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>> nonfiction book lovers, c- span has a number of podcasts for you. listen to best-selling nonfiction authors and influential interviewers on the afterwards podcast and on q&a. here wide-ranging conversations with nonfiction authors and others who are making things happen. they have hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. and the about books podcast takes you behind the scenes of the nonfiction book publishing industry with insider interviews, industry updates, and bestsellers list. find all of our podcast by downloading the free c-span now app a river you get your podcast and on our website, c- span.org/podcasts . >> what a great turnout. good evening, everyone and welcome to politics and prose. i am brad graham, the corner of the bookstore, along with my wife, lissa muscatine. it is quite a special treat for us to be hosting glenn fine, who is here to talk but his notebook, watchdogs: inspectors general and the battle for honest and accountable

government . it is a special treat because glenn is a longtime friend of mine and lisa's. so, we have known for some time of his distinguished service as the inspector general of not just one major department, but two -- the justice department for 11 years and the pentagon for four years. among those familiar with what inspectors general do, glenn is widely considered a leading example of how to do the job, but not many are aware of igs, which is why glenn decided to write this book, recounting his experiences and detailing in very clear instructive terms how igs seek to make government more honest, more efficient, and more accountable.

and in the book, glenn also puts forward some thoughtful proposals for strengthening oversight. being an ig can be a pretty thankless position and glenn recalls a number of instances in which he was obstructed, criticized, or worse by those he sought to investigate. but over the years, he earned a reputation for independence and determination, which served him well until, alas, he ran a foul of one donald j. trump. it was april 2020 at the start of the covid pandemic and glenn had been chosen to lead a committee of other igs charged with monitoring how the ministration would be spending trillions of dollars in pandemic relief. trump, however, had other ideas and had particular issues with

igs tending to view them as undermining his own authority over the executive branch. he had never even agreed to put glenn up for senate confirmation as dod's ig, keeping him as acting ig. and then to thwart glenn from heading the pandemic relief monitoring group, trump abruptly demoted him, and not long after, glenn resigned altogether. looking back on his career choices, glenn could have easily taken other less hassled, more profitable routes in life, as a well-paid lawyer in private practice, for instance. in fact, he tried that before his first and as ig and, again, between the first and second stints. but his heart remained set on government service. he also, years ago, had been invited to play professional

basketball. yes, even with his measly five foot nine inch height, as you'll see in a moment, after graduating from harvard, where he was cocaptain of the basketball team, glenn was picked by the san antonio spurs in the 10th round of the 1979 nba draft. but he turned them down to go to oxford as a rhodes scholar, and then to harvard law school. now, i still would seriously caution anyone against challenging glenn to a shooting contest from the foul line. my lisa did that. she sunk nine out of 10. glenn made all 10. jim matus, there is tired -- retired four-star marine corps

is general, who served as secretary of defense was glenn was ig, describes glenn as a great example of the, quote, breed of noble sentinels who watch over our government and help restore trust. we should all feel very fortunate and grateful that glenn chose to wage the battles he did for honest and accountable government and that he has now written about them in this very informative book. in conversation with glenn, we will -- he knows a thing or two about investigations. he leads them at the atlantic magazine, where he is editor in chief and he is also a moderator of the washington week with the atlantic on pbs. jeff, as well, is the author of "prisoners," about his years- long dialogue and friendship with a palestinian. he first got to know guarding him at a prison camp in israel. so, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming glenn fine and jeff goldberg.

>> thank you. thank you. oh, look, welcome to the federal government. glad y'all could be here. glenn, thank you for being here. i also have to, like -- brad, i have to admit that i have been friends with glenn for a very long time. we got to know each other when he prosecuted me for corruption in the late '80s, unsuccessfully. i did a couple years in allenwood, but it was good for my character. glenn thought it was after then we became best friends. but i want to thank all of you coming, first of all. and i am very glad to be able to do this with my friend. i will try to ask him hard questions, even though we are

friends, but he knows all the answers, unfortunately. glenn also, by the way, verily helpfully -- very helpfully provided me with a list of 140 questions, starting what do the letters ig stand for. >> instagram. >> instagram. and the last question is, can you explain the immutable nature of corruption in the hearts of men? so, we are going to work our way to that. that might be part two of this book. but, glenn, why don't you just start by talking about it? maybe people in this audience knows something about what an igs, but talk about how the institution came about, especially in the post- watergate era, and then bring us to how you became interested in doing this for a living. >> well, i will do that, but first i want to thank brad and lissa muscatine for hosting this event for the launch of my

book, which officially releases tomorrow. thank you, jeffrey, for agreeing to interview me and i am sure you will not use any of the questions i asked . >> on principle, obviously. >> i also want to thank -- i see what so many colleagues and ig committees, some friends, family friends. i see some tennis buddies. thank you for coming out to support me and to support this book. in the is better general act, which was passed in 1978, it was one a series of post- watergate reforms. the idea was to put an internal independent watchdog within each federal agency to inspect, to evaluate, to investigate that agency, to find waste fraud and abuse in that agency. it is in an unusual position. it is within the agency, but it reports will to the head of the agency and to congress and it is independent. you get to decide what to audit, what to investigate, what to evaluate, and head of the agency cannot stop you. in fact, i will tell you story

