britta and mr. leeds and bob peck and michael robertson and i discussed the entire matter together in a meeting. it was a meeting in which we reviewed what was happening. we agreed it was egregious. it was of high concern -- >> who was at the meeting? >> the deputy administrator, the chief of staff, the commissioner, the senior counselor, and myself. >> mr. robertson, mr. peck, ms. britta -- >> mr. leeds and myself. and we discussed this report and we agreed it was egregious and we were eager -- we were eager to get the final report so we could act. it took nine months before we were able to receive a final report. i will say that had i had that report earlier, i felt i could have moved much more strongly with respect to -- >> we will come deeper into those details. mr. walz? >> thank you, mr. chairman. and ms. johnson, i want to make sure i avoid gross generalizations and due process and myself and i know this committee as a whole, the interest is not for grandstanding and while the loss of your ca

britta, the deputy administrator. >> and ms. britta, you notified mr. cox about the upcoming junket and expressed concern, right? >> i did. >> what exactly happened? >> i asked her to review the plans -- >> and that called it off, didn't it? no. then another junket, that one to california, the hawaii-guam stipend trip with staff. four-day site visit to hawaii. and then this offsite trip to napa, is that california? you got to go to the wine region. i see why mr. neely is not with us today and the only pictures i can get of him are in his hot tub suite. but i thank you, ms. britta for your coming forward and for your trying to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars, yield back. >> thank you mr. micah. mr. shaw? >> thank you for having this very important hearing today, needless to say i was appalled when i first heard about some of the things that the gsa administration had paid to the taxpayers or their conference. this congress has had its share of disagreements over the past how to reduce the federal spending and how to address the deficit issue, howev

britta if they had discussed in the review the ig report and where it was. she said there was virtually no mention of it in the meeting. i can't remember exact words. but she said that they did not consider that in their deliberations of recommending a three. the buildings commissioner recommended a four. he said that based on mr. kenneally's performance with respect to the leasing portfolio was the strongest across the country and that fit with a four recommendation. i appreciate the issues between conduct and performance, but both recommendations given to me were based on these performance measures and i accepted the commissi commissioner's recommendation. >> you have a report that's been issued by the ig. the ig -- i got to say, if the ig called my office, i think everybody in our office would snap to attention. i mean, the fbi comes into your business, you bet you bet peopl attention. now if the fbi came back to a business and issued a preliminary report, do you think that -- let me back up. mr. miller, when you go into somebody's office and you issue a

miss britta went to the ig in november. in may, the ig came back with the recommendation to you, advised to you, to get a handle on the regional conference's travel. this is may of last year. in june, the chief of staff michael robertson informed the white house. he was formally the liaison to the white house. he let kimberly harris, white house counsel, know about active ig investigation regarding fraud and wasteful spending related to the western regions conference. in august, you felt it was important enough to put ruth cox, regional administrator for region nine -- let me stop there. did you put ruth cox in as the new regional administrator? >> yes, we appointed ruth cox as the regional administrator. >> why? >> we needed to fill the regional administrator's position. it had been double-filled by jeff kenneally for quite a while. i felt it was -- i'd been working hard to get regional administrators in all the regions. this was the one that was still outstanding. and i was eager to get it filled. for a number of reasons,

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and if it wasn't for miss britta, i don't know, we might not even be here. so i think what's really important is for the public to understand, as you said mr. miller in your opening, what went wrong and what went right. but now we have no excuses going forward not to fix this nightmare. and, you know, i have to say it starts with the two of you working together. it really does. that doesn't mean you're going to agree on every sing le thing. no two people agree on every single thing. but the motivation of cleaning house is key. and putting in those checks and balances so that, look, we can never stop every bad thing from happening, but we know we can stop most. and it starts with accountability for those who committed these, i would say, possible criminal acts. i believe it's very possible. and i know that you're looking at more. and so i think this is so damaging that mr. tanger eventai want you to be more sweeping in your reforms, possibly, than people will be comfortable with. you have to. you have no other option. you can do something here that will last

