate, the circumstances here, both personally and professionally, but the rules are there to ensure that no one inside Congress is above the law,” Amey said.
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But since March, the board has had no members.
All three spots were filled until 2015, when a member’s term expired and the Republican-led Senate refused to vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace her. In January 2017, another board member’s term ended, leaving one lone member, whose term ended in March. The Trump administration proposed three nominees to the board: Chad Bungard, deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration; Dennis Kirk, an Army lawyer; and Julia Clark, who has worked at an agency representing government employees. But their confirmation has been stalled in the Senate because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hasn’t scheduled a vote. McConnell’s office did not return a request for comment.
The lack of a fully functioning board, says Rebecca Jones, policy counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, “will have a potentially chilling effect on federal employees coming forward.”
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Significantly, while the text of the research solicitation doesn't mention the F-35, the acquisition program that the project is intended is listed as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. In addition, the F-22 is included in the list of keywords at the bottom of the solicitation.
"I'm sure it isn't a coincidence," says Dan Grazier at defense watchdog Project on Government Oversight. "The F-35 is quite vulnerable to ground fire, especially since the designers decided not to include self-sealing fuel tanks."
It's not just the F-35. The flak future awaiting the F-35 and other U.S. aircraft appears to be a grim one, according to the Air Force. "Legacy AAAs [anti-aircraft artillery] are already lethal to 35,000 feet and will become more lethal as projectiles become smarter and as radar tracking improves. In the near future, they will be more lethal at much higher attitudes as numerous hyper-velocity technologies come online such as railguns and extended range artillery with smart seeker shells come online."
[...] Some experts question whether the Air Force should even be putting its aircraft in harm's way. "The interesting thing to me is they still think in terms of sending the delivery vehicle, whether manned or unmanned, into contested air space," Grazier says. "With all the discussion of standoff weapons, AAA shouldn't be that much of a concern anymore."
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Dan Grazier, military fellow with the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) watchdog group in Washington, DC, told Jane's on 18 October that range restrictions prevent the F-35 from being tested against very high-end missions such as super dense, highly-integrated air defence networks. In theory, he said, the Pentagon should be able to replicate these missions in the simulator. Grazier said the Pentagon must have a properly functioning JSE to complete initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E), which is required to properly inform the FRP decision.
There will be at least three JSE facilities. Grazier said the US Navy (USN) has been developing one at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, for approximately three years. The US Air Force (USAF) is also planning on a pair of its own JSEs with groundbreaking for both facilities scheduled for May 2020. The first is a 21,988 sq m facility planned for Edwards Air Force Base in California, while the other 15,535 sq m facility will be located at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
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At the end, the article cites a report by Dan Grazier at the nonprofit project on government oversight that notes “the roughly 50% success rate of the ground-based system since 1999.” That figure is not disputed in the article, nor is it in any other reports I’ve read. “That won’t cut it,” the article concludes, if the missiles are carrying nuclear warheads.
The article doesn’t say, but the missile defense systems probably have that 50% rate of success against slower short and intermediate range missiles. Against ICBMs the success rate wouldn’t be as good. And with ICBMs, the tests have been run against single missiles. The likelihood of an attack with a single ICBM isn’t high either.
[...] Dan Grazier at the Project on Government Oversight again: “The more of these systems that we try that don’t work and are eventually canceled kind of bolster the argument that his might be a bridge too far, technologically speaking, because we’ve been working on this for decades now and we still can’t crack that nut.”
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Dunlap did eventually sign a recusal statement, though it was filed the same day EPA officially blocked the formaldehyde review.
"The timing of this doesn't pass the sniff test," Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, told Politico. "It really does appear he wanted to weigh in on the formaldehyde issue for as long as he could."
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The Trump Organization has been similarly involved in projects in Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay, said Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog group.
Amey pointed to articles in Politico, the Daily Beast and the Washington Post that described how providing Secret Service protection for the Trump brothers on their business trips has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"Let's not forget that each year President Trump lists numerous international ventures in his financial disclosure records," Amey said, adding that Eric Trump’s claim was "incorrect."
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Less than a week after Intersect Festival shared its final roster, The Black Madonna announced that she’s rescinded her slot among the lineup, subsequently disappearing from the website’s billing.
The esteemed house producer stormed to Twitter to voice her disgruntlement with the news that Intersect Festival is in fact backed by Amazon Web Services. The renowned DJ and prominent social justice advocate attributed her decision to the latter’s relations with both the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security. After showing her discernible frustration with the situation, The Black Madonna, real name Marea Stamper, returned to the social media platform to thoroughly explain her position.
Clearly I was shocked and hurt when press and promotional materials appeared with my name on an event presented by AWS yesterday. Many of you expressed your disappointment too and you were right to do so. I share it completely and amplify it….
As a global ambassador for the Help Refugees organization, I raise awareness and donate 100% of merchandise sales to refugee assistance and personally provide grants to undocumented families fleeing persecution in their home countries.
Just last year, an investigation by the Project on Government Oversight discovered documents showing that Amazon had met with ICE regarding Amazon Rekognition, a technology used to identify people based on facial characteristics in real-time video feeds. Whether the technology was licensed to ICE or Homeland Security is currently unknown.
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