about winning elections because. the christians are against abortion and prop got 82% of the vote. evangelical christian vote in the last two elections. okay. so well, this is another topic. i think that the message to be that that that the woman has a right to health care and this is a basic part of health care and that the politicians reaching out to the right that's not going to protect. thank you. thank you all. now, after the home, i i'm trying to chat. it remains of our our program alisha that all this time putting together and did a great job. thank so much thank you, everybody for coming coming. so. we're going to set up a signing table over here if you'd like to get the book signed. there be more food coming and the bar is open out there.

so don't feel like you have to be in a rush. okay, so we'll set up the table in just a moment and please enjoy the food and the libations. wow. what a great turnout. good evening, everyone. and welcome to politics and prose. i'm brad graham, the co-owner of bookstore, along with her with my wife, lissa muscatine and. it's quite a special treat for us to be hosting glenn fine, who's here to talk about his new book, watch dogs inspect orders general and the battle for honest and accountable government. it's a it's a special treat because glenn is a longtime friend, mine and of listeners so

we've known for some time of his distinguished service as the inspector general of not just one major department but to the justice department for 11 years and, the pentagon for four years. among familiar with what inspectors do, glenn, is widely a leading example of how to do the job but not many aware of ig's. which is why glenn decided, to write this book, recounting his experiences and detailing and very instructive terms how i use seek to make government more more efficient and more accountable. and in the book also puts forward some thoughtful proposals for for strengthening oversight. you know being ig can be a pretty thankless position.

glenn recalls a number of in which he was obstructed, criticized or worse by those who he sought to investigate, but over the years, he earned a reputation for and which served him well until, alas he ran afoul of one. donald j. trump. it was april 2020 at the start of the covid pandemic, and glenn had been to lead a committee of other igs charged with monitoring how the administration be spending trillions dollars in pandemic relief. trump had other ideas and had particular issues with igs tending to view them as undermining his own authority over the executive branch. he'd never even agreed to put glenn up for senate confirmation

as dodd's keeping him as acting ig. and then to thwart glenn from heading the pandemic relief group, trump abruptly demoted. not long after glenn resigned altogether. looking back on on his career choices, glenn could easily have taken other, less, more profitable in life as a lawyer and private practice, for instance. in fact, he tried that before his first stint 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 his measly five foot nine inch height, as you'll see in a after graduating from harvard,

where he was co-captain, the basketball team, glenn, picked by the san antonio senator pro 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. now, still would seriously anyone against challenging glenn to a shooting contest from the foul line. my wife, lyssa, did that. she sunk nine out of ten. glenn may. all ten. jim mattis the retired four star marine corps general who, served as secretary of defense when glenn was ig. describes glenn in the introduction to dogs as a great example of the, quote, breed of sentinels who watch over our government and help restore

trust. we all should feel very fortunate and grateful that glenn chose to wage battles he did for honest and accountable government, and that he has now written about them in this very book, in conversation with, glenn will be. jeff goldberg, who also knows a thing or two about investigations. he leads them at the atlantic magazine, where he's editor in chief and he's also moderator of the washington with the atlantic on pbs. jeff, as as the author of prisoners about his years long dialog and friendship with the palestinian he first got to know guarding him at a prison camp in israel. so, ladies and gentlemen, please join in welcoming glenn fine and jeff goldberg. thank you.

thank you. oh, look, welcome to the federal. hey. glad you all could be here. glenn, thank you for being here. i also have to like brad, admit that i've been friends with glenn for a very long time. we got to know each other when he prosecuted for corruption in the late eighties. unsuccessfully? no, no. i did a couple of years in allenwood, but it was good for my character, and glenn thought it was. and we became best friends after that. but i want to thank all of you for coming, first of all. and and i'm 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, very helpfully provided me with a list of 140 questions that i could that i could ask. it starts with what do the letters aig stand?

instagram and instagram and the the the last question. can you explain the immutable nature of corruption in the hearts of men? so we're going to we're to work our way to that. that might be part two of this book. but glenn, why don't you actually just start by talking about it is i mean, maybe people in this in this audience know something about what an is, but talk about the institution came about especially in the post-watergate era and 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, lisa and the incomparable politics prose for hosting this event for the launch. my book, which officially is released tomorrow. thank you, jeffrey for agreeing to interview. interview. and i'm sure he's not gonna use any of. the questions i asked i gave to him on principle. obviously. and i also want to thank i see so many colleagues in the community here, some friends,

family. i see some tennis buddies. thank you all for coming out to support to support me and support this book. so in the inspector general act was passed in 1978, that's the year i graduated college. it was one of a series of post-watergate reforms. and the idea was to put an internal independent within each federal agency, to inspect, to evaluate to investigate that agency, to find waste abuse in that agency. and it is an unusual position is within the agency, but it reports both to the head of the agency and to congress. and it independent. you get to decide what to audit, what to investigate, what to evaluate. and the head of the agency can't stop you. in fact, i'll i'll tell you a story about that when i first when i became an ig, i decided was going to brief all the new attorneys general and secretary of defense is when they came into office to explain the concept around ig. not many people understood it. even government officials like

