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Reports Signal More Cause for Concern with Marshals Service Spending, Accountability

WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has called on the United States Marshals Service (USMS) to hold employees accountable for misconduct and answer serious questions about costly, yet questionable contracts. Grassley’s questions follow reports that Marshals employees routinely direct subordinates to draft their personal applications for promotion. Reports also indicate that the Marshals Service agreed to pay an outside speechwriter up to than $1.3 million over nine years and is considering leasing a large twin engine airplane that it has no pilots to fly and that whistleblowers claim would be twice as expensive and less effective as other surveillance aircraft in the Marshals fleet.
 
In the first of two separate letters to USMS Acting Director David Harlow, Grassley outlines concerns about senior leaders’ widespread abuse of their public office for private gain by enlisting subordinates to draft their promotion applications. An Assistant Director of USMS was already disciplined for similar actions. An opinion by the Merit Systems Protection Board suggested that these ethics violations are commonplace in the USMS.
 
“Accountability for misconduct must be consistent across the agency for employees to have confidence in the agency’s leaders, and ethics rules must be enforced so that the taxpayers have confidence in their government,” Grassley said in his letter.
 
Grassley’s second letter addresses two costly and likely unnecessary contracts that raise potential conflict of interest concerns.
 
Since 2010, the USMS has paid an outside speechwriter and management consultant through two contracts. The initial five-year contract was worth over $500,000. The second and recently awarded four-year contract is worth over $825,000. The speechwriter has a desk in USMS headquarters in Virginia but actually works from home in Kansas.
 
Further, the USMS recently began the process of leasing an expensive and ineffective new aircraft that it has no pilots to fly, according to whistleblowers familiar with USMS air surveillance operations. USMS submitted a Request for Information, which begins the procurement process, for a lease on a Beechcraft King Air 350, which it claims will be used for surveillance operations. Whistleblowers allege the aircraft will interfere with such operations, cost twice as much as more effective planes, and require additional costs to train and certify USMS pilots
 
Grassley asked a series of questions about these contracts, their costs to taxpayers, how they were awarded and why.
 
Grassley’s letter about USMS employee accountability can be found here and Grassley’s letter about USMS contracts can be found here.
 
Grassley has been investigating multiple allegation of misuse of funds, improper hiring practices AND whistleblower retaliation at USMS since 2015. Last fall, Grassley released a report concluding that the USMS needs greater oversight of its hiring practices and calling on the agency to adopt a strong merit-based culture.
 
Text of both letters follows:
 
 
April 24, 2017
VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
David Harlow
Acting Director
U.S. Marshals Service
Washington, D.C. 20530-00001
 
 
Dear Acting Director Harlow:
 
I previously wrote to the Department inquiring about allegations that several former Assistant Directors of the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) misused their public office for private gain.[1] Whistleblowers had alleged that multiple senior leaders directed or induced their subordinates to prepare their applications for the Senior Executive Service. A report prepared by the Committee’s majority staff in November 2016 concluded that documents demonstrated that subordinates of the former Assistant Director of the Asset Forfeiture Division “did draft significant portions of [her] SES application.”[2] Recently, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) upheld disciplinary action against the former Assistant Director of the Judicial Security Division (JSD) for the same behavior.[3]
 
The MSPB opinion in that case discusses testimony suggesting that these ethics violations are commonplace in the Marshals Service.[4] For example, the current Assistant Director for Investigative Operations, Derrick Driscoll, also appears to have benefited from his subordinates’ assistance with his SES application. According to testimony described in this recent MSPB opinion, the former USMS Director “instructed his subordinates to recreate Driscoll’s package so that it met OPM’s requirements” after he “could not get his package approved by OPM.”[5]
 
Accountability for misconduct must be consistent across the agency for employees to have confidence in the agency’s leaders, and ethics rules must be enforced so that the taxpayers can have confidence in their government. Accordingly, please respond to the following questions by April XX, 2017. Please number your answers according to the corresponding questions.
 
  1. Since the Committee first raised allegations of misuse by senior USMS officials of public office for private gain, how many additional individuals have been alleged to have violated this ethics rule?
  2. For any of these individuals, including those identified in the course of the recent MSPB case who are current USMS employees, has the USMS opened an investigation into those allegations? If not, why not?
  3. If those allegations are sustained, will the USMS impose the same discipline on these individuals as that imposed against the former Assistant Director of JSD?
  4. What steps has the USMS taken to ensure its employees, including its senior leadership, understand the ethics rules?
 
