Opm, Fbi and Gsa Hearing Committee on Oversight And

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION STATUS UPDATE: OPM, FBI AND GSA HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION JUNE 27, 2019 Serial No. 116–42 Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform ( Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov http://www.oversight.house.gov or http://www.docs.house.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 37–283 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019 COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Minority Member ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan Columbia PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky JIM COOPER, Tennessee MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JODY B. HICE, Georgia RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, Illinois GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland JAMES COMER, Kentucky HARLEY ROUDA, California MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas KATIE HILL, California BOB GIBBS, Ohio DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana PETER WELCH, Vermont CHIP ROY, Texas JACKIE SPEIER, California CAROL D. MILLER, West Virginia ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee MARK DESAULNIER, California KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands RO KHANNA, California JIMMY GOMEZ, California ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan DAVID RAPALLO, Staff Director WENDY GINSBERG, Staff Director AMY STRATTON, Clerk CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director CONTACT NUMBER: 202-225-5051 SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia, Chairman ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina, Ranking Columbia, Minority Member JOHN SARBANES, Maryland THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky JACKIE SPEIER, California JODY HICE, Georgia BRENDA LAWRENCE, Michigan GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin STACEY PLASKETT, Virgin Islands JAMES COMER, Kentucky RO KHANNA, California RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina STEPHEN LYNCH, Massachsetts W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland (II) CONTENTS Page Hearing held on June 27, 2019 ............................................................................... 1 WITNESS TESTIMONY: Mr. Stephen Billy, Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Office of Personnel Manage- ment Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 8 Mr. Robert Borden, Chief of Staff, General Services Administration Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 9 Ms. Jill C. Tyson, Assistant Director, Office of Congressional Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 10 The written opening statements and written statements for witnesses are available at: https://docs.house.gov. INDEX OF DOCUMENTS The documents entered into the record during this hearing are listed below and available at: https://docs.house.gov. * QFR’s: From Chairman Cummings to Jill C. Tyson, Assistant Director, Office of Congressional Affairs, FBI * QFR’s: From Chairman Cummings to Robert Borden, Chief of Staff, General Services Administration (III) DOCUMENT PRODUCTION STATUS UPDATE: OPM, FBI AND GSA Thursday, June 27, 2019 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Gerald E. Connolly (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Connolly, Raskin, Cummings, Meadows, Hice, and Jordan. Mr. CONNOLLY. The subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. The subcommittee is convening a hearing on the document production efforts on the Office of Personnel Management, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the General Services Administration in response to various committees’ and subcommittee document requests. I now recognize myself for an opening statement. I want to thank the witnesses for being here, although I know there could be more comfortable hearings to attend. I regret we need to have this hearing. We’re here because OPM, the FBI, and GSA have not substantially complied with the committee’s request for documents from several months ago. We’ve witnessed a stun- ning lack of cooperation across the administration in response to multiple congressional investigations. For this committee to per- form its important constitutional oversight mission, we must have documents and information requested from agencies and that, in turn, requires cooperation. When the committee or a subcommittee sends a request for documents or a written response for answers, we expect meaningful and timely compliance and not stall tactics and obfuscation. It is because of a breakdown in that process, you three are here today. Today, we’ll be asking each of you to justify your respective agency’s troublesome production track record and to identify those hur- dles preventing full compliance and to offer tangible solutions so the committee can fulfill its constitutionally mandated oversight duty. This morning, we will examine the status of responses to three committee and subcommittee investigations. First, the committee is investigating the administration’s plan to abolish the Office of Per- sonnel Management. We believe, on our side, certainly, it’s a reck- (1) 2 less proposal that lacks merit, justification, or a coherent rationale. Frankly, doubts have been raised about it on a bipartisan basis. The subcommittee has requested basic documents from OPM, an agency that runs programs that serve our Federal Government’s 2.7 million active employees, more than 2.5 million Federal retir- ees, and more than 8 million family members who receive healthcare benefits. We requested documents that any project man- ager would have required for even a simple restructuring of an or- ganization. We asked for a legal analysis of the administration’s authority to eliminate OPM, a cost-benefit analysis, and a timeline. These aren’t intrusive requests. We wanted to know whether this would work and whether the administration had done its home- work such that it could persuade us as to the merits. We’ve con- cluded it won’t and they haven’t. We’ve received next to nothing in response to this straightforward document request, and no information provided adequately demonstrates how this plan would im- prove services to current Federal or former Federal employees and their families. If we’ve been unclear thus far, let me take the opportunity to clarify that, from our point of view, this half-baked proposal is going to be dead on arrival here in Capitol Hill. The administration’s intention to dismantle OPM is reckless. OPM’s acting director has reportedly boasted about, quote, plan- ning to play chicken with Congress, unquote, by furloughing or taking hostage 150 employees of OPM if Congress did not provide the administration with authority to eliminate the agency by October 1. This is not a game. These are real lives at stake. OPM’s blanket refusal to provide the information the committee has requested is unacceptable. OPM offered additional records just this week. It’s ironic that the new records make reference to the documents we’ve been asking for without providing them. The latest documents convince us even more that the administration is attempting an end run in order to eliminate more than 130 years of merit-based nonpartisan civil service. Second, the committee is investigating the abrupt decision to abandon the long-term plan to move the FBI headquarters to a suburban location and replace it with a more costly plan to keep Pennsylvania Avenue location, demolish the existing J. Edgar Hoo- ver Building, and construct a new facility on the same site. Now, in order to make that pivot, the administration had to abandon some of the compelling criteria that had dominated this RFP for well over eight years, and they included consolidation of the work force, they included modernization taking cognizance of 21st cen- tury forensics and DNA research, and getting safe setbacks which cannot be achieved at the current location, which has inherently urban setbacks that are inherently insecure. In February 2018, I wrote the GSA Inspector General and requested that she investigate the GSA’s decisionmaking role and the role of the White House, if any, in influencing this decision. In Au- gust 2018, the inspector general issued a report that noted inac- curacies in the cost estimates presented to Congress to the tune of more than a half a billion dollars, and revealed that the President 3 was personally participating in discussions regarding this revised plan, and there are pictures to prove it. Yet despite all parties within the administration claiming the FBI alone made the decision, the FBI has turned over just 1,300 pages in the last 3–1/2 months, and that includes a last-minute production last night. I might add, in talking to the FBI, I was as- sured that they have gone through and filtered 1.5 million documents. And when we had that conversation, we were in possession

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