them. in fact, i remember one time i briefed the attorney general about the inspector general were independent and and how we and i'll never forget this he looked at me. he his head and he said, so you're telling me. i can order everyone else around in this building, the main justice building, tell them what to audit, what to evaluate, what investigate. but i can't tell you what to do. and i looked back at them and said, yes, that's what the inspector general act requires. and he stared at me intently. and then he said, okay, if that's the law, we follow law around here. and he did, as did all the other attorneys general, five that i worked for and in the department of justice from 2020 11, the secretaries, defense, the four that i worked for and i was very fortunate to have that happen to me. who was who, who? the best person to work for in terms of independence and understanding that you can actually bring value to the departments you work in. so i appreciated all of them,

but i, i do want to single two of them out. one in the department of justice john ashcroft. john ashcroft was an auditor. he was this his first job in public service was as an auditor general of the state of missouri. and when i first met him, he said to me, we had a motto in missouri as the auditor general in god we trust all else we verify. so he about inspectors general and was very supportive of our role. in fact, he would tell the senior staff of the justice department you have to cooperate with the ig, the 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 what it's it's painful while you're in the dentist 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 cooperate as a of his message. the one thing i didn't appreciate it when was walking

down the halls of the justice department, i would hear, okay, here comes the dentist. but but there was i appreciate that tone at the top of the department of defense. and i. yeah, no, no. i just want to know. i covered the justice department a little bit in the time that you were there, and they other words besides dentist for you. i just to know. yeah they do have other words for the first ig you're not you're not the most person is the ig in the halls, the justice department or the pentagon food court. you're accused being a lap dog or a junkyard dog or too hard or too soft. it's a witch hunt. it's 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? yeah, you have to have a thick skin. it comes with the territory in terms of the of defense, i would say there are some good ones, but i really appreciate 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

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 we could fix it. and that's the attitude you want. you don't want people to be you want. now you're not going to be to them. you're not going to be friends. but i want to take our work seriously. we try to be tough but fair, and i want them to respect our work. was also being a little clever though. i mean, get the ig, the ig is going to be there whether you like it or not. so might as well make the ig think that you're on his side. yeah. well i don't know if. he would think that i'm 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. it didn't happen because of president trump had been nominated by president obama. and when it got through to president, president trump said, well, he was nominated by president obama. i'm not going to nominate him. and i asked, well, it's a nonpartisan. and the secretary said, i know

that. and he said, look, i hope you remain as the acting. and i did for four years. and he actually gave me he says, you're the acting ig so act and that's what i tried to do. i tried to make the hardest missions 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. well, let's go right at the of your departure from the in part so we can move on to other possibly more interesting things. what do you think happened in the acting role? you're doing your job. you're -- off the right people. but in a nonpartisan way, presumably right. what about the the the covert investigation or the oversight, do you think, triggered the white house to finally move against you? i think it was partly the time, but partly as you indicated, i

was acting ig the department of defense, the pandemic the congress appropriated, 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 with that chair, the committee and within days he replaced me as the acting ig. he said that he didn't think we needed this oversight. he had said, i will be the oversight. so i think he didn't. independent investigator, aggressive oversight and i was not the only one who was replaced around this time stay stay on that point because because his his impulse to say that we don't need igs that that's of a piece with other attitudes that he's he's evinced is there anyone else in government you've ever run into who took that same harsh line about the idea of independent oversight. yeah well there were there were a number of people in government who didn't love the ig, didn't like the concept, but they were not in a position to do anything

about it. and no, nobody loves the i.g. and i would say this to all organizations need oversight. most resist it. and in fact, when the ig act passed, the justice department said we don't need oversight, we're a department of lawyers. i don't think that argument age that well because eventually aig was created in the department of justice and the value of it has been shown. same with the fbi. the fbi said we don't oversight. we have an internal investigate of body and the ig would second guess our decisions. eventually we got jurisdiction over the fbi and that was important. and we've shown the value of that. even the department of defense. i don't know if we'll get to this, but even in my view, the judiciary and the supreme court need an inspector general and need an internal. let's get to it. okay. yeah. what's the what's the argument? the for subpoenas here? and how do you convince the

supreme court to accept this idea that every 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 $8 billion budget. it has 30,000 employees, any organization in that size needs an internal professional internal investigator to evaluate to look at processes to improve the situation. in addition, there are allegations of misconduct those are not handled in a credible professional way. we've had recent allegations against supreme court justices and basically we rely on the justices themselves to respond and then to say there's nothing to see here. in my view, the supreme would benefit from an inspector general who, could investigate the facts, make transparent what happened, would not be able to to make a management decision or make decisions. but at least we would understand what the facts are of the case and think that it's in the interest of the judiciary in the

