>> certainly. >> just a quick follow-up. you knew this report was coming. you had 11 months between a scathing preliminary and the final. you resigned on the day it came out. when did you decide that you would resign? when did you first know that this report would look the way it did? >> i knew when i received the draft report that it would look that way, because i had no quarrel. >> so you had 11 months warning. >> no, it was 45 days -- from the time they gave us the draft -- >> so about 60 days, okay. >> yeah, it was someplace in there. and i knew that it was -- so i knew what was in the report and i did not contest it. i had no reason to. i accepted all of the recommendations. i -- we -- part of what we worked through, because i took the role of running our response myself, is understanding what our personnel rules were what our legal positions were and so on. and as that unfolded, it became

clearer to me we needed to do something very -- i don't want to use the word dramatic, but we needed to make a very strong statement about how this was so appalli appalling. so i decided to resign -- i finally came to the decision in my own head about three or four takes before i resigned. but i had thought about it for the entire six weeks. >> thank you. the gentleman from new hampshire, mr. gunta, is recogniz recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. i want to continue on this line of questioning. you said over that several-day period you thought about resigning? is. >> well, the thought entered my head right away, is this something i needed to resign over. and i worked my way through what the discipline was for the various people involved, what other actions we could take. but i came to the -- you know, i was ready to sit down and write my resignation about three days before. >> did you consult with your chief of staff on that?

>> yes. i mean, he -- he understood my thinking. yes. >> okay. what was your position, mr. robertson, in 2007? >> my position in 2007? >> yes. >> in -- depended on what time in 2007. i held two jobs in the year 2007. >> which were the two? >> in the u.s. senate and the this body of the u.s. congress. i was a legislative coordinator in the senate, and then following that, i joined the presidential campaign for then senator obama. >> you were a legislative coordinator for a senator? >> yes. >> which senator? >> senator bomb. >> okay. so you went from working for senator obama as an lc to then working on the presidential campaign, to then working on transition, to then going to gsa, to then being chief of staff to gsa. is that fair? >> after about 18 months inside gsa, yes. >> you went from an lc to a chief of staff. that's great. congratulations.

at what point did you talk with ms. johnson about her resignation? she just said that she had talked with you about resigning. when did you speak with her about resigning? >> she told me that she was thinking about it at some point during the development of our response. i don't recall -- i don't recall the date. >> can you give me a month? a month -- for the first time you talked about it with her? >> it was sometime between february and april when the final report came out. i believe it was in march. >> who did you talk to at the white house about her resignation during that period of time? >> nobody. >> you did not convey in writing or verbally to anyone at the white house that there was a consideration of a resignation? >> no. >> did -- >> to the best of my recollection, i do not -- >> to the best of your recollection. >> yeah. >> so you didn't, or to the best of your recollection? >> to the best of my recollection, i did not communicate anything about the administrator's resignation. >> but possibly you did communicate something to the white house. >> to the best of my recollection, i did not

communicate anything about the administrator's resignation to the white house. >> did anyone from the white house talk to you in writing or verbally about the thought or the idea of ms. johnson resigning? is . >> to the best of my recollection, no. >> mr. miller, you said earlier in your testimony that it was i think abnormal -- i don't recall the word you used, but it was not the norm -- >> unusual. >> unusual, okay, thank you. so why did you provide this preliminary information? >> i provided it to the administrator may 3rd, 2011 so gsa could take steps to prevent future waste. >> okay. and i'm reading from ms. johnson's written testimony that was submitted today. we finally received the -- excuse me. let me back up. you had written, ms. british shared these findings with four of us in may, 2011. and you name the four people who

were in that meeting, and according to your testimony, you were part of that meeting. is that -- >> yes. what i'm referring to. >> in your line of questioning with the chairman, at the beginning of this hearing, you had stated, quote, i was aware of a powerpoint slide deck, but i did not see it. yet in your written testimony, and so maybe you want to clarify, you said ms. british shared these findings with the four of us in may, 2011. the sentence prior says i believe the inspector general subsequently briefed her with a powerpoint deck. yet you're saying you never saw the powerpoint deck. so i want to be clear, if you saw that powerpoint deck in may, during that briefing? >> i have to apologize. it must be because i'm 59 years old. but i have no memory of seeing it. >> okay. >> this is based on my memories. if i could see my schedule and jog them and think about what meeting i was in with the inspector general, i might be able to recall something.