about that. when i first became magic ig, i decided i was going to brief all the new attorneys general and secretary of defense when they came into office to find the concept on ig. not many people understood it. even government officials like them. in fact, i remember one time i braved the attorney general about the inspector general. we are independent and how we operate. i will never forget this. he looked at me and he scratched his head and he said, so you are chewing -- i can order everyone else in this building, the justice building, tell them what to audit and what to evaluate and what to investigate but i cannot tell you what to do? and i look back at him and said, yes, that is what the inspector general act requires. he stared at me intently and he said, okay, that is the law, we follow the law around here. and he did, as did all the other attorneys general that i worked for in the department of justice from 2000 and 2011. the secretary of defense that i worked for, i was very

fortunate to have that happen to me. >> who is the best person to work for in terms of independence and understanding you can actually bring value to the department you work in? >> i appreciated all of them, but i do want a single two of them out. one of the department of justice, john ashcroft. john ashcroft was an auditor. his first job in public service was as an auditor general of the state of missouri. when i first met him, he said to me, we had a motto in missouri as auditor general -- in god we trust. all as we verify. so, he knew about inspectors general and he was very supportive of our role.in fact, he would tell the senior staff of the justice department, you have to cooper with the ig. the ig makes this department better. having -- he said he would tell them having an ig audit or evaluate or investigate you is like going to the dentist. it's painful while you're in the dentist's chair, but you come out healthier. the same way with an ig. and i appreciate that message because the tone at the top

matters, people cooperated as a result of his message. the one thing i didn't appreciate when i was walking down the halls of the justice department, i would hear, ok, here comes the dentist. but there was, i appreciate that tone at the top. >> i covered the justice department a bit in the time you were there. they had other word than destin's -- dentist for you. >> yeah, they do have other words for the, for an ig. you're not, you're not the most popular person as the ig in the halls of the justice department or the pentagon food court. you're accused of being a lap dog or a junkyard dog. you're too hard, you're too soft. it's a witch hunt. it's a whitewash. sometimes you're accused of all that in the same investigation by different sides. so, no, you're not going to be the most popular person, but that's your job. you know, you have to have a thick skin and it comes with the territory. in terms of the department of defense, i would say there are some good ones, but i really appreciate it.

general mattis as the secretary of defense, he was a real professional. i didn't know him, but when i got to know him, he was very interested in fixing problems and he would tell me, i want you to bring problems to my attention because that's the only way we can get better. that's the only way we could fix it. and that's the attitude you want, you don't want people to be defensive. now you're not going to be close to them. you're not going to be friends, but i want them to take our work seriously. we try to be tough but fair and i want them to respect our work. >> was the also being a little clever? the ig will be there no matter if you like it or not, so you might as well make the ig think you're on his side?>> well, i don't know if he would think that i'm on his side, but i think he wanted to improve the agency and he wanted me to be the ig. he actually tried to get me to be nominated as the ig and it didn't happen because of president trump. i had been nominated by president obama before. and when it got through to president trump, president trump said, well, he was nominated by president obama, so i'm not going to nominate him. and i asked, well, it's a

nonpartisan position. and the secretary said, well, i know that, and he said, look, i hope you remain as the acting ig. and i did for four years. and he actually gave me advice that says, you're the acting ig, so act and that's what i tried to do. i tried to make the hard decisions to do the job as if i was the permanent ig, even though i knew that, you know, you couldn't rely on being the ig forever. you know, you could lose your job in an instant. and i did. >> let's go to thematter of your departure from the pentagon in part. so we can move on to other possibly more interesting things. what do you think happened? you're in the acting role, you're doing your job, you're pissing off the right people, but in a nonpartisan way, presumably, right? what about the covid investigation or the covid oversight? do you think triggered the white house to finally move

against you? >> i think it was partly the time but partly as indicated, i was the acting ig the department of defense. the pandemic hit the congress appropriate trillions of dollars in covid relief. there was a create a pandemic response accountability committee of igs to oversee that money. there had to be one ig to chair the committee. i drew the short straw. so i became the ig and within that chair of the committee and within five days, he replaced me as the acting ig. he had said that he didn't think we needed this oversight. he had said, i will be the oversight. so i think he didn't want independent and aggressive oversight. and i was not the only one who was replaced around this time. >> say on this point because

his impulse to say that we do not need igs, that goes with a piece of other attitudes that he has infants. is there anything else in the government you run into who have that same harsh line about independent oversight? >> there are number of people in government who did not love the concept of ig, but they're not in a position to do anyone about it. nobody loves the ig. i would say all organizations need oversight and most resist it. when the ig act was passed, the justice department said we do not need oversight. we are department of lawyers. i do not think that argument age that well because eventually an ig was created in the department of justice and the valley of it has been shown. say what the fbi. they said, we do not need oversight. we have an investigative body and ig would second-guess our decisions. eventually, we got jurisdiction over the fbi and that was important and we have shown the value of that. even the department of defense. even now, in my view, the

judiciary and the supreme court need an inspector general and need an internal investigation. >> let's get to it. what is the argument? for the supreme court? how do you convince the supreme court to accept this idea that every other branch of government has had to accept? >> i think you just keep pushing the argument because i think it is a strong argument. the federal judiciary is a big operation. it has an a billion-dollar budget and 30,000 employees. and the organization that size needs internal investigators to evaluate and to look at processes and to improve the situation. in addition, there are allegations of misconduct, professionals. we had recent allegations against supreme court justices and, basically, we rely on the justices themselves to respondent to say there's nothing to see here.