supreme court to have one because public trust in the supreme court the judiciary has diminished dramatically. it's at an all time low. i think part of that obviously 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 supreme court urgently needs, one, and the judiciary urgently needs one. and would benefit from one. come back to trump just so we can close it out. did ever in your time serving in that administration, although apart from it, obviously, did you ever meet him? ever talk to senior officials of the white house about the role? i never met with president trump. i did talk with senior officials in the white house when we had matters that affected the white. so no, i had no direct. but that's not unusual because an ig does not have and should not have direct contact with the white house. if i got a call from the white

house, any president, i wouldn't take the call. they should go through the justice department, the attorney general. and we're independent. and i did not want to be dealing with the white house and pressure that they would they would try to impose on us. we did our job without contact with them. i'm going to ask you a question that i know sober minded lawyers love. speculative. if trump won again would you expect an assault the ig system. so yeah i don't want to speculate i do think that he has made clear he's he's not a big fan of igs i think igs would be tested and so you know we'll have to see i think igs can stand up to the challenge i would hope so and so we'll to see what happens. i want you to go back a bit to your college career. i don't want a game by game recitation of your immense victories over yale but why not there that many first of all

yale princeton. but but but there is a moment i mean in and you detail this in the book. i want you to people a little flavor of it. it's a very moment in your life because it taught you a corrosive lesson about about corruption. why don't you give us the setting and and describe what happened. yeah. so this is i start the first chapter of the book with this with this story. so the aig act was passed in 1978, creating igs in 12 cabinet agencies. and i had my brush with corruption in 1978 and it happened on the floor of the boston garden. i was a basketball player. i was the captain of the harvard basketball team. and our biggest game of the season was against boston in the boston garden. but it was also the same day that i had my final for the rhodes scholarship, and there was a problem because the final interview was in baltimore and the game was in boston. so i was torn. but had an alum from harvard who saw the situation and said, i'm

going to send a plane down to pick you up the baltimore airport private plane after your over, before the dust elections are made, fly to the boston garden. you can make it in time. the tip off and that's what happened changing in my uniform on the way there i got to the garden a few minutes before tip off. boston college was a strong team favored by 12. i had the best game of my college career. i 19 points, 14 assists and eight steals. they were favored 12. but it was nip and tuck the whole way we were up. they were up five. they won the last minute by three points. then i oh my goodness. i have to call to find out if i'd want a rhodes scholarship. so in my uniform. i went to the payphone in the concourse of the garden and dialed up and said, can you tell me what happened they said? congratulations, mr. fine. you're a rhodes scholar. wow what a day. the best game my college career. and i want a rhodes scholarship. there was only one problem. the game fixed that two mafia

mobsters had bribed boston college players to point meaning to win by just any mobsters the way it's not just any mobsters. henry hill and jimmy burke. you ever see anybody see the movie goodfellas? they were the two played by ray liotta and robert niro. they were the mobsters who bribed several boston college players to shave. and the first game they shaved points against harvard. and when i was at oxford sports, illustrated broke the story and they henry hill explained happened. friend of mine sent me the article and wrote on the top, hey, glen, i guess you played your best game when the other team was in the tank tank and it was true. and so later on, after i was nominated many years later to be the inspector general of the department, 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 weed out corruption in the justice department was because he was involved in the notorious boston

college point shaving game. so maybe that's true. by the way, there's also thing there's everybody know espn 3430, it's like a segment they did they did one on the playing squad playing for the mob. and they had and they had a clip of the harvard game and they had a clip of me driving down the court shooting, a jump shot making the jump shot and. a few years ago, i showed this to my two kids. the clip of them, of me shooting the jump shot. and the only comment they had was, hey, dad, your hair is long and your shorts are really short, but know that was the style back then. so how did they. well, let's go into this a little bit more. how did they corrupt boston college player. you see where i'm going with this? but how did how how did corrupt people corrupt previously non-corrupt people think they do it in steps they, dangle something small and then bigger. and once they have them on the hook, they can't get off the hook. and so i think they tried to find weaknesses and they knew one of the players. they were from the same city and they just they just tempted him

and he took the bait. and then this guy this one player tried recruit others. and then once, once you've taken the bait they have, you have their hooks into you. i ask that, because one of the most astonishing stories in this book, which has a lot of astonishing stories, is, is a case in the navy that you invested gated when you were a dod. the fact leonard case, it's well known case and it's wondering if you describe that the thing that's astonishing about it is not the corruption. it sort of we hear this kind of corruption being bribed or induced do things that they shouldn't be doing with government money. but what's astonishing is that all 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 and annapolis and pride and all the rest don't seem superficially, at least to be the sort of people who could easily be swayed by a corrupt