Thank you for you cooperation in this matter. If you have any questions, please contact DeLisa Lay of my committee staff at (202) 224-5225.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
 
cc: The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
Ranking Member
 
The Honorable Jeff Sessions
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
 
The Honorable Michael Horowitz
Inspector General
U.S. Department of Justice
 
 
April 24, 2017
VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
David Harlow
Acting Director
U.S. Marshals Service
Washington, D.C. 20530-00001
 
 
Dear Acting Director Harlow:
 
As you know, the Committee continues to examine allegations of wasteful spending by the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS). Additional allegations suggest that the USMS may have wasted significant funds for certain contracts that are unnecessary and may pose conflicts of interest.
 
First, my office has received information indicating that the USMS has been paying for an outside speechwriter and management consultant since 2010. The original five-year contract was worth more than half a million dollars, and a second four-year contract was recently awarded at a value of more than $825,000. The speechwriter reportedly works from her home in Longton, Kansas, even though she has a desk and a telephone number in USMS headquarters in Arlington, VA. Public information shows that the contractor previously had a five-year contract with the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee for more than $900,000, at a time when former Director Stacia Hylton served as the Trustee, and has likely known Ms. Hylton since at least 1995.
 
Second, according to public information, the USMS issued an RFI for a Beechcraft King Air 350 Aircraft Lease.[1] The USMS Technical Operations Group (TOG) reportedly plans to use the aircraft as an air surveillance platform for its Mexico operations. According to information received by my office, TOG and USMS leadership have been in discussions to acquire not simply a larger air surveillance platform, but this specific aircraft model, for some time. However, the lease allegedly would impose an unnecessarily high cost and would not, as the USMS RFI suggests, “fulfill . . . unique mission objectives.”
 
For example, the USMS currently has seven planes, five pilots, and at least one hanger that has sat empty for more than two years in Morristown, New Jersey, with no planes and no pilots. Most of the planes are smaller and flown domestically, but, according to information received by my office, domestic flights are not frequent. The larger plane, a Cessna, is currently used by the USMS in Mexico.
 
That particular model reportedly is more suited to TOG’s operations. It is not, like the King Air, a loud, multi-engine aircraft with a low wing that allegedly interferes with the cellular tracking equipment on board. It is also apparently much less expensive, to the point that the USMS could acquire or lease another platform like it and spend about half as much money. Further, no current TOG pilot is licensed to fly a King Air. Accordingly, leasing that particular aircraft will impose further costs required to train and certify pilots. The King Air’s internal space restrictions also pose problems in physically reaching the tracking equipment if it malfunctions during an operation. Finally, the King Air allegedly poses added safety risks because it is more complex to operate.
 
Whistleblowers allege that pilots rated on multi-engine aircraft are more eligible to compete for work in the private sector upon government retirement. It has also been suggested that a former USMS employee has a business relationship with a vendor for this aircraft. Based on the information I have received, it is unclear why the King Air is necessary, or what purpose it serves. In the absence of reasonable and transparent justification, the RFI fuels a perception of conflicts of interest.
 
Please respond to the following questions by April xx, 2017, and number your answers according to the corresponding questions.
 
  1. Were any of the contracts awarded to the contractor located in Kansas competed?
  2. Please describe in detail the services provided by the contractor, and explain why speechwriting and management services could not be performed by existing USMS employees.
  3. How much has the USMS paid the contractor to date?
  4. Has the USMS paid for any of the contractor’s travel since 2010?
  5. Why is there a physical work space for the contractor in Virginia if the contractor is located in Kansas?
  6. Why is the USMS seeking to lease King Air? What benefits does it have over the plane currently used in Mexico for TOG?
  7. Please provide a detailed estimated cost analysis of leasing a King Air versus leasing a second model like the large platform the USMS currently operates in Mexico. Does the USMS currently employ individuals capable of performing the maintenance on its current model?
  8. How much would it cost to train and certify TOG pilots to fly a King Air?
 
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
cc: The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
Ranking Member
 
The Honorable Jeff Sessions
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
 
The Honorable Michael Horowitz
Inspector General
U.S. Department of Justice
 
 
 

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