Hearings
Hearing Type:
Open
Date & Time:
Tuesday, October 17, 2017 - 2:30pm
Location:
Hart 216
Witnesses
Full Transcript
[Senate Hearing 115-303]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-303
NOMINATION OF CHRISTOPHER SHARPLEY
TO BE THE INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
OF THE
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017
__________
Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Intelligence
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SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
[Established by S. Res. 400, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.]
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina, Chairman
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia, Vice Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
MARCO RUBIO, Florida RON WYDEN, Oregon
SUSAN COLLINS, Maine MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
ROY BLUNT, Missouri ANGUS KING, Maine
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
TOM COTTON, Arkansas KAMALA HARRIS, California
JOHN CORNYN, Texas
MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky, Ex Officio
CHUCK SCHUMER, New York, Ex Officio
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Ex Officio
JACK REED, Rhode Island, Ex Officio
----------
Chris Joyner, Staff Director
Michael Casey, Minority Staff Director
Kelsey Stroud Bailey, Chief Clerk
CONTENTS
----------
OCTOBER 17, 2017
OPENING STATEMENTS
Burr, Hon. Richard, Chairman, a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. 1
Warner, Mark R., Vice Chairman, a U.S. Senator from Virginia..... 2
WITNESS
Sharpley, Christopher, nominated to be Inspector General of the
Central Intelligence Agency.................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 7
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Project on Government Oversight article dated October 16, 2017... 17
Questionnaire for Completion by Presidential Nominees............ 36
Additional Prehearing Questions.................................. 50
Questions for the Record......................................... 69
NOMINATION OF CHRISTOPHER SHARPLEY
TO BE THE INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
----------
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Select Committee on Intelligence,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m. in
Room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard Burr
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Burr, Warner, Risch, Collins, Lankford,
Cotton, Feinstein, Wyden, Heinrich, King, Manchin, and Harris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BURR, CHAIRMAN, A U.S.
SENATOR FROM NORTH CAROLINA
Chairman Burr. I'd like to call this hearing to order. I'd
like to welcome our witness today, Christopher R. Sharpley,
President Trump's nominee to be the next Inspector General of
the Central Intelligence Agency. Chris, congratulations on your
nomination.
I'd like to start by recognizing the family that you
brought with you here today. I understand your wife Kimberly is
here.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, sir.
Chairman Burr. As well as your sons Stefan and Aidan.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes.
Chairman Burr. Stefan, Aidan, give me a wave. OK, good.
[Stefan and Aidan wave.]
Good.
And your daughter Gillian and her husband James, good. And
of course, your mother Joyce. Welcome.
Our goal in conducting this hearing is to enable the
committee to consider Mr. Sharpley's qualifications and to
allow for thoughtful deliberation by our members.
Chris already has provided substantive written responses to
85 questions presented by the committee and its members. Today,
of course, members will be able to ask additional questions and
to hear from Mr. Sharpley in this open session.
Mr. Sharpley earned his B.A. from American University and
received his master's degree from the Naval Postgraduate
School. In 1981, he received a commission from the U.S. Air
Force, where he trained as a special agent and a
counterintelligence officer in the Air Force Office of Special
Investigations. Chris continued to serve in the Air Force in a
variety of posts, including as Director of Security, until he
retired honorably from the Air Force in 2002.
Immediately following his retirement, Chris joined the
Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Energy as
a civilian Federal special agent.
Since then, Chris has worked as the Deputy IG for
Investigations and Inspections for the Department of Energy and
helped to build the new OIG offices at the TARP program and the
Federal Housing Authority. In 2010, Chris received the
Presidential Rank Award for meritorious service for that work.
In 2012, Chris retired as a Federal civilian law
enforcement officer and started his career at the Central
Intelligence Agency. Chris, if you don't mind me saying, I
don't think you're very good at retiring.
[Laughter.]
From 2012 to 2015, Chris served as Deputy Inspector General
at the CIA. Since 2015, Chris has served as both Deputy and
Acting IG of the CIA.
Chris, independent and empowered Inspector Generals are
critical to the integrity and efficient management of the
intelligence community. And I trust that you will lead the
CIA's office with integrity and will ensure your officers
operate lawfully, ethically and morally.
As I mentioned to other nominees during their nomination
hearing, I can assure you that this committee will continue to
faithfully follow its charter and conduct vigorous and real-
time oversight over the intelligence community, its operations,
and its activities. We will ask difficult and probing questions
of you, your staff, and will expect honest, complete and timely
responses.
Chris, I look forward to supporting your nomination and
ensuring its consideration without delay. I want to thank you
again for being here today, for your years of service to your
country, both in law enforcement and in our military, and I
look forward to your testimony.
I now recognize the distinguished Vice Chairman for any
opening statement he might make.
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK R. WARNER, VICE CHAIRMAN, A U.S.
SENATOR FROM VIRGINIA
Vice Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome,
Mr. Sharpley. Good to see you again; and welcome, as well, to
your family. Congratulations to your nomination to serve as
Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency.
I believe that the job of the Inspector General is critical
to the effective operation of any agency. This committee relies
upon the Inspector General of the intelligence agencies to
ensure that the IC organizations are, one, obviously, using
taxpayer dollars wisely; conducting their activities within the
rule and spirit of the law; and supporting and protecting
whistleblowers, whistleblowers who report fraud, waste and
abuse. These IG functions are even more important in an
organization like the CIA, which by necessity does not operate
in the public.
I appreciate that you're the third IG nominee to come
before this committee this year. I wish to express my hope that
we'll soon receive from the President a nominee for the
position of the IG for the overall intelligence community. This
position has been vacant since February, and I know you can't
affect this directly, but I'm very concerned about the number
of changes occurring there.
As I mentioned, Mr. Sharpley, I appreciated our meeting
earlier this month. We talked about a number of important
issues that you will face as the CIA IG I want to reiterate
some of our discussion and ask you, for some of these same
questions that we had in private, to address these questions in
public.
One, we discussed the importance of supporting and
protecting whistleblowers. Today, I want to hear more about
your plans to ensure all CIA employees know their rights and
responsibilities, as well as the processes for them to report
waste, fraud and abuse. And I'd like to hear a greater
commitment from you on this issue.
Your job--and we talked about, again, this in our
conversation--is to be, I think, hard-hitting, to find
problems, uncover abuses and recommend fixes. And you must
guard your independence fiercely. I'd like to hear you reaffirm
that that's also your view of your role in this terribly
important position.
As you know as well, this committee completed a report on
CIA's detention and interrogation program, and specifically
shared it with the Executive Branch to ensure that such abuses
are not reported in the future. You and I discussed how your
office both lost and then found its copy, the copy of the
report, and how you decided to return it to the committee. We
talked about the fact that I disagreed with your subsequent
decision to return it. Today and in public, please describe how
the report came to be lost and why you made the decision to
return it to the committee.
Finally, I want to get your reassurances that you will
support this committee's investigation into Russian
interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, something
the Chairman and I and this committee, I think, has done some
very good work on.