contract. but there you are. but they were. that's right it was the worst corruption in navy history. fat leonard leonard glenn francis owned a ship supply company in the south asia, and he would supply ships with tugboat services and sewage and water, everything. and he got contracts by corrupting navy officers and how did he do it step by step, first he would give them small gifts. then he would give them dinners. then he would dangle trips and then prostitutes and, then cash. and what happened was he would do these dinners and of the navy officers went and you would why are they all going? well, because they're their captain went and their superiors went and seemed to be going. and so he was like an intelligence agency. we could have been a great kgb agent because he knew what your weakness was, he tried to exploit that weakness and he would dangle the bait once he got you the hook, he would demand things in return and also tell you, i'm going to i have i

have the evidence and i'm going to out you. if you if you don't do what i ultimately ultimately they were hundreds of navy officers who involved about 33 of them pleaded guilty to crimes. others were given censures and other administrative a lot of careers lost careers, careers lost admirals, captains. and you you know, look, i've been in i was in the business for 20 years and i shouldn't surprised by it, but i was surprised the extent it and why nobody raised their hand or more vociferously and there were a few but said no. and i think part of the reason i mean i try to think about what the reasons were. and i think part of the reason they saw everybody else doing it, some of them felt entitled to it. they were risking their lives on behalf of their country some of them felt, well, we're out in the pacific. you know, they're not going to find out. and some of them were just they wanted the benefits and it was it was shocking how widespread scandal was it was the it is the worst corruption scandal in navy history before, the boston college scandal, where you aware

of corruption as an issue? did you ever do anything wrong in, your life? that sounds like a question on the polygraph that the last year did you do wrong? i'm to plead the fifth amendment. yeah. no, you're not. you've never even stolen a pack of gum. right. let's move on to the next quote. i would just say the one of the that's the astonishing story. but it's a kind of corruption we know one of the there's there's another aspect of this book that is really quite astonishing and troubling, which is it kind of reaches its apotheosis in the in the hanssen case the scary thing about it as a reader is you can't believe in the full light of day after or after a case is unwound how someone got away with something so ridiculous for many years. i want you to give little bit of the taste, a little bit of a taste of that of that. what and why the fbi was obliged

and essentially for years to a kgb spy in its midst. yeah. so robert hanssen was an fbi agent who was the most damaging in fbi history as a result of him spying for the russians in the. for over two decades, we lost a number of assets. we lost secrets we lost sensitive technologies. and he evaded detection for 20 years. eventually, he was caught in thousand and one. and when it happened, the fbi said, well, that's because he was intelligence analyst in the fbi and he used his intelligence skills evade detection. and so we were asked, investigate how did it happen and what we found out was that nothing could have been further from the truth. he was a mediocre agent, very unusual, twisted individual with all sorts of red flags, and he was very flieger in about what he was doing. but nobody really followed up on it. so he was never given a background investigation 20 years. he didn't have to take a polygraph he spent money way beyond his means and spent money way beyond his means.

he would take he took a stripper with him on an inspection tour. nobody and nobody said anything about it. he deposited money from the russians, a bank account, a block from the fbi. he used to tell the fbi telephone to contact the russians. he hacked the computer systems of the fbi. and when he's out, he said, well, i did this to show how vulnerable the system was. and they okay. and and they did not collect the derogatory information and the problem was what we found out and what we said was the fbi did not have an effective security strategy. their strategy was based on trust. we trust the rf, our employees and trust is not a good internal security strategy. so we made a series of recommendations to improve their internal security and. that's in my view, that's the value of an ig you're independent. you come from the outside not afraid to you to criticize the agency. sometimes agency wants to avoid embarrassment. and we were able to do that and point out things that the fbi missed and were reluctant to do

and followed up on. in fact, there were hearings before congress and the fbi implemented of our recommendations for resistance. others congress had hearings. one of the things an ig does is testify before congress, i testified 50 times in my career and congress starts having a hearing about it. it's amazing how quickly sometimes the agency reacts and makes improvements. and that was the case in this one on hansen was it was it the case that his supervisor like him and therefore cut him slack and that's the danger of working with people who like you what was that? what was that? no, it was the explanation for not notice thing. it was the opposite. they thought he was an ordinary angel. they didn't they didn't like him. they thought he was he was weird. and so instead dealing with it, they sent him off on a detail of the state department where nobody supervised him. they didn't know what he was doing. he didn't to you didn't have to do anything. so he was surfing the internet. they didn't have an audit trail. he would do audit searches on his own name or on assets name if they had an effective

security strategy, they would have found that out. but instead they just pushed him off and. they just tried to, you know, push him off as someone else's. and that's not a good strategy either. tell us how you caught him or how he was caught. that's classified. so we're not going to tell the parts are and tell the parts, you know, that i'm talking about. i think the the the the placement of false information and files there's also i mean the fbi eventually found out that there was a spy in their midst and they focused attention on him and they didn't mount an effective campaign once that happened. but that was 20 years too late. right. and what were the costs of his spying? billions, millions dollars in lost equipment, but more assets our assets were by by russia. and we lost our whole range assets. and we lost all sorts of sensitive technologies to the russians because he handed over he handed all sorts of information over to them for 20 years. i there's a famous quote from robert gates.

