A United States Senator has said that “a culture of corruption is thriving” at the office of the Pentagon’s internal watchdog.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) blasted the Defense Department Office of Inspector General on Thursday, relaying allegations of higher-ups “doctoring” the findings of whistleblower retaliation investigations.
Grassley brought up the accusations on the Senate floor by discussing the case of Rear Adm. Brian Losey.
The Pentagon inspector general had found Losey guilty of retaliating against numerous perceived whistleblowers.
Revelations about these cases, brought to light in 2015 by The Washington Post, sparked a clash between the military and civilian lawmakers overseeing the armed forces. The media reports also forced Losey to retire, as the Navy sought to promote him.
Nonetheless, Grassley said that Pentagon inspector general officials had altered some of their investigators’ findings, in a bid to cover for Losey. And the same thing might have happened in other cases, the senator said on Thursday.
“The alleged doctoring of the Losey report, I am told, is not an isolated case,” Grassley said. “There are at least five others just like it and probably more.”
The senator said that, as a result, there might be an independent review of the Pentagon inspector general. It would be conducted by the Office of Special Counsel, an agency dedicated entirely to upholding meritocracy in the federal workforce
“If top managers are tampering with reports and retaliating against their own people who report it, then how can they be trusted to run the agency’s premier whistleblower oversight unit?” Grassley asked.
The senator also blasted the Office of Inspector General for allegedly neglecting the Defense Department’s whistleblower hotline.
“A large number of hotline cases have been neglected, set aside, and possibly forgotten,” he said. The backlog had been reduced—allegedly after Grassley started asking about it.
“That’s no way to run a railroad, as we say,” he remarked, pushing military leaders to be more active.
Grassley tied the problems at the hotline and the allegations surrounding retaliation to Deputy Inspector General Marguerite Garrison, the official charged with overseeing the hotline. He pointed out that Garrison had told Losey “he was no longer a subject of the investigation,” while a review was, in fact, still in progress.
The timing of Grassley’s criticism of the Pentagon OIG is somewhat fortuitous for the Trump Administration and its Republican allies in Congress. On Thursday morning, it was also revealed that the office is probing former Trump National Security Adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn.
The retired general is being investigated for receiving payments in exchange for appearing at Russian government-backed functions. Flynn had previously been warned about receiving money from foreign governments without gaining the necessary approval that ex-military officials need to seek under the Emoluments Clause, as ABC News reported.
Flynn resigned from the White House less than a month after Trump was inaugurated. He stepped down after it was revealed he may have mislead Vice President Mike Pence about his associations with Russian officials.