Again, Mr. Sharpley, thank you for, echoing what the
Chairman said, your service to our country. Thank you for being
here today. Thank you for agreeing to accept another
opportunity to continue to serve our country. I look forward to
today's discussion.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, Senator Warner.
Chairman Burr. Thank you, Vice Chairman.
Mr. Sharpley, would you stand, please, and raise your right
hand? Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth--to give this
committee the truth, the full truth and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
Mr. Sharpley. I do, sir.
Chairman Burr. Please be seated.
TESTIMONY OF CHRISTOPHER SHARPLEY, NOMINATED TO BE INSPECTOR
GENERAL OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Chairman Burr. Chris, before we move to your statement, it
is practice of this committee that I ask you five standard
questions that the committee poses to each nominee who appears
before us. They just require a simple yes or no answer for the
record.
Do you agree to appear before the committee, here or in any
other venue, when invited?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes.
Chairman Burr. If confirmed, do you agree to send officials
from your office to appear before the committee and designated
staff when invited?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes.
Chairman Burr. Do you agree to provide documents or any
other materials requested by the committee in order for it to
carry out its oversight and legislative responsibilities?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, I do.
Chairman Burr. Will you both ensure that your office and
your staff provide such materials to the committee when
requested
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, I will.
Chairman Burr. Do you agree to inform and fully brief, to
the fullest extent possible, all members of the committee of
intelligence activities and covert actions, rather than limit
that only to the Chair and the Vice Chair?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, I do.
Chairman Burr. Thank you very much.
We'll now proceed to your opening statement, after which
I'll recognize members by seniority for five-minute question
time. Chris, the floor is yours.
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, Chairman Burr. Chairman Burr and
Vice Chairman Warner and members of the committee: I want to
thank you for affording me the opportunity to appear before you
today, as you consider my nomination to be the Inspector
General of the Central Intelligence Agency. I'm honored and
humbled that President Trump has placed his confidence in me to
tackle the challenges of this important position.
Chairman, if I may, at the risk of being redundant, I would
like to speak to my background and experience that I believe
qualify me to serve as the CIA Inspector General. I am grateful
to have had an opportunity to serve our Nation over the past 36
years, a journey that began shortly after receiving a
commission in the United States Air Force in 1981.
My initial training was as a special agent
counterintelligence officer in the Air Force Office of Special
Investigations. The skills that I acquired prepared me for
challenging assignments during my ten years of active-duty
service and also prepared me for my service for another ten
years in the Air Force Reserves.
My assignments including commander and director of
security, leading teams of counterintelligence and security
specialists in support of highly classified special access
programs. I retired honorably from the Air Force Reserves in
2002.
Upon transitioning to the part-time reserves, I began my
full-time employment as a civilian special agent at the
Department of Energy Office of Inspector General. I rose
through the ranks to become the Deputy Inspector General for
Investigations and Inspections, with program leadership
responsibilities covering the Nation's nuclear weapons complex
and system of national laboratories.
I was privileged to have been asked by two new Inspectors
General, at the Special Inspector General for Troubled Asset
Relief Program and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to
assist them in building brand new Offices of Inspector General,
focused on detecting and countering fraud in the efforts of the
Federal Government to stabilize U.S. banking, securities and
financial markets during the economic crisis of the 2008-2012
timeframe.
In 2010, I received a Presidential Rank Award for
meritorious service for my leadership in building investigative
programs that identified billions in fraud and supported
successful prosecutions that often returned significant dollars
to the U.S. Treasury.
In 2012, I retired from Federal service as a civilian
special agent law enforcement officer. That is when my
experience at CIA began. I was asked by then-CIA Inspector
General David Buckley to compete for his deputy Inspector
General position.
Mr. Buckley informed me that he hoped I would bring the
best practices I had gleaned from other IG-related leadership
roles to be applied at the CIA Office of Inspector General. I
answered that call and entered back into Federal service in
2012, where I served as Mr. Buckley's deputy until his
retirement in January 2015, and where I have served as Deputy
and Acting Inspector General until now.
Mr. Chairman, I strongly believe in CIA's mission to
preempt threats to our Nation and to further U.S. national
security objectives. I also believe the mission of the
Inspector General is essential at CIA. I have and continue to
stand firmly behind the outstanding work of the CIA Office of
Inspector General team of auditors, inspectors, investigators
and support staff.
As Acting Inspector General, I have issued over 100
classified reports, and have made nearly 350 recommendations to
CIA leadership to strengthen key programs and operations and
promote economy and efficiency across the CIA mission.
I have further strengthened processes and procedures within
the Office of Inspector General by incorporating professional
standards and best practices utilized by Offices of Inspector
General across the Federal community.
I have endeavored, I believe successfully, to establish a
reputation within CIA as an independent, objective and honest
Acting Inspector General who does not hesitate to tackle the
hard issues, speaks truth to power and is trusted by CIA
officers assigned around the world and by the Director and his
senior team. And it is my hope, as it certainly has been my
objective, to gain the trust of this committee.
If confirmed, I will continue to keep the committee
informed of Office of Inspector General work, and I will
continue to be responsive to committee concerns and queries.
As I observe world events, it strikes me that the mission
of the CIA has never been more important than it is right now.
National security risks associated with North Korea, Iran,
Russia and China, to name but a few, require CIA's keen
attention.
As these risks increase and the world threat matrix rapidly
changes, CIA appropriately responds, and, I believe,
independent, robust and objective oversight becomes more vital.
I have observed during my career that classified high-risk
missions, big and small, do not receive the same level of
public scrutiny and feedback that unclassified activities
receive. And clearly, there's good reason for that. This is why
a capable Inspector General is needed, one who understands
intelligence activities and who will independently and
effectively audit, evaluate and investigate to ensure mission
integrity and efficiency.
I'm confident that the experiences and skills I've acquired
throughout my career, and in particular as Acting Inspector
General at CIA, have prepared me to fulfill the
responsibilities of CIA Inspector General.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for this opportunity to
testify before you and the committee. I'm pleased to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sharpley follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Burr. Mr. Sharpley, thank you for that testimony.
Before we begin, it's my intention to move to a committee
vote on this nomination early next week. Therefore, for
planning purposes I would encourage members, if they have
additional questions for the record after today's hearing, that
those be submitted by the close of business tonight. I would
also remind members that we are in open session. Therefore,
questions should reflect that fact.
The Chair would recognize himself for up to five minutes.
As CIA's Inspector General, you'll be responsible for
overseeing a large organization whose work in most cases must
be done in secret. But the work of the IG's office can provide
that critical point of transparency for employees and, quite
frankly, for this committee. How do you plan to continue your
efforts to ensure that all CIA employees and contractors are
fully aware of the CIA's OIG and its function?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, sir. Within CIA, there is an awareness
program. People are required to take certain training on an
annual basis. The procedures and processes for making a
complaint to the CIA Inspector General are incorporated in that
training.
We have a significant outreach effort that--we speak with
all incoming employees, new employees, and we give briefings on
whistleblower, whistleblower reprisal whenever the
opportunities arise at conferences, et cetera.