i'm pretty sure you know this one. he said to president, i think in the first week of the obama administration, he said right now someone the federal government is screwing really badly. you'll know. we don't know who it is. we don't what they're doing, but it will eventually land on your desk. is that so? give us a sense of what it's like to go to these kind of jobs every day and knowing that in such a large, organized nations with intermittent accountability or accountability issues, tell us what? so give us a sense of after doing this for so many years. how deep corruption can go or how how deep sort of not even corruption, but just mismanagement. yeah. so so what i would say is this. i, i don't want to overemphasize, but i think the vast majority of government officials are public servants are doing a good job, are conscientious, are not corrupt. but in any large organization in the department of justice, a huge organization in the department fence is a the biggest organization in the world.

it has over 3 million people active duty civilians. the guard it you know, it has a $800 billion budget. if you compare the of defense budget to the gdp of every other country on earth, the department of defense would be the 21st biggest country in the world. right. saudi arabia, right ahead of argentina. so in an organization that big, you're going to have problems. so when the ig's office we had 1800 employees and contractors to investigate evaluate audit that's not enough but you're going to have problems you're going to have all sorts of things. and what i would do is i would wake up each morning and i would see things on the front page of the paper. and i know that's going to be on my desk when i go into the office. and i'm kind glad i don't have to do that now because i read about somebody else's problem. but it is there are going to be a relentless stream of issues that you have to deal with. and one of the jobs of an ig is to focus attention on the big ones, to triage because you

don't have the resources to investigate everything. and one of the things you also want to do is find problems before they blow up and make recommendations to avoid issues to avoid problems. and i think that's one of the key benefits of an ig as well, not simply to find things after fact, but to make recommendations for processes and procedures to prevent them from happening in the future. we're going to go questions in a minute. so and we're going to ask people to line up at this microphone here, because this is being filmed for c-span. but before we get to some questions talk a little bit about. well, i am curious to know one thing in particular is you are among the two or three or four most experienced igs in washington. is there any you would ever go back into the service. not really. i don't think so. i, i did it for 20 years. i loved it. i really enjoyed it.

but i'm going to a new chapter of my life and i, you know, when one door closes and that door closed, other doors opened. and so now 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. i enjoy talking to students and encouraging students to go into public service and to also i do write this book and part of the reason i wrote the book well, the several reasons why i wrote the book, one, i want to encourage citizens to understand the role of the ig and support it. i want to encourage lawmakers to strengthen the ig, but i also want encourage universities and law schools to about igs and maybe encourage some students to go into the ig community or public service in general. and and also i hope that the book can be useful to the 15,000 ig employees, the federal government, to be more effective. there are 15,000 state and local igs as well. so it's a huge community and i

think hope to have an impact on that community as what are the personality characteristics that someone needs to do this kind of internal affairs work? yeah, yeah. i guess i would say three things. one, you have to be nonpartisan. that's important otherwise you won't have credibility, shouldn't be tied to a political party. two, you have to be tenacious. you really you can't just expect one report to solve the situation. you have to keep going back and again and again and again and follow up because people forget about it and you just have to you just have to keep driving the point home. and three, you have to be independent you're not going to be everybody's friend, not going to be popular. you just have to understand, look, i know i wasn't the most person in the department of justice of i'll tell a story about that. so when i first became the justice i.g. i was asked to brief a senator about a report. and i took with me my longtime deputy, terrific guy named paul martin. we went up to hill. i briefed the senator after the

briefing. senator said to me, okay, good briefing. he said, now, let me tell what i think about. inspectors generally point his finger at me and he said, you have to be independent you're going to do things that i don't like. you do things that the congress doesn't like. you're going to do things the attorney general doesn't like. you could do that everybody doesn't like. you can't be like you won't be liked. don't think you'll be liked. he kept pointing his finger at me and saying, you won't be liked. and finally i think my deputy paul had heard enough was he interjected, don't about that, senator. even i don't like him and the senator cracked, was the end of the meeting. it was very humorous retrospect, but there was a there's a good point to story. you're not in it to be liked you're not going to be popular. i hope you're respected. i hope the work you're viewed is tough but fair. but most important, i hope we had an impact on the agency to improve its operations. different igs across the government have different. is that correct? you had a full law enforcement operation and capability at defense especially, but smaller