but right now, i cannot recall. >> all right. the last point i want to get to -- >> but we did have a discussion about it. >> thank you. the last point i want to get to is the raise of mr. neely. i have this e-mail dated november 5th, 2011, which is certainly after -- significantly after you and others were briefed. about this incident. this circumstance. and your e-mail said, i spoke with bob yesterday afternoon. i would assume you're referring to bob peck. he's recommending a four, based on the extent to which jeff is achieving more results in leasing than anyone else and some other things he didn't delineate. i can support that if the steve jobs message is dead clear. next year, people have to have crackling good collaboration, slash people skills, to get above a three. i've made that adjustment in a couple other cases this year. it has to be in the message like a fire siren. yes on the bonus, he was also acting ra forever and a day. that's the entire body of the

e-mail sent by you to susan britta with a cc to steve leads and bob peck regarding mr. neely's $9,000 -- i find it a little shocking that that would really be the only thing we have. the only correspondence we have. the fact that two -- it looks like you criteria two things. he has been an ra forever and a day. and secondly, that he's achieving more results in leasing than anyone else. is there any kind of guideline or specific documentation that someone has to go through to determine if there are measurable outcomes and objectives that someone at this level is meeting, the criteria in order to receive a bonus? >> the process involves a performance review board, and i believe they had a fair amount of documentation. the deputy administrator was briefing me. she was -- she was briefing me fairly regularly, jeverbally. we sit right next to each other. so she was informing me of their

thinking, and where the -- they were wrestling with a recommendation and where they were pretty straight forward. there was a lot of dialogue. you still agree he should have received this $9,000 bonus? >> well, as the other congressman was asking, what would i do in hindsight? i still am not sure how to think about the two different expectations on me around assessing performance and conduct and how much a -- how much i would have interfered with a conduct review that i considered very serious if i had moved in a different direction with a performance process and made that less independent. >> thank you. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. we now go to the gentleman from south carolina. mr. gowdy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. miller, have you made a referral to the united states attorneys office? >> to the department of justice, yes. >> i hope it's a different group

than the one that handled fast and your i couldn't say. but you have made a referral? >> idndeed, yes. >> when did you make it? with a recommendation? >> yes. >> you made recommendations for criminals charges or just fyi? >> no, we have recommended criminal charges. >> all right. mr. chairman, the need for a hearing like this epitomizes our fellow citizens' frustration with government. they are absolutely convinced that we spend their money differently from the way that we would spend our own, and they are exactly correct. the rest of america cannot comprehend of a $44 breakfast. they are pouring generic brand cereal while you are eating a $44 breakfast. the rest of america would never

conceive of a $7 monte cristo mini sandwich. and neither would you if you were spending your own money. you don't go out of your pocket and buy commemorative coins. i don't know anyone who does that. but we don't hesitate to spend taxpayer money on a trinket like that. giving bicycles to indigent children is a wonderful idea. i hate that you robbed yourself of the satisfaction of knowing what it feels like to do it yourself. instead of spending someone else's money to do it. the ostensible purpose of this hearing was to exchange ideas. you know, alexander graham bell has this marvelous invention called a telephone. or better yet, video

conferencing. the notion that you have to spend $800,000 to exchange ideas is laughable. and perhaps criminal. and the part that gals me the most is the hypocrisy of gsa not even following its own damn rules. you are so quick to make everyone else follow the rules, and you can't follow your own rules. you have an event planner on staff. that will come as quite a surprise to most taxpayers. what will come as even more of a surprise is the fact that you didn't even use them. you paid somebody else to plan the event despite the fact that you have event planners at taxpayer salary. and the scouting trip. you know, mr. chairman, the tribes of israel sent 12 scouts into the promise land before

they decided to invade. and gsa has to send 15 to las vegas to check out a hotel. do you not see the outrage in that? mr. robertson? do you see it? >> absolutely. this conference was outrageous. >> well, i'm not going to be a self congratulatory as other people are. i think the fact we're having a hearing is a loss. most people don't need a hearing to know that you don't spend other people's money the way that money was spent at this conference. we don't need a list of recommendations from the inspector general. we don't need to be reminded that you can't negotiate a discount on a purse, because the u.s. government decided to contract with a hotel. that is criminal. and a mind reader?

my guess is, they will not need a mind reader to find out the american public has lost confidence in the institutions of government. and the response. i want to indictment mr. inspector general. that's a great way to get people's attention. an indictment. not a memo. not corrective measure. an indictment. i went through your report, and i wrote 25 times what's the penalty. what's the penalty for doing what you found they did. what is the penalty for negotiating a discount on a purse for your personal use, because you work for the government, and you steered work? what's the penalty? for tipping off a competitor of another bid? that sounds remarkably criminal

to me, mr. inspector general. you know, mr. chairman, while this conference was being planned and executed, i was working at a small da's office in south carolina. we had budget cuts. we had to furlough secretaries making $20,000 a year. we started a fund out of our own pocket to pay for kids' birthday presents. we never thought about spending taxpayer money on it. working for the government is a sacred trust, which you have blown. so instead of a team-building exercise, you might want to investigate a trust-building exercise. because you have lost it.

