WASHINGTON (AP) — The top two officials in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were improperly appointed to the posts under federal law by the Trump administration, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog said Friday.
The Government Accountability Office says acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and his acting deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, are ineligible to run the agency under a federal law known as the Vacancy Reform Act.
GAO said it has asked the DHS inspector general to review the situation and determine if the violation affects decisions they have taken at a time when the Department of Homeland Security has been at the forefront of key administration initiatives on immigration and law enforcement.
Both men should resign, according to Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security and Rep. Carolyn Maloney of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
"GAO's damning opinion paints a disturbing picture of the Trump Administration playing fast and loose by bypassing the Senate confirmation process to install ideologues," the two Democrats said in a joint statement.
DHS had no immediate comment.
The GAO analysis traces the violation back to a tumultuous period at DHS in 2019 when then Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned. It found that she was improperly replaced by Kevin McAleenan under the rules governing succession in federal agencies.
McAleenan altered the rules of succession after he was subsequently removed but GAO's legal analysis concluded that the later appointments of Wolf and Cuccinelli were invalid.
DHS is the third-largest Cabinet agency with about 240,000 employees.
The Government Accountability Office has evolved over 100 years from a mainly financial overseer to the trusted authority on government operations.
Chair of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency Alison Lerner said that current provisions for vacant posts, 'undermine the IG’s independence and stakeholders’ confidence.'
U.S. Postal Service employees in a non-career capacity get injured on the job 50 percent more often than permanent employees, a government watchdog found.
According to an investigation from the Office of Inspector General, during congressional testimony three years ago, former U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross gave a misleading reason for why he wanted a citizenship question on the 2020 census.
Two high-ranking Trump political appointees at the EPA engaged in fraudulent payroll activities, including payments to employees after they were fired and to one of the officials when he was absent from work.
Biden announced in September that more than 3.5 million federal workers were required to undergo vaccination, with no option to get regularly tested instead, unless they secured approved medical or religious exemptions.
Of the 67,000 affected employees, 56,000 work within the Department of Defense.
As federal agencies look to have the most disruptive impact possible on cyber crime, FBI officials are thinking carefully about how best to time an indictment, or whether an indictment is even the best action.
The initiative comes a month after President Joe Biden issued his Federal Sustainability Plan, an executive order that outlines Biden’s plans to use federal infrastructure to tackle climate change.
A new federal website to request free test kits officially launches Wednesday — but was available to use Tuesday — with the first shipments going out to Americans by the end of the month.
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