in my view, the supreme court would benefit from an inspector general who could investigate the facts and make transparent what happened and would not be able to make a management or decisions, but at least we would understand what the facts are of the case. i think it is in the interest of the judiciary in the supreme court to have one because public trust in the supreme court and the judiciary has diminished dramatically. it is that an all-time low. i think part of the reason is controversy about the decisions, but another part of the reason is unaddressed allegations of ethical misconduct and the fact that there is not an internal oversight body that can credibly investigate those matters. i the the supreme court urgently needs one and the judiciary urgently needs one and would benefit from one. >> come back to trump. did you ever, in your time serving in that administration, although apart from that, obviously, did you ever meet to him or talk to senior officials of the white house about the

role? >> i never met with president trump. i did talk to senior officials in the white house when we had matters that affected the white house. so, no, i had no direct contact, but that is not unusual. an eye -- ig should not have direct contact with the white house. if i got a call from the white house, i would not take the call. they should go to the justice department and the attorney general. we are independent. i did not want to be dealing with the white house and any pressure they try to impose on us. we did our job without contact with them. >> i know some reminders love this, a speculative question. if trump one again, would you expect an assault on the i.d. system? >> i do not want to speculate. i do think he has made clear that he is not a big fan of igs. i think igs will be tested. so, you know, we will have to see. i think igs can stand up to the challenge. i would hope so. so, we will have to see what happens. >> i want you to go back a bit to your college career.

i do not want a game by game recitation of your immense victories over yale, but -- >> why not? >> there were not that many, first of all. >> we beat princeton. >> but there is a moment, and you detail this in the book. i wanted to give you a flavor of it. it is now a very important moment in your life because it taught you a corrosive lesson about corruption. why don't you give us the setting and describe what happened? >> so, i start the first chapter of the book with this, with the story. so, the ig act was passed in 1978, grading igs in 12 cabinet agencies. i had my first brush with corruption in 1978. it happened on the parquet floor of the boston garden.

i was a basketball player, the captain of the harvard passed ball team, our biggest game of the season against boston college in the boston garden. it was the same day i had my final interview for the rhodes scholarship. it was in baltimore and the game was in boston, so i was torn. we had an alum from harvard who solved the situation and said, going to send a plane down to pick you up in the baltimore airport, a private plane. before the selections are made. fly to the boston garden. you can make it in time for tip- off and that is what happened. i changed into my uniform on the way there. i got to the garden a few minutes before tip-off. boston college was a strong team. they were favored by 12. i had the best game of my college career. i had 19 points, 14 assists, and eight steals. they were favored by 12, but it was nip and tuck the whole way. we were up, they were up. they finally won by three points. i remember, my goodness. i have to call to see if i won a rhodes scholarship.

in my uniform, i went to the paycor's in the concourse of the boston garden and dialed up and said, can you tell me what happened? they said, congratulation, mr. fine. you are a rhodes scholar. wow, what a day. the best game in my college career and i won a rhodes scholarship. there was only one problem. the game was fixed for two mafia mobsters had bribed boston college players to point shape, meaning to win by less -- henry hill and jimmy burke. anybody see the movie goodfellas? they were played by ray liotta and robert deniro. they bribed several players to shave points in the first game. they shaped points against harvard. and when i was at oxford, sports illustrated broke the story. henry hill explain what happened. a friend of mine sent me the article and wrote on the top, hey, glenn, i guess you played your best game and everything was in the tank -- and it was true.

so, later on, after i was nominated many years later to be the inspector general department of justice, senator herb kohl supported my nomination and went on the floor of the senate and gave a speech in support of the nomination and said maybe the reason he wants to weed out corruption the justice department is because he was involved in the notorious boston college point shaving game. maybe that is true. there is also another thing. everyone knows espn 34:30? it is a segment. they did one on playing for the mob and they had a clip of the harvard game and had a clip of me driving down the court, shooting a jump shot, making the jump shot. a few years ago, show this to my two kids, the clip of me making the jump shot, and only, they had, was hey, dad, your hair is really long and your shorts are really short. but, you know, that was the style. >> is going to this a little bit. how did they corrupt boston college players? you see what i am going with

