REPORT

A Turf War Is Tearing Apart the Intel Community’s Watchdog Office

Internal scuffling threatens to dismantle the Intelligence Community Inspector General.

BY JENNA MCLAUGHLIN | OCTOBER 18, 2017, 11:13 AM

Dan Meyer and a team of employees from the U.S. intelligence community watchdog’s office were set to travel overseas to a contractor’s office where no government employee had yet visited. They were carrying posters, as well as red, white, and blue foam cubes emblazoned with the phrase “Be part of the solution” and the hotline number where whistleblowers could call in and report instances of waste, fraud, and abuse.

But the trip, planned for earlier this year, was ultimately canceled by his supervisors.

Meyer, whose job is to talk to intelligence community whistleblowers, can no longer talk to whistleblowers. He has been barred from communicating with whistleblowers, the main responsibility of his job as the executive director for intelligence community whistleblowing and source protection. He is currently working on an instructional pamphlet for whistleblowers, and he will have no duties to perform after he’s completed that work.

He can also no longer brief the agencies or the congressional committees on his work as he’s done in the past, send out his whistleblower newsletter, or conduct outreach. And he has no deputy or staff.

Foreign Policy spoke with eight sources with knowledge of the ongoing issues at the Intelligence Community Inspector General office, where Meyer works. The sidelining of Meyer, described to FP by several sources, is just one part of a larger problem with the office.

The intelligence community’s central watchdog is in danger of crumbling thanks to mismanagement, bureaucratic battles, clashes among big personalities, and sidelining of whistleblower outreach and training efforts, sources told FP. A strong whistleblowing outlet is needed as an alternative to leaking, and to protect employees from retaliation for reporting misconduct, proponents of the office argue. But many intelligence officials see outreach to their employees as an attempt to cultivate leakers or outside interference, rather than a secure, proper way to report potential violations of law.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after the 9/11 attacks to coordinate work among the 16 different intelligence agencies. The office’s inspector general, created in 2010, was tasked with launching independent audits and investigations across those agencies; its employees even wear distinctive white lanyards, a visual representation of their separateness and objectivity.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence under former President Barack Obama, asked Chuck McCullough III, to help stand up the new inspector general office to provide a standardized process for handling whistleblowing reports and grievances across the intelligence community and work with the oversight committees in Congress.

“The vision for it, Clapper’s vision, was integration,” McCullough told FP in an interview. “After 9/11, he wanted to connect the dots, knock down the stovepipes.”

The intelligence community’s inspector general wasn’t designed to usurp power from their counterparts at the individual agencies, McCullough explained, but “it strengthened whistleblowing,” including by providing an extra layer for employees who wanted to seek recourse for retaliatory behavior.

>>2801677

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/18/turf-war-intelligence-community-watchdog-falling-apart/

>>2801706

https://www.ignet.gov/content/office-inspector-general-intelligence-community

>>2801777

I believe that my prior experiences and substantive knowledge suit me well for my next challenge, which, if confirmed, would make me the Intelligence Community Inspector General or IC IG. As I have made my rounds through your offices during the past several weeks, meeting with the Chairman, the Vice Chairman, several other Committee members, Senator Grassley, and numerous professional staff members, I have been left with two primary impressions about the Office of the IC IG. I want to share these impressions, and I particularly want to share them with any current employees of the IC IG who may hear or read my statement.

First, I am left with the impression that this Committee and other members of the Senate are unified in their desire to see the IC IG succeed as an Office. As was the case when Congress created the Office of the IC IG in 2010, there are many contentious issues within the Intelligence Community, but the need for an IC IG is not one of them. There remains bi-partisan support for an Inspector General of the Intelligence Community who can look across the intelligence landscape to help improve management, coordination, cooperation, and information sharing among the sixteen agencies that comprise the Intelligence Community. My impression is that the Committee remains unified in its support for an IC IG that can identify problem areas and find the most efficient and effective business practices required to ensure that critical deficiencies are addressed before it is too late – before we have an intelligence failure. Such unified support is a good thing for any organization, and it is especially good for a relatively new governmental organization in today’s budget climate. But this goodwill must not be taken for granted, because it can be squandered. This brings me to my second impression.

My second impression about the Office of the IC IG is not nearly as favorable. I do not believe I am revealing any confidences when I share my impression that there is a broad view among the Committee, its staff, and other Members that the Office of the IC IG is not currently functioning as effectively as Congress intended. It is not difficult to find some of the sources for this view. One recent press article reported that the Office of the IC IG is “in danger of crumbling,” “barely functioning,” “on fire,” and “gutted.”1

Now, perhaps things inside the Office of the IC IG are not as bad as the press and others portray them. I, for one, certainly hope so. And, as a prosecutor and former defense attorney, I know there are at least two sides to nearly every story. Nevertheless, real or not, this is a poor and an ultimately unsustainable impression for the Committee to have of the IC IG. The impression is that the cause of these current problems is internal. This needs to change before the IC IG loses the support of the Committee and the Congress as a whole. Simply put, the IC IG needs to get its own house in order. The sooner, the better.

Although I do not have prior experience working for an Inspector General’s office, my experience has taught me that the effectiveness of any team that I have been a part of is dependent, first and foremost, on having the right people on the team, with a shared set of goals and values. I have no reason to believe the Office of an Inspector General is any different. My first objective as Inspector General, if confirmed, will be to make sure the IC IG’s house is in order. This will involve making sure the right people are in the IC IG, with the proper values, discipline, and work ethic. A natural corollary will be to get any of the wrong people out of the IC IG. I am confident there are right people for the IC IG already there, and I hope they stay.