Beyond that, we have an extensive. I think a very mature,
I'm certain a very mature, whistleblower hotline program and
whistleblower retaliation program. I have had the opportunity,
Senator Burr, over the years to build two whistleblower hotline
programs from the ground up, at Special Inspector General's
office, also at FHFA, and to make improvements to two others,
one at Energy and the one here at CIA.
I'm very proud of the practices that we have put in place
that now give CIA officers and those contractors with staff-
like access to systems the ability to make a confidential,
anonymous or an open complaint to us at any given time.
The processes I've put in place ensure that every complaint
that's received and concern that's received is given a review
by the senior staff of the Office of Inspector General so that
particular skill sets, such as audits, inspections or
investigations, are able to look at an issue differently, with
a different perspective, and say whether they think that that
particular complaint or concern should be handled in this way
or that way.
Chairman Burr. What do you see as the biggest challenge for
the CIA's OIG?
Mr. Sharpley. Our biggest challenge, sir, is one of
recruitment and retention. We use the systems that are in place
by the CIA, their recruiting and onboarding processes, to also
recruit our folks. And there is a, in my opinion, inefficient
process of onboarding people at CIA. And it's one that I feel
so very strongly about that I've recently initiated a review to
examine.
For every person that I want to bring on, so if I can--if I
identify an individual that meets a certain requirement to be
an auditor or an investigator--I have to give three conditional
offers of employment. So I know that, statistically, two out of
the three I will lose over the period of time from the time I
give the conditional offer to the time that they would onboard.
And for every conditional offer of employment, I have to
conduct five interviews. So to fill 10 slots in an organization
that does receive turnover, because we're highly trained in the
Office of Inspector General and many other mission areas would
like the services of my folks--so if I want to fill 10 slots, I
have to offer 30 conditional offers of employment. And in order
to do 30 COEs, I need to do 150 interviews.
That's an onerous process and an onerous statistical
outlay. So our biggest challenge right now is the process of
onboarding folks. And I would say that is the most prominent of
our challenges.
Chairman Burr. Vice Chairman.
Vice Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to go back, first of all, to the discussion we had
in the office and following up on the Chairman's comments about
protecting whistleblowers. I'd like to again--you mentioned the
fact of building some of these whistleblower programs at other
agencies. I'd like you to talk a little bit more about what
else you could do, particularly with the unique nature of the
CIA since it has to operate in private, what you can do not
only on the hotline, but also on programs in terms of
preventing retaliation.
Specifically, in answers to written questions you said you
would try to beef up these programs and beef up whistleblower
protections. You said--but rather than offering some specifics,
you talk about bringing in an outside expert to help advise
you. Could you also describe what kind of outside expert that
would be? Would it be somebody from government? And take us
through your commitment to the whistleblower protections; and
particularly, since we've seen increased amounts, I believe, of
retaliation and reprisals, how we can prevent that on a going-
forward basis to those whistleblowers?
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, Senator.
Whistleblowing and the programs that the Offices of
Inspector General put in place are essential to the success of
any Office of Inspector General. In every program that I have
built, you need to build a program where there's confidence by
whistleblowers or those raising concerns about a particular
issue that they feel, and are, in fact, comfortable providing
information. If they're not comfortable providing information,
they won't come to you, and then you can't fulfill your mission
of exploring fraud, waste, and abuse and mismanagement and
these issues.
So it is--it's critical to the success of every Office of
Inspector General, in particular at CIA because of the nature
of the mission, meaning that everything's compartmented and
people are scattered around the world doing mission.
The first thing that I did to improve the whistleblowing
program at CIA is ensure that we had a robust outreach program.
Senator Warner, I described a little bit earlier today about
what that program was about and we talked in private. But the
main thrust of that outreach is to ensure that, no matter where
a CIA officer or a CIA contractor with access to our system is
located around the world, that they can make a confidential,
anonymous or open complaint or sharing of concern with our
office and they are guaranteed confidentiality if they seek it.
Vice Chairman Warner. But how do you go about improving?
You said you would look at outside experts. Talk, speak to that
for a moment, because I only have two minutes left.
Mr. Sharpley. All right, Senator. I am very comfortable,
sir, with the program that we have, that it is effective. But
we know from the type of work that we're in, which is
independent assessments and evaluations of the effectiveness of
the various programs around--so I know that, even though I'm
comfortable with the program that I have, it would be
appropriate and prudent for me to invite others in.
There are individuals within the IG community that are
known to have very solid, very large programs. Some of them are
Postal, some of them are Department of Energy. When I refer to
this in my pre-hearing questionnaire, I've already asked my
chief of staff to reach out to these groups, these individuals,
and ask for an independent assessment of the programs that I've
put in place--not just our outreach programs, but our education
program, our education effort, and our ability to assess
objectively and independent each complaint as it comes in to
ensure it's handled in a timely fashion and that individuals,
if they're concerned about retaliation, that we move promptly
as a priority to address those issues, so that any potential
wrongdoing or adverse personnel action against them can be
prevented promptly and quickly.
Vice Chairman Warner. I know a number of my members on this
side of the aisle are going to ask somewhat in depth about the
RDI study, and I will allow them to get into the point of your
reasoning for returning it.
But one thing that did come up, obviously, was how the
report was lost and then re-found. I think I owe you the
opportunity to try to offer me the same--offer the public the
same explanation you offered me in my office. And then, the
fact that it was lost and found, was anyone held accountable
for that losing of it as well?
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, Senator Warner. I'd be happy to
discuss those issues. I know that is on the minds of a number
of the committee members, and I understand. It's an important
issue and it's an important report. So if I briefly go through
the explanation:
We received a copy of the committee's RDI study--6,000-
page, highly classified--in December of 2014 and it was
provided to us on a disk. The then-Inspector General ordered
that the report be uploaded to a classified Office of Inspector
General system and that was done.
Shortly thereafter, we received guidance that the report
should not be placed into any system because of an ongoing
litigation, a FOIA litigation, Freedom of Information Act
litigation in the D.C. circuit, with the Department of Justice
and others. So an e-mail was sent back to the organization that
had uploaded, back to our investigative organization, where the
classified system is held, to delete the report and to take the
disk containing the study and place it in a classified safe.
The report was deleted from the system. But the individual,
the IT administrator responsible for the uploading of the
report and for handling the disk, the media, did not receive
that e-mail.
The processes in place at CIA, and at CIA OIG, when we take
a report off of media in order to control classified when we
place it onto our classified systems is to destroy that
diskette.
So, some time later, several months later, when requested
did we have the disk, where was it, as I recall to the best of
my knowledge, I asked where the disk was. Nobody could find the
disk. I informed the committee that we could not find the disk.
Then I initiated an investigation, an internal investigation to
ensure that the disk was nowhere, to find out exactly what
happened to it.
Testimony given to us by the IT administrator was that the
disk had been shredded and he was--this particular IT
administrator was unaware of the deletion of the document from
our system, and had shredded the disk.
Several months later, during the course of an individual
departing, leaving employment and retiring, they were going
through their classified safe and they found the disk.
