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It will take strong Congressional backbone to implement Nunn-McCurdy type standards. But NNSA has demonstrated time and time again that they cannot control these projects on their own. It’s long past time for Congress to step up and perform their oversight role to ensure our tax dollars won’t be wasted on yet another entirely preventable mistake.
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The House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation appeared to miss the mark on many of these best practices—resulting in a muddled effort that left its members’ duty to the American people unfulfilled.
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The unnecessary time delay and expense of the Air Force’s chosen path should frustrate everyone committed to responsible and effective government spending and life-saving close air support for our troops.
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Whether you believe Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s job is in danger or not, the country’s need for an insurance policy to protect the independence of special counsel investigations has become apparent.
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The release of Morell’s memo is an attempt to both answer and blunt important questions about CIA nominee Gina Haspel's role in viciously harsh interrogations of detainees, and what she did to destroy evidence of those interrogations.
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Under the Trump administration, weapons sales aren’t designed to keep the peace overseas so much as they are intended to keep defense-industry execs fat and healthy, with enough scraps left over to put on the dinner tables of those who bend metal for them.
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Upcoming
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Join us on May 31st for a cocktail reception at the Newseum as we begin a new chapter in defending democracy. We will celebrate The Constitution Project’s new era as part of POGO and share our future plans to respond to some of the most significant threats to our constitutional rights and values. We will also honor Virginia “Ginny” Sloan, the founder and past president of TCP. Click to buy tickets!
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POGO in the News
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With those words, O'Rielly violated the Hatch Act, which forbids most federal officials from engaging in partisan advocacy, OSC’s Erica Hamrick wrote in a letter today to the Project on Government Oversight.
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According to Peter Tyler, Senior Policy Analyst at the Project On Government Oversight, it's Inspector General. "They make sure that someone is looking over the shoulder of the agencies to say that things are getting done as required. That laws are being followed, that programs are effective. And also to identify, root out and prevent fraud."
So it's not great that out of 73, we're missing 14. The Department of the Interior hasn't had a confirmed IG since February 2009. "The problem comes when, over time, you don't have a permanent IG, you simply don't have as much 'oomph.'"
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The 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 Thursday. “It also demonstrates that there is still space for Democrats and Republicans to work together in good faith for the good of the country.”
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"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."
[...] 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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The Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which polices federal agencies for ethics violations, said in a letter to the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that it had issued a warning to O’Rielly about his comments.
“Commissioner O’Rielly advocated for the reelection of President Trump in his official capacity as FCC Commissioner,” OSC official Erica Hamrick wrote to the public interest group. “Therefore, he violated the Hatch Act’s prohibition against using his official authority or influence to affect an election.”
The OSC’s decision comes in response to a complaint that POGO filed just days after the right-wing summit, alleging that O’Rielly had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from promoting political candidates or parties in an official capacity.
“Federal employees, while on the clock in their official roles, are acting on the taxpayer’s dime,” POGO executive director Danielle Brian said in a statement. “They shouldn’t be using their time—and therefore, taxpayer dollars — to advance anyone’s partisan agenda.”
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In their complaints, the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight and the group called America Oversight argued that the comments violated the act. “O’Rielly was clearly speaking in his official capacity rather than a personal one, even while advocating for President Trump’s reelection and promoting the election of 'good people’ to the House and Senate,” wrote POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian in February. “The situation involving O’Rielly is similar to one faced by President Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius,” whom the OSC found to have violated the act.
[...] POGO, besides monitoring compliance with Hatch Act, also tracks possible violations of the ban on agency grassroots lobbying, under which Obama HHS Secretary Sebelius’s conduct was reviewed by the Government Accountability Office.
Last week, POGO filed a complaint with GAO saying that Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget and acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, encouraged banking industry executives to invest in lobbying efforts to urge Congress to take control of the CFPB by altering its funding source, which would reduce the CFPB’s independence and insulation from industry influence.
"We typically only act on congressional requests," a GAO spokesman said. "But we will certainly examine the information provided and consult with Congress if appropriate."
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Last month it was White House adviser Kellyanne Conway. This time it was FCC Commissioner Michael O’Reilly. He spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference, urging the election of conservatives. The Project on Government Oversight told the Office of Special Counsel. OSC confirmed that O’Reilly did violate the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from political activity while on duty. OSC sent O’Reilly a warning letter.
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The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which enforces the Hatch Act — meant to prevent executive branch employees from using their official positions for political ends — sent a letter to the Project on Government Oversight on Tuesday laying out its position...
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“The way that this language is written is very squishy, which is not a legal term, but you look at it and the [provision] says ‘any information that would identify a method to accomplish a specific mission under a particular set of operational conditions.’ That doesn’t mean anything to me. Those terms aren’t defined in this legislation,” Liz Hempowicz, policy director at the Project on Government Oversight told Federal News Radio.
Hempowicz said the provision would allow DoD to further withhold unclassified data from the public. DoD already has certain authorities to hold onto data if it feels that information may harm troops or national security.
Hempowicz added that DoD’s FOIA process is already a quagmire of bureaucracy, sometimes taking a year or more to respond to requests.
But transparency groups are pointing to a larger issue in questioning why DoD feels it needs this exemption when it already has the ability to keep information it deems necessary from the public.
“They already have the ability to withhold the information [DoD] says they need this exemption for. It appears to POGO and our community that they really are trying to get at some other type of information, but they’re not making case as to why they need it,” Hempowicz said. “In previous years with meetings with civil society and staff on Capitol Hill, DoD officials told us they’ve never had to release anything that’d they’d be able to withhold under this new exemption. So they really haven’t demonstrated a need for this.”
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