As a result, if I am confirmed, we will work together as a team to achieve Congress’s most ambitious intentions for the Office. In the near term, if confirmed, we will work together to encourage, operate, and enforce a program for authorized disclosures by whistleblowers within the Intelligence Community that validates moral courage without compromising national security and without retaliation. Over the long term, if confirmed, we will work together to look across the intelligence landscape, as Congress intended, to help improve management, coordination, cooperation, and information sharing among the Intelligence Community. Throughout my tenure, if confirmed, we will work together to be responsive to this Committee to allow you to fulfill your oversight obligations and to ensure that U.S. intelligence activities meet our nation’s security needs, respect our laws, and reflect American values.

>>2801870

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/pressrel/press-releases/attorney-general-holder-recognizes-department-employees-and-others-for-their-service-at-annual-awards-ceremony

The 14th and final Distinguished Service Award is presented to team members for their exceptional contributions in connection with the landmark investigation and prosecution of former Congressman William J. Jefferson and his co-conspirators. The investigation, which commenced in March 2005 while Jefferson was a sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives, culminated in the prosecution and conviction of Jefferson for bribery, honest services fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) violations. In November 2009, Jefferson was sentenced to serve 13 years in prison, the longest sentence ever imposed for a current or former member of Congress.

Award recipients include, from the Eastern District of Virginia, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jack Hanly, Rebeca Bellows and Mark D. Lytle; Paralegal Crystal Griego; and Technical Assistant Jermaine M. Ragin; from the District of Columbia’s Appellate Division, Chief Roy W. McLeese, III; from the District of Columbia, Assistant U.S. Attorneys

Michael K. Atkinson

and David B. Goodhand; from the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, Deputy Chief Charles E. Duross and Trial Attorney Amanda Aikman (former); from the Criminal Division’s Appellate Section, Trial Attorney Stephan E. Oestreicher, Jr.; from the FBI, Special Agents John Longmire and Timothy R. Thibault; from the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Special Agents Edward S. Cooper (retired) and Daniel T. Gallagher (retired).

>>2801915

A Message from the Intelligence Community Inspector General

Welcome to the Intelligence Community (IC) Whistleblowing website. If you are visiting this website because you are considering whether to make a protected disclosure, or because you are interested in learning more about them, you should know that whistleblowing has a long history in this country. Over 240 years ago, on July 30, 1778, the Continental Congress unanimously enacted the first whistleblower legislation in the United States, proclaiming that "it is the duty of all persons in service of the United States, as well as all other the inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states, which comes to their knowledge." To this day, Federal law (including the Constitution, rules, and regulations) encourages, consistent with the protection of classified information (including sources and methods of detection of classified information), the honest and good faith reporting of misconduct, fraud, misdemeanors, and other crimes to the appropriate authority at the earliest time possible.

Consistent with that tradition and public policy, this website provides a general overview of lawful whistleblowing in the IC. It explains how individuals may lawfully disclose critical information to authorized recipients while protecting national security. You will find information about what lawful whistleblowing is; what individuals should report; how to blow the whistle lawfully; who handles a whistleblower complaint; why we have a whistleblower program; and what an individual's whistleblower protections are.

Whistleblowers are a key source of information for countering wrongdoing and enhancing the effectiveness of our government. Lawful whistleblowing through authorized disclosures, and passing the right information to the right people, reinforces our public policy of encouraging individuals working for our government, and particularly within our IC, to provide patriotic dissent while maintaining loyalty to individual elements within the IC and protecting national security.

Regardless of your reason for visiting this website, I hope you find its information helpful. To close on another historical note, I keep on my desk a plaque with a quote from Benjamin Franklin - a former government employee - who began his day by asking "What good shall I do this day?" Reporting wrongdoing through authorized means is not only a public and patriotic duty with a long tradition in this country, it is a good that can be done today.

Michael K. Atkinson

Inspector General of the Intelligence Community

>>2801953

https://www.dni.gov/ICIG-Whistleblower/

17

>>2802064

Michael K. Atkinson

Michael Atkinson

Michael K. Atkinson was sworn in as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community on May 17, 2018, following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate. As Inspector General, Mr. Atkinson oversees a workforce of special agents, auditors, inspectors, attorneys, and support staff whose mission is to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the administration and implementation of programs and activities within the responsibility and authority of the Director of National Intelligence and to prevent and detect fraud and abuse in such programs and activities. He also serves as the Chair of the Intelligence Community Inspectors General Forum, which consists of the twelve inspectors general with oversight responsibility for elements of the intelligence community. The Forum serves as a mechanism for informing its members of the work of individual members of the Forum that may be of common interest and discussing questions that may involve or be of assistance to more than one of its members.

Prior to his Senate confirmation, Mr. Atkinson worked for the U.S. Department of Justice for over fifteen years. He worked as a Trial Attorney in DOJ’s Criminal Division, Fraud Section, from 2002 through 2006. He then served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 2006 through 2016, where he was the Acting Chief and Deputy Chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section. In 2012, he was awarded the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service for his work on a significant public corruption case. Thereafter, he served in DOJ’s National Security Division as the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for National Asset Protection and as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General.

His awards also include the Executive Office for United States Attorneys’ Director’s Award for Superior Performance by an Assistant United States Attorney, and the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency’s Gaston L. Gianni Jr. Better Government Award for his work prosecuting the largest domestic bribery and bid steering scheme in the history of federal contracting.

Prior to his public service, Mr. Atkinson was a partner at Winston & Strawn, where he focused his practice on white collar defense, internal investigations, and complex civil litigation.

Mr. Atkinson earned his Juris Doctorate from Cornell University and his Bachelor of Arts from Syracuse University.