igs don't necessarily have the same powers. most of the ig, the large igs do do have law enforcement powers. we have carrying law enforcement agents like, fbi agents who make arrests, who investigate criminal conduct to, bring cases to the prosecutor not everybody actually recognized this, that we have a law enforcement power. and if i could tell the story about my wife, my wonderful wife here. it was a sad day when he to arrest her for. no, no, no. she was called for jury duty. and in the voir dire, the judge as well as anybody, a member of a law enforcement organization or has a family member of a law enforcement, and somebody raised their hand and the judge said, yes. he says, i have a family member who's member of the law enforcement organization. what's that? and he said, well, i work for the justice department inspector general. and then beth kind of looked around and raised her hand and said and the judge said yes. and she said, well, my husband is the justice department inspector, so people don't

remember. but we do have law enforcement powers. it's amazing. let me let me take some questions start here. and if anybody, please come down. okay. so i'm a fed, i'm a lawyer and i retired. i worked for a firm that represented. the false claims act. so they were civilian whistleblowers. but what was the role of whistleblower powers? and 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 important cases to the ag's office. i was the idea of justice. we had over 14,000 hotline complaints from from whistleblowers and same at the department of defense. now, 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 serious. and even if the whistleblower

comes with some baggage, they often knowledge in a seat of truth. and so i think it is very important to take whistleblower cases seriously. some of most important cases result from whistleblowers, and we also have to protect them from retaliation retaliation is omnipresent, you know, when somebody gets a complaint against them, the initial reaction is very defensive. who made this complaint? it's not true. we go after that person and you can't do that so. we would investigate retaliation complaints. and sometimes i would actually explain to the officials a department, justice department offense, you're going to get complaints against you. let us do work. do not retaliate against anybody who you think may have made the complaint. and i saw cases where high level general thought that had made a complaint against him and said, i'm going to cut the head off of the snake and went after this person. what for doing for making this complaint turn. the complaint wasn't accurate, but was severely punished because he retaliated. this person and in fact this person, even the one who made the complaint, the complaint was

groundless about the retaliation. that's what the retaliation was really. he lost his career as a result. so what i would tell the generals, i would speak to all the gen new admirals in general in the capstone class. 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 the whistleblowers you deal with it's very, very hard to discern the nature of many whistleblowers. they can be scratchy people, independent minded people, maybe a little eccentric. how hard is it to discern who is coming with a legitimate complaint and who is potentially retaliating themselves? the mechanism of an ig or just having a delusion that they're that they found something amiss. so, yes, that does happen. people don't understand the full story sometimes the whistle blowers want to get back at their supervisor, but that's what an ig does, has to separate the wheat from the chaff and just look at the evidence, not look at the person who's bringing it. you have to understand the

motivation, but you have to look at what they say, because sometimes with significant baggage or may have done something wrong themselves, they still have an accurate complaint and know what has happened and bring and brings the ig something that's very important and needs to be investigated. thank you. you were asked a few moments ago how a corrupt person, corrupt other people and. i want to ask you how. oh, yeah. and i want to ask you, how does a corrupt person corrupt a political party party? i don't know. jeffrey, do you want to answer question? oh, no, i don't. you know, i what i will say is i don't know the answer to that or i mean, i could speculate like you could, but that's not what an ig does. and so i'm going to have to pass on that question. hi. thank you. i'm looking forward to reading your book. i'm actually going be starting an assignment soon as a ig officer at a government agency. and then i'm going to be one of the attorneys working there. i'm curious what advice you have somebody kind of as a legal

adviser coming to an exam office? good, good question. i think, number one, you ought to read my book. there are other books about ig's as well. i read the ig act, but you have to just be independent. you have to recognize that. you're going to have to independent advice and and i would i would you know, what i would tell people would come in, you know, we are a different office. you're not going to be friends with, you know, people in the department you're going to be, you know, in a unique position and you to just understand that and do the best you can to be independent and give that honesty. the important advice that that you will be. do you tell your employees not to be friends with people in the department? well, actually have gotten in trouble for being too close to agency officials. i mean, to go golfing them, too, doing other things, you know? no, you should not be friends with friends, but you should be friendly with them. you should be personally mean. the relationship between the agency head and the ig is is fraught. you are working with the agency, your job. you're 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 wouldn't go to the management and you were just you were just you know, you were you were separate. and so i think it was very important to that distance. i mean, i'll tell you, tell a story. you also you might have to investigate that person, you know, down the road. so you can't be too close to them. so there one leader in the department of defense, a really strong leader with a great sense of humor. chairman of the joint chiefs, mark milley. and he would when he would see me in the halls of the justice department, he would say, hi, glenn, i'm halls of the department of defense. hi, glenn. how are you doing? i would say fine. and then he would say to me, hey, glenn, i under investigation yet? and i would say, not, but the day is not over. and he would laugh and i would laugh. and, you know, it was humorous and, you know, but there's a point to that. you've got to your distance because you may be called upon. and we were called upon to investigate agency leaders.

