Terrified

Mismanagement, threats, and acts of retaliation have sown fear in the VA’s whistleblower protection office. "Terrified” of Retaliation Inside Veterans Affairs Whistleblower Office Leaders of a Department of Veterans Affairs office dedicated to increasing accountability and protecting whistleblowers appear to have retaliated against several employees who raised concerns about the office’s mismanagement, according to a Project On Government Oversight (POGO) investigation. Read More The Chairman of the Revolving Door Dunford’s consistent cheerleading of the F-35 and his subsequent hiring at its manufacturer create the perception of a conflict of interest. Read more Creating a National Insecurity State At $1.21 trillion, the actual national security budget is essentially twice the size of the announced Pentagon budget. It’s also a compendium of military-industrial waste and misspending. Read more Simple Reforms to Improve Transparency and Public Trust in the Federal Judiciary The public is best served when it has access to each branch of its government. The judiciary is no exception. Read more Enhancing the House’s Oversight Over Classified Information We must modernize how Congress conducts oversight, and that must include responsibly expanding access to classified information. Read more Addressing Federal Vacancies Through Fundamental Transparency Reform Persistent federal vacancies are contrary to a direct constitutional mandate, and they force taxpayers to settle for opaque, unaccountable, and ineffective leadership in the highest levels of government. Read more Amicus Brief: Congress Needs Information to Do Its Job A bipartisan group of 17 former members of Congress filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to rule in the House of Representatives’ favor in two cases with enormous implications for congressional oversight. Read more NEW: The Bunker Introducing: The Bunker After nearly 20 years of winless wars following 9/11, and a Pentagon budget that is well above the Cold War average, U.S. national security spending has never been a more target-rich environment. That is why the Project On Government Oversight’s Center for Defense Information has launched The Bunker, a precision-guided e-newsletter targeting your inbox most every week. Sign up now! Sign up for The Bunker POGO in the News     The Washington Post Trump again nominates Rep. John Ratcliffe to be director of national intelligence   “The Vacancies Reform Act was not written with our current situation in mind,” said Liz Hempowicz, the public policy director at Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group. “It is riddled with loopholes exactly like this. It’s really on Congress to fix it. It’s absurd.”

Politico Morning Shift Can DHS reissue invalidated Cuccinelli orders?   On Sunday, a federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump's appointment of Cuccinelli violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, thereby canceling two policies Cuccinelli implemented as acting USCIS chief. Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf told lawmakers Tuesday that the administration will appeal the decision and that Cuccinelli remains the "senior official performing the duties of the director.” DHS, Wolf said, is “determining what to do” about the two invalidated policy directives, while on Monday, Cuccinelli told Fox News that they will be "effectively reissued and validated." “The law specifically says that an agency can't do that,” Rebecca Jones, policy counsel at the Washington-based Project on Government Oversight, told Morning Shift. The vacancy law says “an agency may not ratify any acts taken in violation" of it, according to a report by Congressional Research Service legislative attorney Valerie Brannon. Sunday's ruling leaves other Cuccinelli orders vulnerable to legal challenge, Jones said.       The Washington Examiner The F-35 and Afghanistan War both show waste plaguing Pentagon   In the world of government waste, there’s shrimp on a treadmill, and then there’s the F-35. Both have become synonymous with the proverbial phrase “waste, fraud, and abuse,” though there’s one very important difference between the two: their cost. Even the most generous estimates of the widely mocked “shrimp on a treadmill” government-funded study put its total cost at $3 million over the course of 10 years. That’s not chump change, but, in the context of the federal budget, it’s also barely more than a rounding error. In contrast, the F-35, which is supposed to be the latest, greatest tactical fighter ever produced, runs more than $100 million per plane [according to reporting by the Project On Government Oversight]. Including development costs, as well as operations and maintenance, the F-35 fighter initiative is estimated to cost well over $1 trillion during its lifetime.       The Hill Congress must diversify its subpoena enforcement arsenal to counter escalating executive branch obstruction by Morton Rosenberg, Constitution Fellow with The Constitution Project at POGO   The effectiveness of congressional subpoena power, already severely damaged over the past 15 years, has plummeted to a dangerous new historical low after a relentless and successful scheme of obstruction by the Trump administration during the House impeachment inquiry and last week’s devastating D.C. Circuit Court ruling that Congress lacks standing to seek judicial enforcement of subpoenas in federal court. The White House, four executive branch departments, and nine current or former administration officials refused to comply with subpoenas upon instruction from the president throughout the impeachment process. Dozens of other administration officials and associates defied subpoenas at the direction of the White House prior to impeachment. A total of at least 82 congressional information requests, including 42 subpoenas of executive branch personnel and their associates, have been obstructed by the Trump administration. Keep reading.       Government Executive Experts Call for Reform of Vacancies Act Following Trump’s Intelligence Director Nomination   “Abuse of federal vacancies is not unique to the Trump administration. However, this kind of gamesmanship feels unprecedented, as does the president's blatant admission that he prefers acting officers to confirmed ones,” said Project On Government Oversight Senior Investigator Nick Schwellenbach. Persistent reliance on them is “an unconstitutional disregard of the Senate's obligation to evaluate and vote on the president's nominees,” he said, which could “risk taxpayer dollars with potentially ineffective leadership [and] risk our national security with extended unqualified leadership.” Schwellenbach argued that Congress should shorten the length of time acting officials can serve to disincentivize presidents from circumventing the formal confirmation process. Additionally, Congress should consider requiring that acting directors, like permanent directors of national intelligence, have national security experience, he said.       Press statement released by Representatives Quigley, Nadler, and Johnson Quigley, Nadler, and Johnson Introduce Legislation to Increase Judicial Transparency   “For decades now it has been apparent that the federal judiciary operates with too much opacity and secrecy,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, Policy Analyst with the Project On Government Oversight. “The 21st Century Courts Act will provide a long-overdue jolt of accountability and transparency to the federal courts by implementing a range of common sense reforms, including directing the Supreme Court to write an ethics code for itself, modernizing financial disclosures, providing insight into recusal patterns by requiring that judges explain their recusal decision, and enhancing public access to the judiciary by providing live audio streaming of court proceedings and increasing the public’s ability to access court records. Representative Johnson, Quigley, and Nadler should be commended for leading the way on this transformational legislation.”       Compliance Week CFPB’s leadership structure, SEC’s authority on SCOTUS docket this week   Others, like the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), say the court should uphold the limits on the president’s ability to fire the CFPB director at will. “Even in its weakest interpretation, petitioner’s arguments would render unconstitutional critical elements of the federal government, including the Social Security Administration, the Office of Special Counsel and the Federal Housing Finance Agency,” POGO said in an amicus brief. It would also “fly against” the court’s own precedent and Congress’ historic power to determine how the President carries out its will.

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