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According to new documents obtained by the Project On Government Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act, 210 employees at Customs and Border Protection were arrested from October 2004 through March 2018 on charges related to corruption.
The data shows the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) largest law enforcement agency has a major, longstanding internal corruption issue. President Trump’s executive order last year calling for the rapid hiring of thousands of additional CBP employees could exacerbate the challenge, according to congressional testimony by then-DHS Inspector General John Roth last fall.
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POGO filed an official complaint regarding a potential violation of the grassroots lobbying ban by Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and director of the Office of Management and Budget.
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One of the few things both parties can agree on these days is that government bureaucracy is plentiful and often problematic. It’s hard to see the benefit of adding more to an already loaded plate.
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The 2018 hurricane season starts in just over a month. Considering the severity and impact of last year’s storms, the nation should ask if we are adequately prepared for the next major disaster.
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Professors Stephen Vladeck, Constitution Project Fellow at POGO, and Eric Posner, explain why the bill designed to protect the spcial counsel is constitutional—and would be upheld by the federal courts were it to be challenged.
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The elastic authorizations for the use of military force that Congress passed in the wake of 9/11 have been stretched by the last three administrations from continent to continent to justify military strikes in at least eight nations.
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Videos: Senators Quote Letters Organized by POGO
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On April 26, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chris Coons quoted letters POGO helped organize written by constitutional scholars, Republican former elected officials, and former judges and prosecutors in support of the constitutionality of the special counsel protection legislation. |
POGO in the News
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“Investing in financial firms while heading to an agency that [oversees] those companies is another example of senior officials who seem to place their own interests above the public interest,” said Scott Amey, general counsel at the nonprofit group Project on Government Oversight.
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“Trump did not make a huge difference in what is or is not allowed, despite statements from some in the administration,” said Peter Tyler, a senior policy analyst with the group. “Mostly what the Obama-era order did was put in some very helpful accountability steps.”
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A Project on Government Oversight report released Monday found that "At least 13 employees have been arrested on corruption-related charges since the start of the Trump Administration, according to records obtained by the Project On Government Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act." The report states that 80 Border Patrol agents have been arrested for corruption-related crimes since 2004.
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Lydia Dennett, an investigator at the Project on Government Oversight who specializes in monitoring foreign lobbying, said she couldn’t say whether Ballard should have registered as a foreign agent for its work on behalf of ASM International General Trading but says in general the gray area between foreign companies and foreign governments is a problem for monitoring foreign influence efforts.
“Unfortunately we’ve seen this exemption be exploited, particularly if the entity footing the bills is a foreign company but the entity benefiting is actually a foreign government (as was the case for Michael Flynn),” Dennett told The Daily Beast in an email. “Too often this misunderstood exemption, combined with the Department’s poor enforcement of FARA and reliance on voluntary compliance, allows those representing bad actors to slip through the cracks.”
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New records obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) reveal that their concerns may not have been misplaced. Since 2016, there have been 40 cases of corruption-related charges against CBP employees, including 13 since Trump took office. Overall, 80 Border Patrol agents and 127 CBP officers have been arrested or charged with corruption-related crimes since 2004. Records show that between February 2017 and mid-March 2018, CBP employees racked up charges including embezzlement, human smuggling, theft, bribery, breaking and entering, money laundering, providing false statements, and using firearms during drug-related crimes.
[...]The 210 corruption cases documented by POGO are just those that have come to light and in which legal action was taken. In 2014, the American Immigration Council published data on 809 complaints of alleged abuse by Border Patrol agents from 2009 to 2012. In 97 percent of the cases, Border Patrol took no action on the complaints.
[...] In a statement, POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian said, “Without appropriate oversight, corruption can—and will—spread like a disease, even within law enforcement. The danger of corruption is significantly increased as the president pushes to quickly hire new agents to beef up security at the border.”
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are looking to use drones as part of their work, according to two current officials in the agency. [...] And Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at The Project On Government Oversight, also said the revelation is worrisome. “It’s critical that there’s transparency on what exactly they’re doing and how many people it affects, and also, it’s critical that there be independent oversight and authorization to make sure that it’s not abused,” he said.
