WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is raising new questions about spending practices at the U.S. Marshals Service following new whistleblower allegations that contradict previous information provided by the agency.
In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Grassley raised concerns about the apparent cost associated with moving the agency’s headquarters to a new location. Whistleblowers allege that the actual cost of the relocation is approximately twice as much as original projections and millions of dollars more than the $30.8 million allocated this year for work plans of all 94 Marshals Service districts throughout the country. Allegedly included in the plans are personal in-office bathrooms and showers for leadership, a private gym, and several lucrative consulting contracts for the build-out. Despite previous indications from the agency that it would move expensive and lavish office furnishings, including recently-purchased furniture and a $22,000 conference table, to its new location, the Committee has learned that the agency plans to purchase new furniture.
Grassley is also raising new questions about expenditures for the agency’s Houston-based Asset Forfeiture Academy. The agency spent millions of taxpayer dollars for the training center, even though it already had access to comparable facilities in Houston through an ongoing lease agreement.
Grassley first raised questions about the agency’s spending practices in March. The Marshals Service’s initial response to those questions was incomplete and potentially misleading, which prompted an investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
Grassley’s letter to Lynch was also sent to House and Senate appropriators as well as the Justice Department’s inspector general. Full text of Grassley’s letter follows:
October 1, 2015
VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
The Honorable Loretta Lynch
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
Dear Attorney General Lynch:
On March 18, 2015, I sent a letter to former Director Stacia Hylton of the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) inquiring into questionable spending of the Assets Forfeiture Fund by officials in the Asset Forfeiture Division (AFD). On April 3, 2015, the USMS responded. In a follow-up letter dated May 6, 2015, I described how information obtained by the Committee suggests that the USMS April 3 letter was incomplete and potentially misleading. Unfortunately, the Committee has received additional whistleblower allegations that suggest further discrepancies between statements in the April 3 USMS letter and the agency’s actual spending habits. In light of these new allegations, and as the investigations by the Committee and the Inspector General continue, this letter requests additional information regarding potentially wasteful expenditures by the USMS.
USMS Headquarters Relocation
In its April 3, 2015, letter, the USMS informed the Committee that it will relocate its headquarters offices in Washington, D.C., in December 2016. According to whistleblowers, the cost of the relocation has skyrocketed to approximately double original projections. The final total allegedly amounts to tens of millions of dollars and much more than the $30.8 million apparently allotted for the work plans of all 94 U.S. Marshals Service districts in Fiscal Year 2015. The agency allegedly is paying for a private gym, personal in-office bathrooms and showers for leadership, several lucrative consultant contracts related to the build-out, expensive and unnecessary audio-visual equipment, and office space for individuals assigned to headquarters divisions but who do not live in the commuting area of Washington, D.C.
This spending does not conform to the impression left by the April 3 letter that the relocation is aimed at saving money. The USMS stated in its April 3 letter that the move “will save $9 million in rent annually totaling $145 million in cost savings over the 15-year lease period.” Such savings are commendable and of significant value for the agency and the taxpayer. However, they do not clearly justify the inefficient use of funds on arguably unnecessary and ballooning construction costs.
Additionally, the Committee’s original March 18, 2015, inquiry asked the agency for details about lavish spending of the Assets Forfeiture Fund on office furniture and fixtures in its Crystal City headquarters location in Arlington, Virginia, and the Asset Forfeiture Academy in Houston, Texas. In its April 3, 2015 response, the USMS explained that many of the expensive furnishings acquired for its Crystal City headquarters offices would be reused when the agency relocated to new space in December 2016. The USMS wrote that, while the fixtures would remain in the current headquarters, “[r]emovable items . . . such as the framed prints and furniture—including the [$22,000] conference table” would be “re-used by USMS or excessed to GSA for use by the Department or other federal agencies.”
Information obtained by the Committee demonstrates that, in fact, the USMS is buying primarily, if not entirely, new furniture for its new offices. These new purchases follow closely on the heels of allegedly excessive spending not only by the Asset Forfeiture Division but also other USMS headquarters divisions. For example, the Prisoner Operations Division (POD) allegedly acquired brand new furniture for its employees just last year—furniture that the USMS apparently will leave behind.
Asset Forfeiture Academy
The Committee’s May 6, 2015, letter also noted that the USMS’ stated reasons for building the Asset Forfeiture Academy in a downtown office building in Houston to achieve “greater consolidation and efficiency” appeared disingenuous. For example, as the letter describes, the USMS already had access to other training facilities at the time the agency built the Academy.
According to new information obtained by the Committee, the USMS also had—and still has—access to additional conference rooms for no additional charge by virtue of the rent it already pays for office space in the Allen Center in downtown Houston. These “Brookfield” conference rooms offer wi-fi internet access and audiovisual equipment, and some can accommodate up to 140 individuals. It is difficult to understand why the agency spent millions of dollars on the Academy when it already had access to ample space for training at multiple venues.
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