Coincidentally and a bit embarrassing--it was an embarrassment
to me--coincidentally, the litigation with the--on the FOIA
issue had ceased at that time. It was done, and part of the
conclusion of that litigation was that the document was a
Congressional document.
I informed the committee that we had found the disk. I also
opened another investigation to continue to find out what
happened, how was it that we could find testimony that this
diskette was shredded when it had not been shredded.
The bottom line was we found the individual, who had since
left employment from the Office of Inspector General and the
CIA, and that person told us that it was essentially a guess.
They don't remember actually shredding the disk, but they felt,
because they had shredded other media, they had shredded that
disk as well.
It's embarrassing and I have apologized. And it was also
right around that time that, in response to a request from the
chair of the committee that produced the study to return that
study on the disk, that I made an independent judgment to
return the disk. I stand by that judgment. The judgment and
decision to return the disk is not a reflection on what I feel
the quality of the report was or the efforts that went into it.
It was a five-year effort, a 6,000-page report, and I
understand its value to the committee and its value for
history's sake.
I do have an unclassified copy of the executive summary, as
well as a classified copy of the executive summary, in my
possession.
So those were--those were the circumstances. The individual
responsible for giving the wrongful, if you will, or the
incorrect testimony is no longer employed with us. I have since
changed the processes at CIA OIG to ensure that something like
this cannot happen again, so that there's a second decision
level on all shredded media, even though the processes--we've
never undergone something like that in the past. That process
is in place. I stand by it, and I am convinced that nothing
like this would ever happen again.
Chairman Burr. Senator Risch
Senator Risch. Mr. Sharpley, thank you for taking the time
to meet with me. I thought you were candid and answered the
questions appropriately and fully as far as I was concerned. So
thank you for that.
Mr. Chairman, any other questions I have would be for a
classified setting. I will save them for either there or submit
them for the record in a classified fashion. Thank you.
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Burr. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank you for meeting with me. I did hear the disk
story from you. I have one question: When did you inform the
committee that you had found the disk?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, I don't have the specific date in
front of me, but as soon as I found the disk I called up and
informed the staff chiefs about that I found it.
Senator Feinstein. If you could find the day, I would
appreciate knowing this.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Feinstein. I have a special interest in this. I was
chairman of the committee when the report was done, and have a
great belief--to my knowledge, not a fact has been refuted in
that 7,000- page report or the 500-page summary to date.
So the point of distributing it to the departments was in
the hope that they would read it, not look at it as some poison
document, and learn from it. I very much doubt that that has
happened, and I really look forward to its declassification. I
think the time is coming very shortly when it should be
declassified, and I'm heartened to see that, increasingly,
members of Congress agree with that.
So let me, if I can, go to a document that I just received
having to do with a whistleblower situation. And I'm going to
read a little bit and then ask you for your comment. It points
out that ``The Sharpley nomination comes at a time when the
intelligence community's handling of whistleblowers has begun
to attract questions from lawmakers and the public.'' They
point out one instance of a man by the name of Ellard and says
that this highlights the community's continuing struggle to
deal with the issue.
The document, dated February 2017, appears on the official
letterhead of the Office of Inspector General of the
Intelligence Community and details what it describes as serious
flaws in procedures used to investigate retaliation cases
across the intelligence community. Bearing the title,
``Evaluation of Reprisal Protections Pertaining to
Whistleblowers with Access to Classified Information,'' it is
unclassified. The author's name is redacted.
I would ask that you send a copy of that document to our
office, to the Intelligence Committee's office.
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, I am unfamiliar with that document.
I am not aware of its contents or really can speak to----
Senator Feinstein. Have you looked for it? It's on the
Office of the IG of the--on the letterhead of the IG of the
Intelligence Community.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator. The ICIG did not make me aware
of it as the Acting IG at CIA. So this is the--this is the
first I'm hearing of this particular program.
But there's something you said, Senator, if I may respond.
Senator Feinstein. Well, let me read the conclusion.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Feinstein. Because it's stark: ``The deficiencies
in reprisal protections policies, procedures and standards in
the evaluated agencies are causing a failure to provide
reprisal protections for individuals making protected
disclosures,'' end quote.
In the context of the document, quote, ``'Protected
disclosures,''' end quote, ``refer to legally sanctioned
revelations of alleged wrongdoing by intelligence employees to
their superiors or others in the government designated to
receive the information.''
The document states that, and I quote, ``A complainant
alleging reprisal for making a protected disclosure has a
minimal chance to have a complaint processed and adjudicated in
a timely and complete manner,'' end quote. So then it says--and
then I'll let you speak--``In response to damaging leaks, then-
President Obama issued Presidential Policy Directive 19, PPD/
19, parts of which were enacted into law, establishing
procedures under which whistleblowers could report waste, fraud
and abuse without fear of retaliation.''
The document I'm reading from also has a couple of cases of
people that have been retaliated against that I won't go into
right now. But I'm interested that you have not seen this
document.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
Senator Feinstein. So do you know of which--of what I am
speaking?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, I do not. I do not--I'm not in
possession of that document. I am unaware of it. Senator----
Senator Feinstein. Well, let me give you the title. It says
``CIA Inspector General Nominee Has Three Open Whistleblower
Retaliation Cases Implicating Him.'' It's by a man by the name
of Adam Zagorin and this is the Project on Government
Oversight. That's the letterhead.
So what do you know about this, and three cases?
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, Senator Feinstein.
I recently read an article by this gentleman. Senator, I'm
unaware of any open investigations on me, the details of any
complaints about me. So it's hard for me to respond to that.
But I would say, if there are complaints, if there are
investigations out there and I'm unaware of it, that wouldn't
be--I put it this way: I support a process that's in place that
would protect the confidentiality of anyone or the anonymity of
anyone who wanted to bring a complaint forward on an Acting IG
or anybody else, any other official.
As an Acting Inspector General who works in the world of
confidentiality, anonymity, etcetera, I think it's very
important that we recognize these processes and that we,
frankly, as I said before, we honor them. They're our bread-
and-butter. But I can't speak to specifics because I don't know
about it, Senator.
Senator Feinstein. No, I understand what you're saying.
Mr. Chairman, I'd ask that this document be put in the
record so that Mr. Sharpley can take a good look at it.
And perhaps you would let us know in writing what is fact
and what is fiction.
Mr. Sharpley. I would be pleased to do that, Senator
Feinstein. If I may take one moment, with respect to the
document you're referring to, that it has done an assessment
of, you know, that there's a minimal ability of people who have
been retaliated against to have their particular issue looked
at in a timely fashion, and this is across the ICIG. I can't
speak for the rest of the Inspectors General across the IC. I
can speak for the CIA Office of Inspector General, and I
challenge the validity of those statements. I feel very
strongly about our whistleblower retaliation program and our
whistleblower hotline program. We handle all, all concerns,
whether they're involving a potential crime or mismanagement,
or about an individual, under the quality standards that are
put out from the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and
Efficiency.