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This is at a time when independent analysts like the Project on Government Oversight have pointed out that the F-35 may never be ready for combat, and when Pentagon has frozen deliveries of the F-35, because, as the department’s acquisition chief Ellen Lord has acknowledged, with some understatement, that “The department … has perhaps not been as thoughtful as we want to be from this point forward in terms of what we consider acceptable performance.” Why rush to buy more copies of a plane that isn’t ready to carry out its mission? And why free up funds from other parts of the military’s budget to do it?
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It’s hard to keep up with all of the groups that are protesting Trump and championing democracy. They include the Protect Democracy Project, R Street, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Issue One, Project on Government Oversight, Common Cause, Public Citizen, the Committee to Investigate Russia, Stand Up Republic and Republicans for the Rule of Law.
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The OMB inquiry into the cost of the phone booth, for its part, is required by law. Mulvaney must deliver a report to Congress and to the president because Pruitt violated the Antideficiency Act, said Scott Amey, general counsel with the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.
"I'll guess that OMB will investigate and an EPA official will be held accountable," he said in an email. "Only time will tell if that will be Pruitt or another agency official."
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The San Diego Union-Tribune
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The Project on Government Oversight reported this week that 80 Border Patrol agents and 127 Customs and Border Protection officers have been arrested on charges relating to corruption from October 2004 through March 2018, according to data obtained through federal Freedom of Information Act requests. CBP officers typically man the ports of entry while Border Patrol agents cover the areas in between.
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The disagreement between the Lautenberg law's lead sponsors is a sign of how hard fought TSCA reform was and continues to be, according to Sean Moulton, a policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight.
"Everyone agreed that TSCA was broken, but they had wildly different ideas about what should be done about it," the ethics watchdog group expert said. "And a lot of time and energy and effort was expended over years trying to figure out something that would work. And essentially, for a short time, they got a configuration that they were all willing to agree to and support — at that moment."
The election of Donald Trump, which Vitter acknowledged to E&E News was unexpected, has tipped the balance of regulatory power decidedly away from the environmental community's priorities and toward those of the chemical industry.
Neither side would now be willing to come to the table, but the TSCA reform deal they made in the Obama era remains on the books. So, according to Moulton, Pruitt's EPA and the chemical industry would rather just ignore it.
"This very different take than expected on implementation, or lack of, veers toward the chemical industry's original desires," he said. "It's more in keeping with what they really, truly wanted — their first choice, if you will, rather than this compromise second choice."
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“Today’s vote was an important step in protecting the rule of law,” Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, told Mic in an email. “It also demonstrates that there is still space for Democrats and Republicans to work together in good faith for the good of the country. We hope Senate leader McConnell will follow Chairman Grassley’s example of leadership and bring this legislation forward.”
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Ethics and lobbying lawyers said Mulvaney’s comments urging outsiders to lobby Congress could raise questions about a federal law dating back to 1919 that prohibits administration officials from engaging in certain forms of lobbying activities. The Project on Government Oversight filed a complaint Wednesday with the Government Accountability Office asking it to investigate the issue.
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“Yikes! It’s clear we need to ensure the National Archives sends government-wide guidance immediately that this feature isn’t included in any Google for Government suites,” warned Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit that specializes in exposing waste, fraud and corruption.
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More than 200 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees have been arrested on charges related to corruption in the past 14 years. At least 13 of those arrests have occurred since the start of the Trump Administration. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) by the Project on Government Oversight, showed the 213 arrests included 127 field officers, most of whom worked at ports of entry, including airports. Another 80 arrests involved Border Patrol agents on the southern border. (POGO)
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The GOP’s new 2018 budget authorized an extra $2.9 billion to buy 20 more F-35s (on top of the 70 the Pentagon asked for). The F-35 is a fighter plane that works better conceptually than in reality, as the Project on Government Oversight found that the 235 planes now in service are only fully mission capable 26% of the time.
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