yeah, i'm interested in the relationship and the relations between the executive ig's and the congressional branch. gao or general accounting office. is there friction? often. is there friction between the two or is that not something that generally happens? so that's a really good question. the accountability here, the question is, is there friction between the gao, other congressional branches or congressional even, i suppose, and igs, which work in the executive. yeah, so the government accountability is an arm of the congress. it can investigate and audit and evaluate programs it works for congress. if the congress asks them to do something, they are pretty much assured they'll do it. we try and work with the gao and coordinate with the gao because we don't want to do investigations or audits it's a bad thing if we're both doing this the same thing or similar things within the agency. so we would try and coordinate with them. and it worked when i was there, work and they were amenable to

discussing with us. now sometimes they had to do a review because a member congress required it, but we would ask them to ask the member of congress, don't you wait until the ig's investigation over and sometimes a member of congress would agree to that if they didn't. the general pretty much would go for it. but we try we try and it in a way that it's not completely duplicative. so the gao is another important oversight entity in the government. think it does very good work and it is important igs and the gao coordinate. they certainly did when i was there right. thanks. i'm just to add to that. that is it fair to say that the gao at the beginning of the ig post-watergate, the beginning of the ig formulation process, the gao was opposed. the creation of igs. yes, they were this was in 1978, the gross well, we we already we we have you know, it's already here and it would just be duplicative and on unneeded and in fact, you know, pretty the entire government under the congress opposed to the creation of igs, joe, was opposed to the

justice department was opposed to it the carter administration, opposed to it. but eventually agreed that, well, when congress passed it, they should sign it into because it was in accord with president carter's view of good government. and there was not too long ago there was a celebration and. i think it was honor of the 40th anniversary of the ig act and a bunch of igs went down to the carter center and he said one of the igs who have to be here, the terrific ig president carter, said that one of his biggest mistakes was opposing creation of the ig act and creation of igs. and they have done tremendous work in the interim. so he recognized the value of the ig but at the time everybody was opposed to it. i'm now very curious about this audience how many people here are currently ig there is there is one brave i see. go ahead, sir. i want to take you back to the month you were fired. you were fired on day and like

day six. you're famous report came out there and in the report you 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 don't know wasn't but can you explain a little bit of the context that so we had reports that, you know, were very sensitive and, you know, of them affected white house equities and there were a of things that, you know, people speculated why i was fired and and it was speculation. i was never a reason. i don't know for sure i mean, there's other no one from the white house ever this to you. it was communicated paper but it wasn't communicated 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? and he went verified it and he got the paper with president trump's signature that i had been replaced. so no, i and i was never given a

reason i could speculate why. i mean, a year before and i talk about this in the book, the president was very upset about us reports call with call lead inspector general reports about the in iraq and afghanistan. and in fact were required to do that by the inspector act and the president. we should not issue these reports. so i was called into meeting the deputy after this televised cabinet meeting where the president said you need to lock up these reports, the acting secretary of defense. so i called into a meeting to actually explain this. i explained, look, the ig act requires it is issued quarterly reports. we've been doing it for several years. we get the information from the department of defense we vet the information with the department to make sure there's nothing too sensitive for public release. and so, you know, unless and until the law is changed, i'm going to keep issuing these reports. now and trump's argument was this was helping the enemy. yeah. he said the enemy reads these reports. but we made sure that any

classified or sensitive information was in the classified appendix. the report, not publicly released. and the department, by the way, could have under ig act of the release of any information, would damage national security and they never the release of these reports so we had issues been issuing these reports for years we continued to issue these they're still being issued. i know that for a fact we have we have maybe not an ig, the audience, but somebody who works for the office, who works on on those reports and we follow the law and that's what we continue to do. thanks hi. i'm interested in learning about women in. this world that you are describing us. how many ideas or how many of them are involved with corruption? who are they? it's more like department of education or more, you know, other places. so what can you tell us about how how women are in this world

that you live so in the ig world, there are many women in law enforcement who work for us at the justice department. some the best agents, auditors. we had a significant of women and some of the best igs even now and when i was there are are women maybe not as many as there should be, but, you know, there are some very effective igs, women, some are not so effective. that's true with men. you know men as well. so one of the actually one of the is speaking that one of the recommendation in my in my book and the back of the book i have well to improve strengthen ig's including that should be an ig for the supreme court but one of them is we need a better answer to the question of who's watching the watchdogs who how are we holding igs accountable? and we have an integrity committee of the council of inspectors general who does which does investigations of ig's but they're slow and consist instant and they're

doing a good job. and my view is they ought to beef that up. they ought to have a professional staff on the integrity. they need a budget for that so that we could have a better answer to the question of who's watching the watchdog. so that's incredibly, one assumes that the appropriate congressional would have oversight over ig activities or investigative power over ig activities they thought were errant, you know, yes, the congress does scrutinize ig activities, the senate government affairs committee, the house government affairs committee, they have jurisdiction, as do many other committees and. they yes, they do scrutinize ig's, but they haven't given ig's the adequate budget in view and they also haven't given the counsel of inspectors general an adequate budget so they can do all the important that they need to do to improve the operation of the ig system. yeah, i have two more quick questions for you before you can sign books or do you have a question? go ahead. yes, i do. just going back to the i see i