this? how do corrupt people correct previously non-corrupt people? >> i think they do it in steps. they dangle something small and bigger and once they have them off the hook, they cannot get off the hook. i think they try to find weaknesses and they knew one of the players was from the same city and they just tempted him and he took the bait and then this one player tried to recruit others and then once you have taken the bait, they have you. they have your hooks into you. >> i ask that because one of the most astonishing stories in this book, which has a lot of astonishing stories, is a case in the navy that you investigated, when you were at dod, the fat leonard case. i was wondering if you could describe that. the thing that is astonishing, the corruption is sort of -- people being bribed or induced to do things they should not be doing, but -- but what is astonishing is that it involved, i think at the end of it, hundreds, if i'm not mistaken, hundreds of navy officers who, you know, in their white uniforms and duty and honor at annapolis and

pride and all the rest, do not seem, superficially to be the sort of people who could easily be swayed by a corrupt contractor, but there you are. >> but they were. that is right. it was the worst corruption scandal in navy history. fat leonard, leonard glenn francis, owned a ship supply company in southeast asia. you would supply ships with tugboat services and sewage and water and everything and he got contracts by corrupting navy officers. how did he do it? step-by-step. first, he would give them small gifts and then he would give them denver -- dinners that he would dangle trips and then prostitutes and then cash. he would do these dinners and many of the navy officers went and you think, where they all going? their captain went and their severe went and everyone seemed

to be going. so, he was like an intelligence agent. it could've been a great kgb agent because he knew which her weakness was and he tried to exploit it and he would dangle the bait and once he got you on the hook, he would dam and things in return and also tell you i am going -- i am going to out you if you do not do what i will say. ultimately, there were hundreds of navy officers who were involved, about 33 of them pleading guilty to crimes. others were given centers and other administrative careers were lost. careers were lost. admirals, captains, and i have been in the business for 20 years and i should not be surprised by it, but i was surprised at the extent of it and why nobody raised their hand earlier or more -- there were a few, but said no. i think part of the reason, i tried to think about what the reasons were, and i think they saw everyone else doing it as i felt entitled to it. they were risking their lives

on behalf of their country. some of them felt, we are out in the pacific and they will not find out. some of them, they just wanted the benefits and it was shocking how widespread the scandal was. it is the worst corruption scandal in navy history. >> before the boston college scandal, were you aware of corruption as an issue? did you ever do anything wrong in your life? >> that sounds like a question on the polygraph. did you do anything wrong? i'm going to plead the fifth amendment. >> no, you're not. you never have stolen a pack of gum, right? >> let's move onto the next question. >> that is the most astonishing story, but it is a kind of corruption. there is another aspect of this book that is really astonishing and troubling -- which is -- a kind of reaches its apotheosis in the hanson case. the scary thing about it, as a

reader, is you cannot believe in the full light of day after a case is unwound, has someone got away with something so ridiculous for so many years. i want you to give a little bit of the taste, a little bit of a taste of that. what happened and why the fbi was blind, essentially, for years to a kgb spy in its midst. >> out, robert hanssen was an fbi agent who was the most damaging spy in fbi history. as walls of him spying for the russians and the soviets for over two decades, we lost a number of assets and we lost secrets and we lost sensitive technologies and he evaded detection for 20 years. eventually, he was caught in 2001. when it happened, the fbi said that is because he was an intelligence analyst and the fbi and he used his intelligence goes to evade detection. so, we were asked to investigate how did it happen. we found out nothing could have been further from the truth. he was a mediocre agent, a very unusual individual. a twisted individual with all sorts of red flags and he was

very flagrant about what he was doing, but nobody really followed up on it. so, he was never given a background investigation for 20 years. he did not have to take a polygraph. >> he spent money way beyond his means. >> he did. he took a stripper with him on an inspection tour and nobody said anything about it. he deposited money from the russians in a bank account a block from the fbi. he used the fbi telephone to contact the russians. he hacked into the computer system is of the fbi when he was found out, he said i did this to show how vulnerable the system was and they said, okay, and they did not collect the derogatory information. the problem was, what we found out, what we said was the fbi did not have an effective internal security strategy. it was based on trust. we trust the employees and trust is not a good internal security strategy. so, we made a series of recommendations to improve their internal security. in my view, that is the value

of an ig. you are independent and come from outside and you're not afraid to criticize the agency. sometimes the agency wants to avoid embarrassment and we were able to do that and point out things the fbi had missed and were reluctant to do and we followed up on it. in fact, there were hearings before congress and the fbi implemented some of our map recommendations but were resistant to others. congress had hearings. a ag -- an i.d. will testify before congress. when congress is having a hearing about it, it is amazing how quickly sometimes the agency reacts and makes improvements. that was the case on this one. >> on hanson, was at the case that his supervisors liked him and therefore cut him slack? that is the danger of working with people who like you? what was the explanation for not noticing? >> it was the opposite. they thought he was an odd individual. they did not like him. they thought he was weird, so instead of dealing with it, they sent him off in a detail

