WASHINGTON – Senate
Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, are pressing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of
Inspector General to address reports that it has delayed and downplayed reports
of sexual harassment and misconduct at DHS. In a letter to DHS Inspector
General Joseph Cuffari, the Senators cite documents recently released by the
Project on Government Oversight (POGO), which suggest intolerable levels of
sexual harassment and sexual misconduct at DHS. These documents raise serious
concerns about DHS OIG’s efforts to delay the release of an unpublished report
containing troubling findings about apparent widespread sexual harassment and
misconduct within the agency. The Senators further asked Cuffari to
explain his reasoning for removing certain information from draft reports and
how these decisions comply with CIGIE standards.
“The unpublished
report reveals that a DHS OIG survey completed in 2018 found that more than
10,000 of 28,000 responding employees at DHS law enforcement components say
that they have experienced sexual harassment or misconduct,” the Senators
wrote. “The majority of respondents also said that they did not report the
incidents, and of those who did, about 41 percent reported that doing so
‘negatively affected their careers.’”
The Senators
continued, “[D]elays and revisions in publishing the report appear to have
downplayed the severity of the crisis… Sexual harassment and misconduct in
agency ranks always demand immediate action. Any efforts by an OIG to obscure
or downplay the seriousness or pervasiveness of the issue, or to improperly
delay releasing evidence of misconduct, are inappropriate.”
Full text of the
letter to DHS Inspector General Cuffari is available
HERE.
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