I'm very proud of our program. So I don't know where that's
coming from. I'm unaware of any assessments that have been
accomplished on the CIA OIG from the outside, for anyone to
make those, those claims.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
Chairman Burr. At the Senator's request, without objection,
it will be included into the record.
[The material referred to follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Burr. I would also ask staff, if I understood
Senator Feinstein's reading of this document, it is the ICIG
who holds that document; it is not the CIA IG So I would say to
staff, we need to request that document from the Intelligence
Community's IG, okay?
Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sharpley, just to close out this line of questioning,
without commenting directly on any specific allegations or
claims that may or may not have been made against you, have you
ever retaliated against any whistleblower either within the
CIA's IG's office or any other Federal agency?
Mr. Sharpley. No, Senator, I have not.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Mr. Sharpley, I want to commend you for being a very
productive Inspector General. As I understand it, the CIA
Office of Inspector General has issued more than 100 audits and
inspection reports and made more than 340 recommendations to
the agency to improve efficiency and effectiveness in just the
last year.
One of the committee's top priorities is to make sure that
each of the intelligence agencies is doing everything that it
can to minimize the risk posed by insider threats. Insiders
have repeatedly exposed devastating amounts of highly
classified information. I noted, therefore, with great interest
that your office conducted a review of the agency's insider
threat programs and activities.
Without getting into any classified information, could you
confirm whether the agency has fully implemented all of the
IG's recommendations with respect to that audit or inspection
regarding insider threats?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator Collins. Thank you very much.
It's a very important question and this is an extremely
important issue having to do with CIA mission. They have not
implemented all of our open recommendations.
Some time ago, a few years back, I initiated an insider
threat initiative, as we've referred to it, where we've issued
over 26 reports and 64 recommendations addressing a number of
areas in insider threat, having to do with security clearances,
polygraph exams, physical threats in the workplace, privileged
user and access to the information system, et cetera, across
the board.
This is a very important area that you bring up. That said,
I know that the--and I won't speak for the Director, but he has
placed an emphasis on the Counterintelligence Mission Center,
who carries out, along with the Office of Security, programs
and mission involving insider threat. And I know that the
Director has taken a particular interest in this area. And they
have done a lot of work on insider threat.
But a lot more work needs to be done. And even though I am
in the process now of issuing a capping report that will
summarize all the work that we've done, as I described, and
also add to the affray some additional areas that we've
examined, that does not mean that I am going back off the issue
of insider threat. This continues to be an area of challenge
for the CIA. And in fact, I've emphasized that in my recent
issuance of the highest challenges that the agency has to
address. So it's a very important area.
Senator Collins. I'm very glad to hear that. I would ask
that you keep the committee fully apprised of your efforts in
this area and in particular identify to the committee
recommendations that have not been implemented, because they're
really--that's really hard to understand, given the egregious
breaches that have occurred in the intelligence community.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator, I commit to do that.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Chairman Burr. Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sharpley, as we talked about, I am very troubled about
your decision to return your copy of the torture report. The
report was sent to your office so that lessons could be
learned, not just about torture, but a variety of topics,
including Inspector General oversight.
I just believe your decision sets a terrible precedent for
the committee's current and future work. If your office and the
committee are going to be erasing historical records because
somebody down the road is unhappy about them, our country is
going to need a lot of erasers.
So, hypothetically, I'd like to ask you: What if, a few
years from now, after this committee has sent your office a
report on Russia's interference in our election, a future chair
of the committee says he doesn't like the report and wants it
returned. What would you do?
Mr. Sharpley. Well, sir, I avoid hypothetical answers to
hypothetical questions of any course.
Senator Wyden. Okay, then let me just ask it this way. How
does your decision not set a terrible precedent?
Mr. Sharpley. My decision, Senator, was in response to a
request from the Chair and that's--that was the trigger for my
returning the report.
Senator Wyden. So you're obligated to follow the law. I
don't see why the law doesn't govern this, but maybe I'm
missing something. I mean, your highest obligation is to follow
the law, and I guess you're saying that you made your judgment
on the basis of other factors. You were asked for it and that
was that.
But I got to tell you, I don't like the concept of your
office picking and choosing which investigative reports you're
going to keep. And that's the inescapable conclusion about all
this. I followed the business about the shredded disk and then
you found it, but you still returned it. And I'd like to know
anything else that may have driven your judgment here?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, it's very straightforward. I made an
independent judgment to return the report at the request of the
chair of the committee that produced the report.
Senator Wyden. But you're not concerned about your
obligation to follow the law and you're not concerned about a
precedent? I mean, it seems to me this sets a horrible
precedent, which is why I asked you about, say, somebody down
the road in the future saying they're concerned about the
Russian report. You're not concerned about setting any
precedent here?
Mr. Sharpley. No, sir. We're talking about a hypothetical,
once again, and----
Senator Wyden. I'm asking you about something that
conceivably could happen and because of the decision you've
made, it certainly sets a precedent for in effect your office
kind of picking and choosing which investigative reports you're
going to keep.
I'm going to oppose your nomination because I think our
highest duty here is to follow the law and the idea that the
chair asked for it and that governed your judgment isn't
acceptable to me.
Now let me ask you one other question if I might. My
colleagues have mentioned this question of whistleblowers and
you brought up CIA contractor whistleblowers. Now, this is just
a yes or no answer: Do you believe that whistleblower
protections should extend to CIA contractors? This is an area
where there's been bipartisan interest. My colleague Senator
Collins over the years has been very interested in
whistleblowers. So, yes or no, do you believe whistleblower
protections ought to extend to CIA contractors?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, I do.
Senator Wyden. Okay, making some progress.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Burr. Senator Lankford.
Senator Lankford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sharpley, good to see you again. Thanks for the long
visit we had. We walked through a lot of issues in a private
and classified setting. I wanted to be able to follow through
on a couple of those conversations.
As you know full well, the Office of Inspector General is
the eyes and ears of this committee. This committee has
oversight over all the intelligence entities, but we're very
dependent on the independent investigations, the ongoing
investigations that are happening within the Inspectors General
office.
That's you, so I want to be able to get some clarity from
you on this as well. Covert operations are especially difficult
and there is occasionally a perception that ``covert'' doesn't
mean they have oversight. So do covert operations have
oversight and should they have oversight, the same as any other
operation?
Mr. Sharpley. The answer, Senator--and it's good to hear
from you again, sir--is yes and they do. I review all covert
action efforts at least every three years and those reports are
available to the committee, sir.
Senator Lankford. Do you have the resources that you need
to be able to fulfill that requirement to have oversight on
covert operations?
Mr. Sharpley. I currently do, Senator.
Senator Lankford. So you've been there a while. This is a
season where you--going into a permanent nomination here, you
have a little more time to be able to focus on things that are
a longer look. Are there structural changes that you can look
at, at this point, either within your office or around the
agency, that you would say we need to take a long look in these
areas?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator, there are. Thank you for the
question. If I am confirmed, my intent is to do a top to bottom
review of our organizational structure--that should not worry
my staff--to ensure that our resources are focused in the right
places so we can use them most efficiently.