to the state department were no unsupervised them and they did not know what he was doing. he was surfing the internet. they did not have an audit trail, so he would do audit searches on his name and on an as it is name. if they had an effective sera it is tragic, they found that out, but they pushed him off and they tried to push them off as someone else's headache and that is not a good strategy. >> tell me how you caught them or how he was caught. >> that is still classified. >> tell the parts -- you know what i am talking about, i think. the placement of false information files. >> there are also are -- the fbi eventually found out that they were spying and they focus attention on them and they accounted an effective campaign, but that was 10 two years too late. >> what were the costs? >> millions of dollars in lost equipment, but assets, our assets, were executed by russia and we lost our medical range of assets and we lost all sorts

of sensitive technologies to the russians because he handed it over. he handed all sorts of information over to them for 20 years. >> there is a famous quote from robert gates. i am pretty sure you know this one. he said to president obama, i think in the first week of the obama administration, he said, right now, somebody in the federal government is clearing up really badly. you will never know. we do not know who it is or what they are doing, but it will eventually land on your desk. give us a sense of what it is like to go to these kind of jobs every day, knowing in such a large organization, with intermittent accountability or accountability issues, tell us -- give us a sense of after doing so many years, how deep corruption can go or how deep, sort of, not even corruption, but just mismanagement? >> what i will say is this. i do not want to overemphasize this, but i think the vast majority of government officials or public servants are doing a good job, are

conscientious, are not corrupt, but in any large organization, and the department of justice is a huge organization and the department of defense is the biggest organization in the world. it has 3 million civilians, the guard. you know, it has an $800 billion budget. if you compare the department of defense's budget to the gdp of every other country on earth, the department of defense would be the 21st biggest country in the world, right behind saudi arabia and right ahead of argentina. so, in an organization that big, you will have problems. in the ig's office, we had 800 employees and contractors to investigate, evaluate, audit. that is not enough, but you will have problems and all sorts of things and what i would do is i would wake up each morning and i would see things, sometimes, in the front page of the paper and go that will be on my desk when i go

into the office. i'm glad i do not have to do that now because i read about it and it is someone else's problem. there will be a relentless stream of issues that you have to deal with and one of the jobs of an ideas to focus attention on the big ones, to triage things, because you do not have the resources to investigate everything. one of the things was want to do is find problems before they blow up and make recommendations to avoid issues, to avoid problems. i think that is one of the key benefits of an ig as well -- not to simplify things after- the-fact, but to make recommendations for processes and procedures to prevent them from happening in the future. >> we will go to questions in a minute. we will ask people to line up at this microphone because this is being filmed for c-span. but before we get to some questions, talk a little bit about -- i am curious to know one thing in particular. you are among two or three or four most experience igs in

washington. is there any way you would ever go back into the service? >> not really. i do not think so. i did it for 20 years. i loved it. i really enjoyed it, but i am going to a new chapter of my life and when one door closes, and that door closed, the doors open. now i am a fellow at the brookings institution. i am an adjunct professor at georgetown law school. i have taught at stanford law school and teaching again and i enjoy talking to students and encouraging students to go into public service and to also -- to write this book. part of the reason i wrote the book, there are several reasons. one, want to encourage citizens to understand the role of the igs afford it. i want to encourage lawmakers to strengthen the ig. want to encourage universities and law schools to teach about igs and maybe encourage s.t.e.m. students to go to the ig community or public service in general. and i also hope that the book can be useful to the 15,000 ig

employees in the federal government to be more effective and there are 15,000 state and local igs employees as well, so it is a huge community, and i think i hope to have an impact on that community as well. >> what are the personality characteristics somebody needs to do this kind of internal affairs work? >> i guess i would say three things. one, you have to be nonpartisan. that is important, otherwise will not have credibility. you should not be tied to political party. two, you have to be tenacious. you really do. you cannot expect one report to solve the situation. you have to keep going back again and again and again and follow-up because people forget about it and you just have to keep driving the point home. three, have to be independent. you're not going to be everybody's friend. you're not going be popular. you have to understand that. i know was not the most popular person in the department of justice. i will tell a story about that. when i first became the justice

ig, i was asked to brief a senator about a report and i took with me my longtime deputy, a terrific guy named paul martin. we went up to the hill and i briefed the senator. after the briefing, he said to me, okay, good briefing. he said, let me tell you what i think about inspectors general and he pointed his finger at me. you have to be independent. you have to do things i do not like. you have to do things congress does not like and the attorney general does not like and everybody does not like. you cannot be like. you will not be liked. he kept pointing his finger at me and said he will not be liked. i think my deputy, paul, had heard enough because he interjected. do not worry about that, senator. even i do not like him. and the senator cracked up. it was at the end of the meeting. it was very humorous in retrospect, but there is a good point to that story. you're not in it to be liked and you will not be popular.

i hope you are respected and i hope you're viewed as tough and fair. i hope we had an impact on the agency to improve its operations. >> different igs across the government have different powers. is that correct? you had a full law enforcement operation and capability at defense especially, but smaller i.d.s do not necessarily have the same powers. >> most of the igs, the large igs, to have law enforcement powers. we have gone carrying law enforcement agents like fbi agents to make arrests and investigate criminal conduct and to bring cases to the prosecutor. not everybody actually recognizes that we have law enforcement power. if i could tell the story about my wife, a wonderful wife here, it was -- it was a sad day when she had to arrest her. >> she was called for jury duty and in the two dear, the judge asked, is anyone a member of a law enforcement organization or has a family member of a law enforcement organization? the judge said i have a family member who is a member of the law enforcement organization. what is that?