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

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and if it wasn't for miss britta, i don't know, we might not even be here. so i think what's really important is for the public to understand, as you said mr. miller in your opening, what went wrong and what went right. but now we have no excuses going forward not to fix this nightmare. and, you know, i have to say it starts with the two of you working together. it really does. that doesn't mean you're going to agree on every sing le thing. no two people agree on every single thing. but the motivation of cleaning house is key. and putting in those checks and balances so that, look, we can never stop every bad thing from happening, but we know we can stop most. and it starts with accountability for those who committed these, i would say, possible criminal acts. i believe it's very possible. and i know that you're looking at more. and so i think this is so damaging that mr. tanger eventai want you to be more sweeping in your reforms, possibly, than people will be comfortable with. you have to. you have no other option. you can do something here that will last

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an administration appointee, but her name is susan britta. both of these are women and they stand out as the heros. certainly for the secret service says to me that when you have fewer women than we have in our armed forces, something is wrong with you. because our armed forces have learned to reach out to women and get them to go far from home and risk their lives. >> i also want to get you on record about d.c. councilman, marion barry and the remarks he's made. let's listen to the latest gaffe and we'll get your reaction on the other side. >> it's so bad that if you were in the hospital now, you would find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly out of the philippines, and no offense, but let's get our own teachers. let's get our own nurses so we don't have to be scrounging around in our community and have people from somewhere else. >> d.c. mayor vincent gray asked him to cease and desist today. marion barry is being more di visive, what do you say? >> i have called him, but i'm going to say if you hear the last part of what ma

miller, well, first of all, susan britta, you asked that this conference took place in october 2010. and november shortly thereafter, you asked a review for a review, is that correct? it looks like a preliminary briefing was not done until may of 2011. all of this was not made public until two weeks ago. what took so long in -- in may 20111. >> chairman micah, we interviewed individuals and every time we turned over a stone, we saw 50 more with all sorts of things crawling out. >> but you never published a report. but in june, a providing for administrator johnson, you -- somehow the gsa chief, mr. robinson, michael robinson yesterday who was before ogr committee, and perform eed kimberly ha

the two of you and, i have to say, miss britta, you're the good guys, the heroes in this. we should never forget that. we stand with you, and we will be with you every inch of the way. and don't let anyone stop you from doing the right thing here. because the days are over of these parties. they're over. the days of being unaccountable at gsa are over. and we've got to make sure they're over long after we're -- none of us is sitting in any rooms. because that's what the carter administration thought. they put people to jail. there was fraud. they protected whistleblowers and we got back again and again and again. so let's make it, this time, set into place a system that is going to stop all these bad things that have happened and more. and i think you do it with the best people and you do it with the kind of an organization that builds in the checks and balances. so if you have a bad actor, that bad actor is found out. there's a layer of support. one of the things about the defense at the airports -- and we all get -- we're all critical and we don't think they work and som

>> i -- deputy administrator susan britta and steve leeds were briefing me on it. i do believe the best of my remembrance and again, i don't have any of my material, so bear with me on that, and i can try to check it out, if i need to. but they were updating me on the status of the hats off investigation. the cfo was doing a report about the various regional -- >> did you ultimately, before you left, did you ultimately eliminate hats off in that region? >> i understood that we had, yes. the -- >> you understood that we had? whose job was it? >> i was being briefed by steve

we overwhelmingly forget there are so many good public servants out there, like this woman susan britta on this. there are those that are going to continue to behave like this unless we hold them accountable. so i don't them fired to be political appointees. they need to understand this type of behavior is unacceptable. we can't demonize all public servants. because it was a public servant, this is going on and it needs to stop. >> heather: what kind of checks and balances can we put in place? >> there is a thing called congressional oversight. one of the things that congressman is going to be looking at, is not an $830,000 conference, it's not nearly as much money as $1.7 billion worth of what has claimed is under utilized and vacant property that the gsa has been sitting on. when you have a problem like a conference like this, there are usually other problems in an agency. the head of the agency did the right thing to resign or but you have to look at the overall agency and say what is going on there. >> how does it happen $1.7 billion in unoccupied or under utilized buildings just si

