thank you mr chairman um
mr horowitz i want to visit with you a
little bit i may be the only member of
congress that
worked in ig's office a number of years
ago before i became a prosecutor
and um i have a concern
uh without seeing the the ig subpoena
without uh hearing from the other side
uh do your subpoenas in any way
inhibit uh an investigation in other
words
you were all you were also a prosecutor
you understand the
discovery requirements uh that can be
created if there is a parallel
investigation you understand the
uh the concerns with uh grand jury
secrecy
um and in the disclosure that must be
made to a court
um do do your are your requests narrowly
enough drawn
so that they do not uh inhibit
uh fbi prosecutions in
counterintelligence counterterrorism
very serious areas a very fair question
and and something as a former prosecutor
i'm
acutely aware of um we do a couple
things to try and be careful in that
regard we
we tend not to undertake investigations
or reviews while there are criminal
cases ongoing or criminal prosecution's
ongoing
we try to make sure we're there where
that is happening
but we need to investigate we do it in a
manner
that doesn't trample into
the an area that could harm the case
best example i can give is
and i wasn't here at the time but post 9
11 we were asked to look at
the issues at the same time the misawa
prosecution was going forward
and everything i've heard from my staff
is an example of frankly their longing
for the good old days where
we did work together in a manner that
the fbi respected our ability to
have to plow move forward get the work
done
but we also understood and worked with
the agency to make sure that we did it
in a responsible careful way
but never compromising our independence
never compromising our thoroughness
and making sure we did everything to get
to the bottom of
issues in a perfect example might be a
a subpoena for a grand jury speaking for
financial records
we would typically ask for three or four
years of financial records and then
get a monthly statement and then go
through the monthly statement and ask
for specific
items that we're looking for do you have
that relationship with the bureau at
this point where you can actually
ask for a broader area but go through
specifically and say
this is what we're really after can you
help us or or is that something that you
don't want to do is that does that give
away your investigation
no we've we've had that discussion
indeed i'll give you the
a good example just recently with the
dea
in section 218 we had a deadline
approaching i talked with the
administrator i talked with an associate
in the deputy attorney general's office
with constructive ideas on how to make
sure we saw
and had access to the information we
needed to assure
ourselves that we were getting that but
then allow them to
keep custody take custody of the records
that were
unrelated and were not of interest to us
going forward so that we could
make sure that we had satisfied our
needs
in terms of thoroughness review etc
but also respecting their concerns about
how the records were maintained and
stored and kept
and those are the kinds of dialogues
that should be occurring not
can we get access but how do we make
sure
our access is done in a manner that
is consistent with our independence
consistent with your expectations of
what we need to do to get to the bottom
of issues
but also understanding that there are
countervailing issues and concerns out
there
with the short time i have left i want
to ask a question of the whole panel and
you mentioned the word independence from
the agency's perspective
often it's not independence it's a thorn
in their side
you what you discover may embarrass them
what you discover may be
something that they that is turned
around in the press and and
uh uh embarrasses them in a way that
that indicates that they are doing their
job properly or it could be used for
political purposes
uh by by others um how do we overcome
that issue uh and i throw this open how
do we
how do we uh uh really address the the
the the what we all want which is uh
uh achieving a an efficient and
accountable government
i think it boils down to trust um
ultimately uh if the two parties trust
that we're all on the same page because
at the end of the day we're all on the
same page
you know we all work for an agency and
the mission of the agency
is our mission for epas to protect
public health and the environment
that's my job to do that as well but my
job is a little
different because i'm focused on on
identifying where
funds are not being used to the full
extent and then making recommendations
that they can
so it really kind of boils down to trust
if you've got the trust in the
relationship
things can work out and if you don't
have trust it's going to be wrong
thank you thank you well said now
recognize the gentleman mr cummings