is that i work for the justice department inspector general. then beth kind of looked around and raised her hand and said -- the judge said, yes? she said, well, my husband is the justice department inspector general. people do not remember, but we do have law enforcement powers. >> that is amazing. let me take some questions and start here. if anybody else, please come down. >> okay, i'm a retired fed. i am a lawyer. and after i retired, i work for a firm that represented whistleblowers. the false claims act. so, they were civilian whistleblowers, but what was the role of whistleblowers? did you defend them against the retaliation that is always present? >> yes. the answer is yes and yes. the whistleblowers are critically important. they bring very important cases to the ig's office. when i was the ig of justice,

we had over 40,000 hotline complaints from whistleblowers and same at the department of defense. not all of them are accurate. many of them are frivolous, but many of them resulted in really important cases. you have to take them very seriously and even at the whistleblower comes with some baggage, they often have knowledge and a seed of truth. i think it is very important to take whistleblower cases seriously. some of the most important cases result from whistleblowers. we also have to repent them from retaliation. retaliation is omnipresent. with him and gets a complaint against them, the initial reaction is very defensive up made this complaint? it is not true. i'm going to go after that person. you cannot do that. we would investigate retaliation complaint that i would explain to the officials of the department of justice and events, you'll get complaints against it. let us do our worker do not retaliate against anyone who you think may have made the complaint. i saw cases where high-level general that something had made a complete against them and therefore said, i'm going to cut the head off of the snake and when after this person for making this complaint. it turned out the complaint was

not accurate, but he was severely punished because he retaliated against this person. in fact, this person was not even the one who made the complaint. >> the complaint was groundless, but the retaliation was real? she lost his career as a result. i would tell the generals, i would speak to the new apples and generals in the capstone class and i would say, let us do our work. do not retaliate against anybody because that will get you in trouble, even if the underlying complaint is not true. >> can i ask a quick follow-up to that? the whistleblowers who deal with, it is hard to discern the nature of many whistleblowers. they can be scratchy people, independent mind though, maybe a bit eccentric. how hard is it to discern who was coming with a legitimate complaint and who is retaliating themselves through the mechanism of an ig or just having a dilution that they are

being -- that they found something amiss? >> yes, that does happen. sometimes people do not understand the full story. sometimes with the blowers want to get back at their supervisor that is what an eye does. they have to separate the wheat from the chaff and not -- and look at the motivation. you have to look at what they say because people with significant baggage or may have done something wrong themselves, they still have an acrid complaint and know what has happened and brings to the ig something that is very important and needs to be investigated. >> thank you. >> you are asked a few moments ago how does a corrupt person corrupt other people and i want to ask you how -- i want to ask you how does a corrupt person corrupt a political party? >> i do not know. jeffrey, do you want to answer that question? >> no, i do not. >> what i will say is i do not know the answer to that. i could speculate, that is not what an i.d. does. i will have to pass on that

question. >> hello, thank you. i'm looking forward to reading your book. i will start an assignment soon as -- at an ig agents and i one of the attorneys working there. i'm curious what advice he would have to a legal adviser coming to an ig's office. >> good question. number one, you ought to read my book. the other books about igs are there as well. read the ig act. you have to just be independent. after recognize you will have to give independent advice and i would, what i would tell people who comment is we are different office. you're not going to be friends with people in the department. you are going to be in a unique position and you have to just understand that and do the best you can, to be independent and give the important advice that you will be asking your employees. >> you tell people not to be friends with people in the department? >> actually, igs have been in trouble for doing things too close to other officials. you should not be friends. you should be friendly with

them. the relationship between the agency head and the ig is fraught. you are working with agency leaders. you are both trying to improve the agency, and so you need to work with them very closely, but you're not part of the management team. i would not go to the management meetings. you were just, you know, you were separate. i think it was very important to maintain that distance. i will tell a story -- also, you might have to investigate that person, you know, down the road, so you cannot be too close to them. there was one later in the department of defense, a really strong leader with a great sense of humor, chairman of the joint chiefs, mark milley. when he would see me in the halls of the justice department, you say, hello, glenn. sorry, halls of the department of defense. hello, glenn, how are you doing? i would say, fine. he would say, hey, glenn, am i under investigation yet? and i would say, not yet, but

he is the day of over. he would laugh and i would laugh and it was humorous. there is a point to that. you have to maintain your distance because you might be called upon and we were called upon to investigate agency leaders. >> i am interested in the relationship and the relations between the executive branch, igs, and the congressional branch, gao or general accounting office. is there friction? how often is there friction between the two or is that not something that generally happens? >> so, that is a really good question. the government -- if there friction between the gao and other congressional branches or congressional committees even, i suppose? igs, which work in the executive >> the government accountability office is an arm of congress. it can investigate an audit and evaluate government programs. it works for congress. if congress asks them to do

