An impartial group of investigators known as on President Biden to take away the federal government watchdog on the Division of Homeland Safety, discovering Inspector Normal Joseph Cuffari misled Congress, abused his authority and “engaged in substantial misconduct” whereas additionally losing taxpayer funds.
The long-awaited report from the Council of the Inspectors Normal on Integrity and Effectivity (CIGIE) comes after the physique disclosed it has obtained “a litany of complaints” — 24 in whole — about Cuffari.
It’s the newest chapter in an extended saga involving the embattled inspector normal, who has confronted accusations of burying stories, retaliating in opposition to his staff, deleting his textual content messages and botching investigations into the entities for which he’s alleged to function an impartial watchdog.
Inspectors normal might be eliminated solely by the president, and the CIGIE mentioned Cuffari ought to be “referred for appropriate action, up to and including removal.”
The report — simply greater than 1,000 pages with displays — covers 4 years of complaints about Cuffari, who was former President Trump appointed. It was drafted for the CIGIE by the Trump-appointed inspector normal for the Division of Transportation.
It determines the inspector normal misled Congress throughout his affirmation proceedings, offering “wrongfully inaccurate” info and failing to reveal that he retired amid an earlier investigation into his conduct when he served within the IG workplace for the Division of Justice, a transfer that “essentially precluded the disciplinary process from moving forward.”
Affirmation paperwork asks if a nominee has been the topic of an ethics investigation or stop a job to keep away from misconduct filings and Cuffari answered no to each. The report discovered Cuffari “materially omitted the fact that he was the subject of an investigation” and “instead knowingly provided an incomplete and inaccurate narrative.”
Cuffari’s workplace, which has not responded to an inquiry from The Hill since September 2022, didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the report.
The report additionally goes deep into Cuffari’s feud with three staff in his workplace who had raised considerations he was not certified for the function, together with that he had obtained his Ph.D from “an unaccredited ‘diploma mill.’”
Cuffari employed an outdoor agency, WilmerHale, to research the allegations, however fired one of many staff earlier than its completion, sparking a lawsuit.
Whereas the DHS OIG finally spent $1.393 million for a legislation agency to conduct the investigation, a civil go well with filed by a former worker difficult her elimination settled for $1.17 million.
Thursday’s report discovered that Cuffari “abused his authority” in launching the skin investigation as a strategy to retaliate in opposition to the three staff. It additionally decided hiring the skin agency was a “gross waste of funds.”
“Further, IG Cuffari personally attempted to intervene in the WilmerHale investigation for his own benefit,” the report discovered.
Prime Democrats on Thursday likewise known as for Biden to take away Cuffari, with Home Homeland Safety Committee rating member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Oversight and Accountability Committee rating member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) complaining he stalled their oversight efforts.
“In the wake of the independent and nonpartisan CIGIE Integrity Committee’s report documenting IG Cuffari’s misconduct, we call on President Biden to remove him as inspector general of DHS,” Thompson and Raskin wrote in a joint assertion.
“An inspector general has the profound responsibility of acting as the independent, nonpartisan watchdog of a federal agency, but Inspector General Cuffari’s extensive and shocking record of misconduct and obstruction is evidence that he has seriously compromised the public’s trust and is plainly not fit to serve in a position that requires him to guard the public interest and act beyond reproach.”
The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Cuffari has been stricken by quite a few allegations of wrongdoing all through his tenure, a lot of which weren’t lined by the CIGIE report.
He waited months to alert Congress of the lack of texts among the many Secret Service brokers on Jan. 6, 2021 — a attainable violation of a legislation that requires such disclosure to Congress or the heads of related companies. He equally did not notify the lack of messages from then-acting Secretary Chad Wolf and his deputy Ken Cuccinelli, when their telephones had been erased in the course of the transition.
Lawmakers from each chambers of Congress have additionally requested Cuffari to step apart from the investigation into the lacking texts.
Cuffari has additionally declined to research main occasions involving the companies he helps oversee or imposed limits on their attain.
He declined to research after Border Patrol officers on horseback corralled Haitian migrants. As an alternative, the matter was handed off to its Workplace of Skilled Accountability.
In 2020, he refused to provoke an investigation into the Secret Service’s involvement and response to the clearing of protesters who had gathered in Lafayette Sq. simply exterior the White Home that June to protest the homicide of George Floyd by the hands of police.
The Senate Judiciary Committee additionally beforehand requested Cuffari each about an unpublished report detailing widespread worker considerations over sexual harassment at DHS and a transfer by Cuffari to “substantially restrict” one other report evaluating how the company complied with a legislation requiring the elimination of legislation enforcement officers with home violence convictions.
The report Cuffari didn’t publish handled outcomes from a 2018 survey, the yr earlier than he was confirmed, that discovered some 10,000 of 28,000 DHS staff who responded mentioned that they’ve skilled sexual harassment or misconduct at work, whereas a considerable share mentioned reporting that conduct negatively impacted their careers.
Cuffari final yr additionally provided a complicated reply in a listening to, suggesting he deletes his texts, one other attainable violation of document protecting legal guidelines.
Exterior teams which have investigated Cuffari likewise known as for his elimination.
“Not only has Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari shown that he does not have the appropriate appetite to conduct robust oversight of the Department of Homeland Security; he has also attempted to undermine the system that holds inspectors general accountable,” the Undertaking On Authorities Oversight mentioned in a press release.
“Now that the Integrity Committee has released its investigation finding that Cuffari retaliated against whistleblowers, President Joe Biden has even more evidence to justify removing Cuffari in his position at the DHS inspector general office. Biden must not delay any longer. He must remove Cuffari immediately.”