. >> fox news got ahold of a email written july 8 from susan britta and a host of underlings saying,es, tuxedos and mind reader don't lend themself to a claim of a stub tan active conference and she speaks of a letter of reprimand, which they were crafting to jeff neely, the regional administrator on leave. she says it was not even a slap on the wrist and encourages them to pay attention to how "the washington post" would cover this if it were to become a news story. >> i approve of paying attention to the "washington post" but i would add this is a picturesque scandal which means it's very tough for the administration to knock down. great visuals, clown suits, hotels, the 16-dollar muffin conference at the justice department turned out to be phony. this one seems real and has legs. >> is this the tip of the iceberg? it's not a big deal in terms of the money but the contempt and disdain. one way it reduce government waste, reduce the size of government. >> thank you, panel. that's it for them. stay tuned for the search for an identity. coming right up. [ horn honks ] hey, it's sandra

and if it wasn't for miss britta, i don't know, we might not even be here.think what's really important is for the public to understand, as you said mr. miller in your opening, what went wrong and what went right. but now we have no excuses going forward not to fix this nightmare. and, you know, i have to say it starts with the two of you working together. it really does. that doesn't mean you're going to agree on every sing le thing. no two people agree on every single thing. but the motivation of cleaning house is key. and putting in those checks and balances so that, look, we can never stop every bad thing from happening, but we know we can stop most. and it starts with accountability for those who committed these, i would say, possible criminal acts. i believe it's very possible. and i know that you're looking at more. and so i think this is so damaging that mr. tanger eventai want you to be more sweeping in your reforms, possibly, than people will be comfortable with. you have to. you have no other option. you can do something here that will last for ge

the whistle blower of all of this was susan britta. she testified before a house committee tuesday. >> during my 18 years with this committee, there were many serious issues that this committee addressed but none rises to the hill of the wasteful spending -- level of the wasteful spending of the conference. as a civil servant and taxpayer, i share your anger and disappointment in gsa's conduct. >> today's hearings begin later this afternoon. >>> now to campaign 2012 this morning and some closures to the april 3 primary in the district. today the d.c. board of elections will certify the results in the at large primary for the democrats. vincent orange won that race by about 1700 votes over sekou biddle. there will not be an automatic recount. >>> pepco customers may not love their power company but these days they at least hate them less. the american customer satisfaction index is out. last year you can remember pepco was the most hated company in america. this year it's not even the worst power company. it's second to last on the list

. >> yesterday the whistleblower in this case testified, as well, susan britta. >> you notified the regionalconcern, right? >> i did. >> and what happened? >> i expressed concern and asked her to review the plans and make sure -- >> that called it off a, didn't it? no. >> were you surprised that she was ignored. >> yes. yeah. i mean, she should be praised for being a whistleblower for coming out and putting her job on the line when all of this was going on throughout the entire agency, but after the inspector general was involved and after he issued his first report a year and a half ago, she was fighting the same uphill battle trying to put a stop to and getting ignored, from all the way from the top. >> you mentioned president obama and his administration in this particular scandal. are you looking at past administrations, as well, to see if this is ongoing for quite some time? >> absolutely. in these video wheres they're bragging about the issues here, not only take on president obama a, but take on the previous chair of this committee who has been trying to look at this area for quite so

martha johnson send e-mail to susan britta. i spoke about yesterday after the session.he's recommending for. yes on a bonus. he was also the acting ra forever and a day. there are criminal issues at stake here. this is all of the report you have a copy of the year ago period that you read. but mr. neely had a copy does and he read. and still continue to take many other trips, which will get into greater detail here shortly. many other trips with other criminal issues involved and you felt that it was important to go against committee staff and upgrade him and give him a bonus. that is a culture within an agency that shows no matter what investigative report is going on, no matter what information or details we have, we're going to operate business as usual. so i don't think you can see turn blame everything on mr. neely when you're the one who recommended him for a raise after giving him a letter of reprimand. to have a response? >> mr. chairman, as i said, i take its possibility for everything that happened on my watch. as i said i was focused on performance among the

and if it wasn't for miss britta, i don't know, we might not even be here. so i think what's really important is for the public to understand, as you said mr. miller in your opening, what went wrong and what went right. but now we have no excuses going forward not to fix this nightmare. and, you know, i have to say it starts with the two of you working together. it really does. that doesn't mean you're going to agree on every sing le thing. no two people agree on every single thing. but the motivation of cleaning house is key. and putting in those checks and balances so that, look, we can never stop every bad thing from happening, but we know we can stop most. and it starts with accountability for those who committed these, i would say, possible criminal acts. i believe it's very possible. and i know that you're looking at more. and so i think this is so damaging that mr. tanger eventai want you to be more sweeping in your reforms, possibly, than people will be comfortable with. you have to. you have no other option. you can do something here that will last