>> that concludes our first round. the gentleman's outrainfall, i think, is a bipartisan reflection of the entire first round. i'll be brief in the second round. there were a few things that weren't covered. i recognize myself. mr. miller, exhibit 2, a letter we have from susan britta, that although she was the original -- if you will provocateur that caused your investigation to begin, she writes -- or actually, ruth cox. there is a question, wanted to know why the report had to be made public, since she was told otherwise by bob peck. are you familiar with this exhibit? >> yes, i am, mr. chairman. >> and i appreciate your completeness in supplying us this. how do you explain anybody, political appointee or not, considering that any part of this would be retained as private?

particularly after such a long time of us not knowing about it? i can't explain that, mr. chairman. we always intended for this to be public. it is such magazine any tyutin and outside rage. >> i would like to follow up on that. of the ranking member and i regularly receive abbreviation from igs. igs, all 12,000 men and women and $2 billion budget, exist to a great extent for a liaison with this branch. i'm a little -- i'm more than a little concerned. you have done a wonderful job. it's a comprehensive report. and it's going to change a lot of things throughout government. but if you had to do it again, when would you have briefed this committee, your primary committee, for oversight? >> well, mr. chairman, we wanted to nail down all the facts, every which way, before we put the report to print. i'm receiving your message that

we should come to you sooner. much sooner than we have a draft report. the process was that we wanted to get something together quickly to warn the administrator and others so that they can stop further waste. we did that quickly, and did it in may, 2011. it took a long time to nail down the facts, each -- every possible way. and we got a final report to her in february. she requested an extension of an extra 30 days. you know, i -- you know, we -- i'm happy to talk with you about when we should bring these reports to you. these are sensitive reports. they do contain what we view as criminal conduct. >> and i appreciate the criminal conduct, and obviously one of the concerns we have is we need to know from a reform standpoint from an oversight standpoint earlier, not later. i'll say this on the record to you, but, in fact, to all the

igs, 70-plus and all the people that work for them. it's my intention to work with the ranking member to produce a guidance letter from this committee that would spell out an expectation. if that expectation, which is order -- we're going to try and be consistent with what often occurs. if that is not something that we see on a go-forward basis, then i will also draft legislation with the ranking member to try to codify in law. has not been a problem in the past. i do find it exceptional -- by the way, good work, i'm not making any disparaging remark on the quality of your work. but it is highly unusual for us not to receive a heads-up, much, much sooner, particularly when it would have allowed us, for example, the 23 letters i sent to other agencies, to begin looking at perhaps the effects of so much money being infused into the government, as you know, earl de veiny and i work closely. we were monitoring through the stimulus funding a plethora of

possible areas in which so much money could, in fact, be misspent. and former ig dell vein -- owe chairman delvaney, and this committee worked on this, along with the vice president. so while we were doing that, this would have been helpful. that's the only criticism. i'm going to close here with mr. robertson. you were previously liaison to essentially the white house and i know the word administration versus white house versus president gets use loosely. so let's just take the largest question. in your role as, in fact, the communicator not representing the administrator, but representing white house liaison, that role in which your job was to communicate, to have no surprises, nothing unknown to the people of the white house, both political and nonpolitical, wouldn't you ordinarily have reported something like this in that role? >> the role of the white house

liaison is to on board appointees to different offices and executive branch agencies and departments. >> no, but here's the whole point. when you worked for senator obama, i'm sure your chief of staff told you, no surprises for the senator, right? >> i don't remember having that conversation in the senate. >> so you would have kept something like this that could embarrass the president? you would have kept it a secret when he was your boss as a senator? or would you have told the chief of staff then? >> i don't know how to answer a hypothetical question. >> well, no. this is not all that hypothetical. all of us on the deis, in fact, you know -- we have the same situation senator obama has. so this is not something that's unusual. when you work for a member of congress, it is almost a given that the one thing you don't do is let somebody be surprised with a scandal that occurs under their watch.

now, i'm going to ask you, because you still have your job. you're still a political appointee at the highest level. and as ms. johnson says, you're probably making less than the $179,000 that mr. neely is still making today. so i ask you again, during the time that you were white house liaison, wouldn't there be an expectation that you would inform people at the white house? >> during my time as white house liaison, i executed the duties assigned to me by my boss, the acting administrator at the time. >> so the word liaison doesn't mean anything? >> it means that the primary duty of the white house liaison is to on-board appointees and executive branch agencies and departments. >> so you're telling me the obama administration doesn't use white house liaisons to communicate back and forth to keep the white house staff informed about things that may -- heads up that may be significant? >> my role as white house liaison was to on board the

appointees and to the executive branch agencies. my branch agency. >> when did you first become aware of this scandal? >> i had second-hand knowledge in may following the briefing that the ig gave to the administrator. it was mentioned to me that this was an ongoing investigation that existed. >> since may of last year, more than a year, or approximately a year, have you talked to anyone in the administration outside of gsa that may have communicated it to anyone inside the white house or related areas? >> do you mind repeating the question? i'm not -- >> it's a fairly broad question. did you -- once you knew this terrible scandal, this waste, did you talk to any of your friends, associates or other people employed either by the office of the president or related areas within the administrati administration? did you communicate this to any of your sort of friends and family? >> i communicated to the appropriate people. >> who are they?