There are areas of covert action that I believe that we
could focus, I think, a little more effectively on. And as an
Acting Inspector General, you don't want to make far-reaching
organizational changes, particularly if there are others being
in the nomination process. So if confirmed, I would go ahead
and look at those programs.
Senator Lankford. Thank you.
Let me ask one final question about metrics for success. It
is a challenge of any organization, especially an organization
that has such a difficult task as the CIA has, to be able to
measure success. So for dollars that are invested from the
American people, that are to be overseen by this committee, and
that you have the responsibility and oversight of as well, how
will you work with the agency to break down into individual
operations and into units within CIA to make sure that they are
looking at metrics for success, that those metrics are being
evaluated, whether that's the right measurement to be able to
use, and that they're actually hitting the target?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator. I agree with you that measures
of effectiveness are very important. We're spending a lot of
taxpayer funds here on matters that don't see the light of day.
And I think it's important from a business enterprise
standpoint and from a risk valuation standpoint, that they
have--that certainly covert action, and other areas of the CIA
mission, have measures of effectiveness in place.
They--those areas are typically examined when we conduct an
audit or an inspection. And as we spoke, sir, you'll find that
in many of our reports if they--if they're not there, that
we'll make a recommendation that goes to the area of, you need
to look at this and examine whether this is--if this is
effective or if this is efficient.
And that really goes to the, if you will, metrics of our
overall approach, our standards of how we conduct our audits,
our inspections to a different--in a different respect, our
investigations. But I think one way of ensuring that an
organization is running efficiently, or whether it's effective
is to, again, look at the measures of effectiveness. And I
commit to continue to look in that area.
Senator Lankford. That's great. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Burr. Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sharpley, as the deputy and then the Acting IG, did you
read the Senate Intelligence Committee's full report on the
CIA's torture and interrogation techniques?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, no I didn't.
Senator Heinrich. Why not?
Mr. Sharpley. I had no opportunity to read it. The report
was placed in a classified information system within the Office
of Inspector General and very shortly thereafter deleted from
that system. And then the disk we thought was shredded. It was
not. It had been misplaced.
Senator Heinrich. It seems to me that it's awfully hard to
learn the potential lessons of that report if--if it wasn't
consumed and read and processed in your office.
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, I have had the opportunity to read
the unclassified----
Senator Heinrich. Most of us read the executive.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes.
Senator Heinrich. However, there were certainly chapters
that dealt specifically with the operations of the IG's office
that, it seems to me, would've been something you'd want to be
able to process to make sure that, if mistakes were made, they
weren't made again.
Did you consider that before returning the report?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, again, my decision to return the
report is not a reflection of the value that I place on the
report.
Senator Heinrich. Did you consider reading the report
before returning the report so that you could do your job more
effectively?
Mr. Sharpley. No I did not.
Senator Heinrich. Why not?
Mr. Sharpley. I did not have an opportunity to sit down and
read the report because at the time the--with the timeline, the
time we found the report, the request, right around that same
time, had come in requesting the report be returned. I
accepted----
Senator Heinrich. But you returned it based on your own
independent judgment. So you could've taken the time to read
the report and then return the report.
Mr. Sharpley. I could have, sir, yes.
Senator Heinrich. But you chose not to.
Mr. Sharpley. I chose not to, given the time at hand.
Senator Heinrich. You said that it was your independent
judgment to return the report. Walk us through that. That
doesn't give us a lot of detail. What was your--what was your
thinking? And what was your legal basis for why you decided
that?
Mr. Sharpley. I conducted no legal basis, Senator. I'm not
an attorney and I did not look at it. It was very
straightforward. From my standpoint, the conclusion of the
litigation determined that the report was a Congressional
document and the chair of the committee that produced the
report requested that I return it. I made the independent
judgment to return it.
Senator Heinrich. Did the vice chair request that you
return it, or just the chair?
Mr. Sharpley. I don't recall what the letter said or what
the request was.
Senator Heinrich. Did you think through the implications of
what that might mean for future reports?
Mr. Sharpley. I don't recall beyond what I've already
testified to.
Senator Heinrich. Could you see how people would be
concerned that a decision in this case might set a precedent
for future cases?
Mr. Sharpley. I can understand the concern, yes.
Senator Heinrich. So with regard to the report itself and
the loss and then the, finally, finding that report once again,
the story that it'd been shredded which turned out not to be
the case, you said it was testified to by a former employee
that it was essentially a guess. That doesn't inspire a lot of
confidence in how something as important as this document, as
important as this report to the IG's operation, would be
handled within the office.
Can you speak to how you've addressed that in subsequent--
for subsequent media?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator. I'd be pleased to. The
individual who was responsible for handling the disk is the
individual who said they shredded it. When we found that disk
and went back to speak with that individual, who is no longer
an employee of ours or the CIA, he said--he shrugged his
shoulders and said: ``It was a guess. I don't actually remember
seeing it being shredded. I--I just had a stack of media and--
and thought that I shredded it.''
Senator Heinrich. I can see how an employee would--who had
a stack of media on their desk would have that reaction. I'm
just thinking that something as important as this maybe should
have required a higher level of attention.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, sir. So the changes that I referred to
when we were talking about this earlier, changes I referred to,
is that I put in place that there must be a supervisory-level
approval before any media is shredded. So that way if other
instructions have come out and for some reason it misses the IT
administrator in the future, there will be a quality assurance,
if you will, in place to review and authorize the shred, and
that way we'll avoid something like this happening in the
future.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Burr. Thank you, Senator Heinrich.
Before I turn to Senator King real quick: Since most of
your questions deal with the request I made of this IG and a
request I made of every agency of the Federal Government that
had copies of the RDI report, let me set the stage.
The stage is that this was battled on our behalf by the
Justice Department of the Obama administration. They didn't
have to do it. They believed that it was a committee document.
They fought it in court. We won in the District Court, the D.C.
Court of Appeals. The last court was the United States Supreme
Court and they ruled there that this was committee property.
I appreciate the fact that members disagree with the
actions of the chairman, but I made a determination when I
initiated the belief that this was a committee document that
there was precedent, there was precedent here, and you're right
the next chairman can determine that they'd like to push this
out. There was never a committee vote to push this out. That
was a unilateral decision.
So I made the decision to pull it back in and, with the
exception of several copies, all have been returned. In every
case, lawyers within those agencies made a determination, based
upon the court process, that I had every right to make the
request and that they were, in most cases, if not all cases,
obligated to return them.
So I share that with you to give you a little bit of
history and maybe you won't necessarily condemn Mr. Sharpley
for doing something that I think is extremely important,
responding to the chairman of the committee.
Senator King.
Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Not to belabor this issue too much, but when you made the
decision to return the document did you consult with anyone?
Did you consult with the General Counsel or anyone other than
yourself in making that decision?
Mr. Sharpley. My counsel, my IG counsel.
Senator King. And what was the nature of that advice?
Mr. Sharpley. Just that it was my decision, I was making a
decision to return this; what are the circumstances surrounding
the issues, is anything else I should know? And the answer was:
No, this is your--this is your judgment to respond to the
chair.