don't know how, long the icc has been in existence. i heard that last there were over 7000 complaints to the integrity of covered either or covered 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's ever going to be a point where the integrity committee is funded enough and staffed enough that it be effective? or would it be better to go back to the fbi? well, so when fbi was on the integrity committee, but they weren't really investigating, it was the same system where they would have to it to the integrity committee and the fbi was a member and they would decide which ones to and if they had to get an investigation. they asked another ig on a volunteer basis to the investigation and it was ig was different. they didn't give adequate attention and it was not a priority. so i think it's a good idea to have the integrity committee

form out the investigations when volunteer basis to other igs. i believe the integrity committee ought to have a professional staff beefed up staff so that they can review these complaints in a comprehensive way and if their investigation that needs to be done. the integrity committee staff with the experience and knowledge and and resources would do that investigation and do it 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 would be money well spent, wouldn't be lots of money would be several million dollars in the department of defense. we call that budget dust. it's not a lot and it would have a tremendous impact so that's one of the recommendations in my book. thank you. the question, glenn, a serious question than a not so serious question. the serious question is and we've talked about this in the past, you did a lot of work in afghanistan, iraq, obviously hundreds of billions of dollars spent, among other things, good

reason to have a dod in in afghanistan. but anybody in this room who's been a reporter or a soldier in afghanistan or iraq knows that frequently americans would go on behalf of their government and hand huge wads of money to, tribal sheiks, warlords, etc., two by 2 to 2 by loyalty or two to fund anti insurrection, anti anti-insurgency activities, and it always struck me. american soldiers driving around with hundreds, thousands of dollars in cash, handing it out, sort of randomly. it was in the interest of the the pentagon to do this, but it's it's participating in the corruption of another country. and i'm wondering how we never actually closed that conversation. i was wondering how you pass that. like, how do how do you how do you oversee a government, a u.s. government in a country that has different understandings of what

corruption is? it's a challenge? it's a problem. it's a problem for many in many ways, you don't have the internal controls. you don't have the same guardrails you don't have the same even understanding of what's acceptable and what's not. and then to even police this money, it's it's challenging environment because many times it was a very dangerous environment and we couldn't staff couldn't go it was called outside the wire to do that so we had to rely on sometimes the military, sometimes afghan officials. and it's very problematic, difficult and particularly when you're with lots of cash. so, yes, is going to be corruption, a lack of internal controls. and in my view, that's one of the reasons the afghan fell so quickly when we left because corruption was so and to their system that there was not trust in the government. and when we left it collapsed. and i believe that know corruption trust in the government as as anything else. and we've seen that around the world and that's why oversight

and effective internal controls are important and also i think our system is an important model for others as well. when i was the ig, i'd have officials from many countries come to talk to igs and they'd stop, talk to me and they marveled at our i don't think anyone has the same level of resources, statutory authority jurisdiction as we do. maybe a few, but i don't think so. and i think that's one of the strengths of our system. the ig system is one of the strengths of our democracy, not perfect, can't stop everything, but it is a pretty powerful tool to fight corruption. so my last question for you to do with the 1978 nba draft. so there were two players of note up for the draft in 98. the first was magic johnson and many of you know what happened with him. and then the second was glenn fine, the harvard guard, the

question is and for those of you who don't know, glen was drafted you weren't drafted first, but you were but you weren't drafted last. actually, you have actually technically been drafted. laughs pretty close to already goes last year. nevertheless your did you ever have the temptation skip the roads and try it. yeah so i was drafted i was drafted in the 10th round of the nba draft. they only have two rounds now. now back then they had ten rounds so i was pretty close the bottom and in fact, you know, when i was the ig people that general is the animals. that's the first thing you want to talk about. are you really drafted by the nba. yes, i was. and they said, you're too short generals who are towering over you. right. they said you're too short. and i said, yeah, i was drafted in the 10th round, the 1979 draft by the san antonio spurs. i'm five foot nine inches tall before i started this job, the ig, i was six foot nine inches tall, so i actually had to prove i was drafted. so i got an article and in the article this everybody was drafted. 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 the bottom it says glenn fine fine harvard san antonio spurs. but at least i'm in the same article as magic johnson, what an honor that so you know one of the so you asked if i ever just you know considered trying out. well i consider but i realize that the chances of a five foot nine point guard from harvard making the nba were slim and none. and i had a better chance as a lawyer, so i didn't go to tryout camp and. i don't regret that. but sometimes i do regret that. i didn't go and i could have played with an all nba great george gervin at draft camp. his nickname was the ice man. he was an all time leading scorer, and i maybe would have gotten know an authentic san antonio spurs jersey, but knows maybe the san antonio coach, gregg