>> who are the appropriate people? in my ongoing work as chief of staff, to the administrator inside gsa, i occasionally and sometimes on a regular basis communicate to the white house about the policy priorities inside gsa, as well as any issues within the agency that might impact administration priorities. >> to the best of your recollection when did you first report this scandal to those people? >> to the best of my recollection, the first mention i made of the ongoing investigation by brian, which i was not assigned, it's important to note that the administrator directly assigned the deputy administrator and the senior counselor, to both the relationship with the ig, as well as this specific investigation. and after becoming aware of the existence of the investigation, i mentioned it to white house staffer that i worked with on a regular basis, among, you know, other things that i communicated

to them about what was going on inside gsa. >> that was a pretty good answer, but the word when was in my question. >> i apologize, mr. chairman. that was sometime shortly after the may 2011 time frame, when i became aware that the ig had briefed administrator johnson. >> okay. so you hear about it in may. you report it prompt hee to a staff person within the white house. >> i would say it was sometime after may, several weeks. >> within a few weeks. >> yes. >> who was that staff person? >> it was a member of the white house counsel's office that i work with on a regular basis, as far as gsa issues go. >> i said who. >> it was a lawyer in the white house counsel's office. >> what's the name? >> her name is kim harris. >> kim harris? >> yes, sir. >> okay. thank you very much. i don't want to take this panel longer, because we do have another panel. i appreciate the ranking members' indulgence of longer

than what would normally be prudent. and i recognize the chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ms. johnson, i'm sitting here, and i've been just listening and watching. and i was trying to figure out some issues. first of all, i know that you are an honorable woman. i know that. and i know that you have a reputation for excellence. and i just want to go back to when you resigned. tell us why you resigned. you know, and let me say where i'm going. this is not a trick question. you know, a lot of times when something happens, and although the person at the time does not necessarily feel that it was their fault, they know that they were in charge. sometimes you'll hear a president say, it's under my watch, i take full responsibility or whatever.

on the other hand, i guess some of them may feel they actually could have done something different. that they -- in other words, to avoid certain things from happening. or that they did something because these things happen. and i'm just wondering, why did you resign? do you follow my question? >> yes. i resigned, because i wanted to step aside so the gsa could have some new leadership going forward. frankly, the nature of that conference, the coarseness, the videotapes, the kind of impact that it was having deeply disturbed me. and i wanted to, as much as i could, reassure the american people that somebody was taking it quite seriously. and through my resignation, could send a -- send the message that this is unacceptable. it's appalling. and it's not the norm. >> you know, as i listen to the way you came in, and the delay

in your confirmation, and when you came in, and what you came into, you know -- and then i watch you. and you said something that you probably don't even realize you said. you -- as a matter of fact, you said it twice. and not necessarily in response to a question. you just volunteered this. i think it may have been the chairman that was asking you. but a comment was made about the salaries of certain employees. and you said, yeah, they make more than the administrator. you said it twice. yes, you did. i saw you. and you seem like you were very -- kind of upset about that. and let me tell you where i'm going with this. it seems like there's some things going on at gsa, and god knows i hope they're not going on in these other agencies. that are out of control.

in other words, the administrator comes in and there's some things that have been going on, and you know, i look at what we read about what mr. -- is it neely? neely. has been accused of doing. and i don't necessarily want you to get into all of that. but i'm just wondering, are there things that you felt that you had no control over? and the reason why this is so significant is because i believe the chairman is concerned, as i am, about getting to the reform that is necessary to get to. but it seems as if it's almost like the administrator is here, and there's something happening down there. and it's all -- i mean, when i read the facts of this -- what went on here, you know, a fund that, you know, you can almost pull out $1 million to hold a conference for.

people can talk about this money as if it's their money. the chairman made a good point of that. and others. you know, and it's -- and they can use it for whatever they want. i'm just -- i mean, we -- has government become -- i mean, do we need a different -- some kind of different kinds of controls here? and you might want to chime in here, mr. miller, too. because i mean, if we're going to get to the bottom of this -- we can go through these hearings and accuse one administration of doing it and another administration of doing it. and all that kind of stuff. but if we don't get to -- to exactly controlling what's going on there, we'll never solve this problem. and so then ten years from now, there will be a new set of people sitting up here, and they won't be talking about $900,000 event. they'll be talking about a $2 million event. so i'm just --