Senator King. Thank you.
I think you have one of the most important jobs in the
United States Government, because a secret agency in a
democracy is an anomaly. I would argue it's a necessary
anomaly, but it's still an anomaly, because the transparency
and accountability that applies to virtually every other aspect
of the United States Government isn't present by necessity.
That means those of us, including you and us, who are
given--the responsibility of providing really the only
oversight of this agency is especially awesome in my view. And
I just want to have your commitment that you realize that this
is a different job qualitatively in my view than the IG of the
Department of Agriculture or even the Pentagon. Do you
understand the weight of this, this position?
Mr. Sharpley. Absolutely, Senator. As I said in my opening
remarks, it's my belief that programs that are highly
classified--the more classified they are, they see the less
light of day. They don't share best practices. They focus on
mission and they're not necessarily focused on efficiency and
effectiveness. And I think it's--when you're dealing with those
types of programs, as I have in Defense with special access
programs and at Energy with nuclear weapons programs--here at
CIA, that's all they do, very, very classified areas, very
classified missions--you need an IG to look at this and shine
that flashlight, shine that light on those activities to ensure
that they're adhering to the law, that the programs are being
run in an efficient and effective manner, and, as I've
discussed with you in our private discussions, to give the
taxpayer a seat at the table to make sure that their money,
hard-earned money, and their taxes are being utilized properly.
Senator King. And that their Constitution is being abided
by.
Mr. Sharpley. That's correct. Yes, sir.
Senator King. Now, Senator Coburn and I a couple of years
ago had a provision in the authorization bill that instructed
the GAO, which has people with full clearance, to do some
analysis of the siting of physical facilities and whether we
were efficiently utilizing those facilities. That report
occurred. Do you view the GAO as a possible ally in your work?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator, I do. I understand that GAO is
working at the request, at the direction of the oversight
committees. There are policies and procedures that are at CIA
and across the Office of Director of National Intelligence
dealing with the work with the GAO.
I've worked with GAO in the past, and my only concern that
I have--and this really falls back into my lap--is to reach out
to GAO when they start work and do work at Central Intelligence
Agency, that they check with us to ensure that the work that
we've done--and we may have products that are useful, and this
would be inefficient if we've already done work, independent
work in that.
Senator King. I wouldn't want the GAO to add to the
inefficiency. I understand your concern. But what you're
telling me is that you in certain situations would view the GAO
as an ally, as an asset of your office.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, I would.
Senator King. Thank you. I appreciate that.
One final question. Do you view checking on or reviewing
the integrity of the analytic process and the intelligence
production process as part of your bailiwick in terms of your
responsibility?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator, I do.
Senator King. I think I want to emphasize that, because
there's a grave danger. And you indicated, I think, earlier,
talking about mission and operations, that there's a danger of
contamination of intelligence product because of commitment to
the mission, if you will. And again, you're one of the few
bulwarks against that in this system of oversight of what is
otherwise a secretive agency.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, sir. I agree with that. We do have a
body of work that we have looked at analytic objectivity. We
plan in the coming year and out years, if I am confirmed, to
continue our work in that area. I think it's a very important
area.
Senator King. I want to emphasize the importance of that,
because if you look back over the past 50 years, many of our
foreign policy disasters were based upon skewed intelligence,
based upon the desires of the policymakers, whether it was the
Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iraq, whatever. And so I want to really
emphasize that analytic integrity, it seems to me, and
objectivity is an absolutely key function because human nature
is always to tell the boss what they want to hear.
Mr. Sharpley. Sure.
Senator King. And you are one of the people that sits
astride that process, and I hope you'll take that
responsibility especially seriously.
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, I understand your concern. I share
it. You have my commitment to take that--to take on that issue
and continue to look at it.
Senator King. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Burr. Senator Manchin.
Senator Manchin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Sharpley, for being here today.
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, sir.
Senator Manchin. Having your family with you for support, I
appreciate that. And the fact that you served as Inspector
General at a variety of levels, maybe you might want to explain
how that prepared you for the job that we're asking you to do
or that you're asking us to confirm you to do----
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, sir.
Senator Manchin [continuing]. That put you in that unique
position.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, sir. Thank you, Senator, I'd be pleased
to do that.
I fortunately had an opportunity many years ago, back in
the nineties, to be a part of a group, the predecessor of the
Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency, the
President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, to be a part
of the development of the quality standards for investigations
and the quality standards for inspections. Those standards are
sort of benchmark best practices for oversight. They have since
then matured and changed slightly, but the basic practices are
there.
When I arrived at CIA IG, the reason I was asked to come
aboard or compete for the position and come aboard and decided
to take it was because I wanted to make sure that the processes
utilized by our inspections, audits, and investigative groups
use those standards.
And that's exactly what I did. I've implemented those
standards across our mission set. Having had the opportunity to
stand up, be a significant part of standing up, two brand-new
Offices of Inspector General at the Special Inspector General
for Troubled Asset Relief Program at Federal Housing and
Finance Agency, I was able to utilize that knowledge, those
skills that I had obtained from the previous period of time,
and put them to work at those organizations. And those
organizations have been very successful supporting prosecutions
that have returned billions to the U.S. Treasury. That same
approach I've used at CIA Office of Inspector General.
Senator Manchin. Let me just--a couple of things I want to
go over. Being a former governor myself and Senator King here,
we know how having full control over your budget gives you the
flexibility to do the things where you think it's most
important. Do you feel--I'm sure you looked at the budget now.
Are you siloed? Are you able to move money to where you know
the critical need is? How important is that for you?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator--thank you, Senator. The discussion
that you and I had in this area caused me to sit back on my
heels, sort of stand back on my heels and reconsider this.
Senator Manchin. You might want to tell people a little bit
what we talked about, because there were areas you identified
you weren't able to do what needs to be done because--but you
had money in other siloes that could help you do it.
Mr. Sharpley. Right. There are various siloes. One silo of
money is used for salaries and awards, the other used for
contracting and travel, this type of thing.
Senator Manchin. Yes.
Mr. Sharpley. And the policy of the CIA is that you can't
blend those monies. You can't cross the monies across the silo.
But we had a discussion, I thought it was very productive and I
appreciated it. And that is--and I appreciate the chair and
vice chair's advice in this area as well. And that is, if there
were a way to move money across, it would allow me to address
issues and needs that I have. For example, when----
Senator Manchin. Not that you need more money, even though
everybody needs more money.
Mr. Sharpley. Everyone needs more money.
Senator Manchin. But if you don't have more money, how to
be more efficient.
Mr. Sharpley. That's correct. This is a discussion on the
efficient use of money. So I've asked my attorney to address
this with the agency, to see if there's a way that I can't do
that. And we are now doubling down and addressing that to see
if there is a way that we can do it.
So again, I would ask the----
Senator Manchin. Let us know if we can help.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, sir. And I would ask the committee's
support if we're not able to do it for a legal reason that I'm
unaware of. But as it stands currently, I'm going to attack
this and see if we can do it a little bit more efficiently.
Senator Manchin. I've got two more quick questions.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes.