something, they will do it. we try to work with the gao and coordinate with them because we do not want to do duplicate of investigations or audits. it is a bad thing if we are both doing the same thing were similar things within the agency. we would try to coordinate with them. when i was there, it worked well. they were amenable to discussing with us. sometimes, they had to do a review because the member of congress required it. but you would ask them to ask a member of congress, why don't you wait until the ig's investigations over sometimes they would agree to that. we would try to scope it in a way that is not completely duplicate of. so, the gao is another very important oversight entity in the government. i think it does very good work and it is important that igs and the gao coordinate and they certainly did when i was there. >> great. thanks. just to add onto that, is it fair to say the gao at the beginning of the ig post- watergate, the beginning of the ig formulation process, the gao was opposed to the creation of igs? >> yes, they were.

this was in 1978. the gao said, we already have authority are and it would just be to put up an unneeded. the entire government was opposed to the creation of igs. gao was opposed to it. the justice department was opposed to it. the carter administration was opposed to it. eventually, they agreed that, well, when congress passed it, they should sign it into law because it was in accord with president carter's view of good government. not too long ago, there was a celebration and i think it was an honor in the 40th anniversary of the ig act and a bunch of igs went down to the carter center and he said to one of the igs, who happens to be here, a terrific ig -- president carter said that one of his biggest mistakes was opposing the creation of the ig act and the creation of igs. they have done tremendous work in the interim. so, he recognize the value of the ig, but at the time, everybody was opposed to it. >> i am curious about this audience. how many people here are

currently igs? they will never raise their hand. there is one brave ig. ahesir. >> go back to the month you were fired. you were fired on day one and day six, your famous jedi report came out and you talked about how the white house directed pentagon officials not to talk to you. in retrospect, their knowledge of that report coming out and maybe their anger at you have anything to do with you being fired? >> so, i do not know. >> can you explain a little bit of the context? >> we have reports, you know, that were very sensitive and some of them affected whiteout equities -- white house equities, and there were a bunch of things that people speculated, why i was fired, and it was speculation. i was never given a reason. i do not know for sure. >> no one from the white house ever communicated this to you. it was communicated in paper -- >> it was communicated by

another ig who told me about it and then i had to go and say to our general counsel, could you verify this? he got the paper with president donald trump's signature that i had been replaced. so, no, i was never given a reason. i could speculate why. i mean, a year before, and i talked about this in the "emma the president was very upset about us issuing reports, lead inspector general reports about the wars in iraq and afghanistan. in fact, we were required to do that by the inspector general act. the president said we should not issue these reports. so, was called into a meeting after the deputy -- after this televised cabinet meeting, where the president said you need to lock up these reports to the acting secretary of defense. i was called into a meeting and had to explain this. i explained, look, the ig act requires these issue quarterly reports. we have been doing it for several years. we get information and that it with the department of defense to make sure there is nothing too sensitive for public release

. so, you know, unless and until the law is changed, i will keep issuing these reports. >> antron's argument was this was helping the enemy? >> is a bieniemy reads these reports. but we made sure that any classified or sensitive information was in the classified appendix of the report, not publicly released and the department of defense, by the way, could have come under the ig act, prevented the release of any information that would damage national security and they never prevented the release of these reports. we had been issuing them for years and we continue to do them. they are still being issued. i know that for a fact. maybe we do not have an ig, but someone who works for an ig officer, and we follow the law. that is what we continue to do. >> thanks. >> hello, i am interested in learning something about women in this world that you are describing to us. how many igs are involved with corruption? who are they?

more like the department of education or more, you know, other places. so, what can you tell us about how women are in this world that you live? >> so, in the ig world, there are many women law enforcement agents who work for us in the justice department, some of the best agents, auditors, evaluators. we had a significant percentage of women in some of the best igs now and when i was there are women. maybe not as many as there should be, but there are some very effective women -- some were not so effective. that is true with men as well. one of -- speaking of that, one of the recommendations in my book, and at the back of the book i have 12 recommendations to improve and strengthen igs, including that there should be an ig for the supreme court one

of them is you need a better answer to the question of who is watching the watchdogs? how are we holding igs accountable? we have an integrity committee of the council of inspectors general which does investigations of igs, but they are low, inconsistent, and they are not doing a good job. my view is they ought to beef that up. they ought to have a professional staff on the integrity committee. they need a budget for that, so that we can have a better answer to the question of who was watching the watchdogs because that is incredibly important. >> one assumes that the appropriate congressional committees would have oversight over ig activities, right more investigative power over ig activities they thought were errant? >> yes, congress does scrutinize ig activities. the senate government affairs committee, the house government affairs committee, they have jurisdiction, as do many other committees and, yes, they do scrutinize igs, but they have not given igs the adequate budget, in my view, have not given the counter of inspectors general an adequate budget so they can do the important things to improve the operation of the ig system. >> i have two more quick

