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Lisa Rein writes for the Washington Post that the Senate Finance Committee is preparing a bipartisan investigation of Social Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) and its head, Gail Ennis. OIG has been in the news because of allegations of overly harsh punitive actions against some claimants and of retaliation against whistleblowers.
I’d call Ennis a fool for hanging around for this. What was already out made it clear she was in major trouble. This sort of Congressional investigation was inevitable. It’s not going to be pretty.
By the way, are there any criminal statutes implicated here? It would be a little awkward for an Inspector General to take the 5th.
15 comments:
Barely touches OIG complaints about management. Except Gruber. Complaints about Nagle and his wife have been pending for years
I don’t expect her to take the fifth. I expect her to give nonsensical answers in legal double talk and to blame everyone else around her. That is more her style and mode.
Play in the dirt you’re gonna get dirty!
Always a lawyer to take the case and help her through. If the other guy can take the 5th a few hundred times why not some gubment lacky.
I hope Ennis resigns and this investigation ends quickly. This type of publicity indirectly puts SSA and SSA employees in a bad light. This could lead to cuts in funding increases, calls for ending telework, and other negative consequences.
What is this now? The fourth or fifth investigation of this IG? At some point this IG needs to realize that when her management problems are the news rather than those of the agency she is overseeing, then it is time to go.
The truth is that IGs are supposed to be the watchdogs of their agencies, but there is no actual accountability for IGs themselves. It shouldn’t take whistleblower allegations, WaPo articles, integrity committee investigations, etc. for this all to have seen daylight.
If there were more transparency in OIG Semiannual reports (like how they are spending taxpayer money, what their return-on-investment and productivity is, what their Staffing levels and employee turnover is like, what their FEVS scores are, etc), the evidence of Ennis and Alpert’s mismanagement would’ve been out there for all to see.
Congress: strengthen the IG Act to require more transparency in Semiannual Reports regarding OIGs’ internal operations, and pay attention to those reports when they are published. Stop giving IGs like this one ways to obscure their own mismanagement, waste and abuse. IGs are supposed to be the gold standard. Hold them to it.
Their work has zero credibility if they themselves cannot be trusted to effectively run an organization.
Quietly resigning in disgrace is the way to find a job in private industry eventually,4 after the news dies down.
Defiantly snarling at a Congressional investigation with a patchwork vocabulary of right-wing grievance gumbo is the way to get fired, then ride that sweet wingnut welfare off into the horizon.
She's not dumb. She's doing the math.
My personal dealings with her led me to conclude that she truly doesn’t believe that she has done anything wrong. If people are unhappy, it’s because they are resistant to change. She truly believes that her decisions are the better choices. Every decision she makes is first and foremost about her. How will this decision impact her image or her own happiness? There is zero thought to how her decisions will negatively impact the rest of the employees or the organization itself. This is one of the many factors that make her unfit to lead.
I agree, she’s quite smart (and quite wealthy…her financial disclosures are public record) — even if she lacks emotional intelligence and the practical experience to lead the organization. More than once, I’ve heard people mumbling about her political aspirations and now that you mention it I could see option 2 as furthering that agenda. At least in our current political climate.
Multiple current and former SSA OIG employees have documents that prove Ennis and other members of her senior staff have lied under oath. CIGIE, OSC, and others have had these documents for more than a year. Now Senate Finance has them. These document show that Ennis and others in her office violated 18 usc 1001 and other criminal statutes. The WaPo article mentioned an OPM investigation into hiring practices I hope OPM is not relying on Ennis and her staff to provide responses or documents, that would equate to self reporting and we all know that is unreliable, especially when you are dealing with people who have no ability whatsoever to be truthful, transparent, or trustworthy.
Play in the filth and you’re gonna get filthy!!
Has anyone else noticed that SSA OIG issued only 1 report in the first quarter of FY 2023? And this was a financial report required by law. The same OIG issued 11 reports in the first quarter of FY 2022. Even 11 reports is a low count for this office based on prior stats, but only 1 report in the first quarter is horrendous? Did the IG turn off the lights and send everyone home? SSA is limping along and the OIG is MIA.
Why is IG Ennis still sitting on the Integrity Committee at the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency? See https://www.ignet.gov/cigie/committees/integrity-committee
This committee was created to investigate IG misdeeds, such as those she is now accused of.
Maybe she should be moved to the Budget Committee until all of these investigations have been completed. I would keep her away from the Audit and Investigations Committees given that she has been accused of damaged these offices at her own OIG.
Per the SSA OIG website they have issued 2 reports in the first 5 months of the fiscal year. Actually, one of the two reports is a memo saying they didn't do an audit. So, they are issuing one audit in a five month period. What is this IG doing with the appropriated funds since the agency is clearly not achieving its mission with this level of non-audit performance?
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