Senator Manchin. First of all, the most important: What do
you think is the greatest security risk that the United States
of America faces?
Mr. Sharpley. Well, outside of the threats to our Nation--
--
Senator Manchin. Yes----
Mr. Sharpley [continuing]. Whether it be----
Senator Manchin [continuing]. That are obvious.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes. Outside of the threats, it is ensuring
the integrity of our intelligence programs and that those
involved in the various intelligence missions remain dedicated
and true to their oath.
That is why I have taken or done a lot of work in the area
of insider threat and how to strengthen the systems of the
agency to ensure that when people do run astray, staff members
or contractors, that we have systems in place that work, that
we can detect it and counter it.
Senator Manchin. And then finally, if you are asked by the
President to render your assessment and evaluation, do you feel
confident you can speak truth to power?
Mr. Sharpley. I absolutely do feel confident I can speak
truth to power. And if you would ask the current director and
the former two directors, they would tell you the same.
Senator Manchin. Thank you.
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, sir.
Chairman Burr. Senator Harris.
Senator Harris. Thank you.
So I think you know, we all know, that it's very important
that politics not shape the work that we do in our intelligence
agencies and in the intelligence community. Can you tell this
committee whether as Acting IG, if you've ever been asked or
experienced any effort to limit your full independence since
you've been the Acting IG?
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, Senator Harris. That is a very
good question. Senator Harris, I don't know if you remember
our--when you were Attorney General in California, I worked at
SIGTARP and you were very helpful, and I thank you again for
your----
Senator Harris. Thank you.
Mr. Sharpley [continuing]. Help there. There has never been
a time under any director that I've worked--or am I aware of,
anyone trying to undermine the independence of this Office of
Inspector General. I think it's very clear that the reputation
that I've built at CIA, that that is something that I don't
think anyone would attempt.
But certainly, independence is written into the very fabric
of our processes. At every opportunity, conferences,
onboarding, new employees, etcetera, we emphasize the
importance of independence. I know that this director, Director
Pompeo, is very aware of that and I'm sure very supportive of
my independence.
Senator Harris. And will you commit to this committee that
if ever you are in any way talked with or anyone indicates that
they hope you might do one thing or another, that you will
report that to this committee?
Mr. Sharpley. Absolutely, Senator. You have my commitment.
Senator Harris. And have you--I believe in fact that you
have faced some resistance that has prevented you from getting
access to information that you need to fully assess a situation
in terms of performing your oversight responsibilities. Will
you commit today to notifying this committee if in the future
you face any resistance whatsoever in your efforts to obtain
information that is necessary for you to pursue your
responsibilities?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, I do commit to that. I'm unaware of
any circumstance since I've been the Acting Inspector General
or as deputy where anybody has either encumbered or tried to or
have been successful at not providing us the information we
need to do our important oversight role.
Senator Harris. Well, please rely on this committee to help
you if you need help in accomplishing that goal.
Mr. Sharpley. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Harris. And there's been a lot of discussion about
whistleblowers. I understand that you have not or were not
aware of the POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, report
that was released yesterday regarding three open cases
involving allegations that you and others committed retaliation
against whistleblowers. But, obviously, this is a serious
concern.
I'm going to assume that right after this hearing you're
going to familiarize yourself with what's in that report. And
my request to you is that you then immediately, and before we
need to vote on your confirmation, report back to this
committee in writing your analysis and your perspective on the
contents of that report. Are you willing to do that?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, I don't want to--I want to make sure
that I don't conflate the two. There was a POGO article that
refers to a report that was written by the ICIG. I'm unfamiliar
with the report from the ICIG.
With respect to the POGO article, I am aware of that they
cite the complaints that are against me on retaliation just
because it was brought up in this hearing. I'm unaware of any
ongoing investigations or the details of any complaints and
have no--no action, or conclusions of wrongdoing have been made
about my career or anything that I've done.
Senator Harris. So as it relates then to the ICIG letter
that was referred to earlier by Senator Feinstein, will you
familiarize yourself with the contents of that and report back
to this committee your perspective on what that says about
these three cases?
Mr. Sharpley. Yes, Senator. I commit to doing that.
Senator Harris. Okay. And you obviously understand that
when we are talking about the importance of whistleblowers, for
those folks to come forward and report what they know it's an
intimidating process. They are putting their jobs on the line.
They are certainly opening themselves up to the likelihood of
retaliation and if they don't have confidence in the system, it
is likely, one, that they will not report to the IG; but two,
equally likely that, wanting their information to get out and
to have transparency and sunlight on the issue, that they are
even prone probably to leak that information to the press.
So we are talking often, however, about classified
information, which creates its own problems when that
classified information is leaked to the press. So will you
commit to improving and strengthening the systems that are
currently in place to ensure that there is no retaliation
whatsoever when whistleblowers come forward?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, I can investigate concerns about
retaliatory actions and I commit to you that we will
continually improve upon our systems and our programs in place.
Senator Harris. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Burr. Thank you, Senator Harris.
Any member seek any additional questions? Seeing none----
Vice Chairman Warner. Can I just ask one question?
Chairman Burr. Vice Chairman.
Vice Chairman Warner. Mr. Sharpley, a lot of concern about
whistleblower issues and I understand--my understanding at
least, if there is an ICIG, you might not be aware of the
contents of that, that investigation in the normal course.
But one thing that I've looked at--and I didn't offer this
amendment earlier because there was not full-fledged support,
but that there would be granted to the IC, to the IC community,
stay authority, which I know you are familiar with, which in
effect would make sure that a whistleblower would be able to
request the head of the agency to hold harmless a valid
whistleblower from being reprised, retaliated against.
Most all the rest of the Federal Government has those kind
of stay authority protections. I know we talked about this
briefly in my office. Do you believe that the employees--even
though that this is not going to be in law, but do you believe
that the employees at CIA ought to have this type of protection
that every other Federal employee has had since 2001?
Mr. Sharpley. Senator, I support any improvement on
protections to whistleblowers. I fully support them. I am not
aware in my five-plus years at CIA where having stay authority
would have changed the circumstance. That doesn't mean that
something couldn't happen in the future where that authority
could be used effectively. So I do support----
Vice Chairman Warner. I just believe, in light of some of
the concerns raised and echoing both Senator Harris and Senator
King in terms of the importance of this job, our job and your
job, because of the unique nature of the agency operating in
secret, I do think going the extra mile that there would be
this approach, in terms of holding harmless a valid
whistleblower's complaint against any type of reprisal from the
agency itself is terribly important. And should you be
confirmed, I hope that you will--you would bring that message
back to the agency.
Mr. Sharpley. You have my commitment, Senator.
Vice Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Sharpley.
Chairman Burr. Thank you, Vice Chairman.
Mr. Sharpley, thank you for your testimony to the
committee.
I will repeat that it's my intention to move this
nomination next week and I would urge members, if they have
additional questions, to make those questions available before
the end of business today.
Kimberly, thank you for being here to support your husband.
To you, your children, and to your mother, it's great to have
you here for this.
With that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:52 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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