questions for you. before you can sign books -- what you have a question? go ahead. >> s, just going back to the -- i do not know how long the i see has been in existence, but i heard last year that there were over 7000 complaints to the integrity committee and -- covering igs or individuals and they opened two cases. i think back in the day before the integrity committee existed, those were investigated by fbi. do you think there is ever going to be a point where the integrity committee is funded enough and staffed enough that it would be effective or would it be better to go back to the fbi? >> when the fbi was on the interview committee, but they were not really investigating, it was the same system, where they would have to send it to the integrity committee and the

fbi was a member and they decide which was to investigate. if they had to get an investigation, they would ask another volunteer. each ig was different. they did not give it adequate attention and it was not a priority. i do not think it is a good idea to have the committee farm out the investigations on a volunteer basis to other igs. i believe the integrity committee ought to have a professional staff the effed up so they can review these complaints in a comprehensive way, and if they are needing to do an investigation, the staff come with experience and knowledge and resources would do that investigation and do it in a more timely way. having said that, it needs a budget and congress has not provided a budget to the council of inspectors general. the council needs a budget for many other things as well. in my view, it would be money well spent. it would me several million dollars and we call that budget dust. it is not a lot in it would have a tremendous impact, so that is one of the recommendations in my book. >> thank you.

>> the question, glenn, a serious question and then a not so serious question. the serious question is, we have talked about this in the past. you did a lot of work in afghanistan and iraq, obviously, hundreds of billions of dollars spent among other things. a good reason to have a d.o.d. ig in afghanistan. anyone who has been a reporter or a soldier in afghanistan or iraq knows that frequently, americans would go out on behalf of the government and had huge wads of money to tribal shakes, warlords, et cetera, to try to buy loyalty or to find anti-insurrection, anti-insurgency activities, and it always struck me -- american soldiers driving around with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, handing it out sort of randomly. it was in the interest of the pentagon to do this, but it is participating in the corruption of another country. i'm wondering how we never

actually close that conversation. how do you parse that? how do you oversee a government, a u.s. government operation in a country that has different understandings of what corruption is? >> it is a challenge. it is a problem for many, in many ways. you do not have the same internal controls or the same guardrails or the same understanding of what is acceptable and what is not. to even please this money, it is a challenging environment because, many times, it was a dangerous environment and our staff could not go outside the wire to do that we had to rely on sometimes the military and sometimes afghan officials and it is very problematic and when you're dealing with lots of cash . yes, there is going to be corruption and a lack of internal controls. in my view, that is one of the reasons the afghan government fell so quickly when we left because corruption was so endemic to their system

therefore was not trust in the government. when we left, it collapsed. and i believe that, you know, corruption undermines trust in the government as much as anything else. we have seen that around the world and that is why oversight and effective internal controls are important and also why i think our system is an important model for others as well. when i was the ig, i would have officials from many countries come to talk to igs and they stop and talk to me and they marveled at our system. i do not think anyone has the same level of resources, statutory authority, jurisdiction as we do. maybe a few, but i do not think so. i think that is one of the strengths of our system. it is one of the strengths of our democracy. it is not perfect and cannot stop everything, but it is a pretty powerful tool to fight corruption. >> my last question has to do about the 1978 nba draft. so, there were two players of

note of for the draft in 1978. the first was magic johnson and many of you know what happened with him. the second was glenn fine. the harbor point guard. the question is, and for those of you who do know, glenn was drafted. you were not drafted first, but you were not drafted last. you might've actually technically been drafted last. >> pretty close to last. >> nevertheless, you were drafted. did you ever have a temp tatian to skip the roads and try it? >> i was drafted. i was drafted in the 10th round of the nba draft. they only have two rounds now. but then, they had 10 rounds. i was pretty close to the bottom. in fact, when i was the ig, that is the first thing you want to talk about. were you really drafted by the nba? yes, i was. they said, you are too short. >> and generals are towering over you. they said, you are too short. i said i was drafted in the

10th run by the san antonio spurs. i am five foot nine inches tall. before i started at the ig, i was six foot nine inches tall. so, i had to actually prove that i was drafted. i got an article and in it, everybody was drafted. in order of draft. and in big, bold letters at the top, it does say earvin johnson, michigan state, los angeles lakers. and in tiny little letters at the bottom, it says glenn fine, harvard, san antonio spurs. at least i'm in the same article as magic johnson. what an honor. so, you asked if i ever, you know, considered trying out. i considered, but i realize the chances of a 5'9" point guard from harvard making it in the nba were slim and i had a better chance as a lawyer, so i did not go to that trial camp and i do not regret that, but sometimes i do regret that it did not go and i could've played with an all-time nba great, george girvan, a trial camp.

his nickname was the ice man. he was an all-time leading scorer. maybe i would've gotten an authentic san antonio spurs jersey, but who knows? maybe the senator new coach, gregg popovich, watches c-span and maybe i can get an authentic san antonio spurs jersey. one can always hope. >> three to politics and prose, we hope. thank you very much, glenn. this is great. >> if you are doing booktv, bennifer our news little using the qr code on the screen to receive a schedule about upcoming programs, other discussions, book festivals and more. booktv, every sunday on c-span 2 or anytime online at booktv.org television are serious readers.

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