Chuck Grassley: “I now wish to address this body about some investigations I have been doing over a long period of time. This is a report…”

“I now wish to address this body about some investigations I have been doing over a long period of time. This is a report to my colleagues that senior executives at the General Services Administration may have failed to meet their responsibilities to the American taxpayers. These issues were carefully examined in two oversight investigations conducted by my staff. These investigations have uncovered a disturbing change of circumstances at the General Services Administration. In a nutshell, it is this way: These studies indicate that top-level General Services Administration management interfered in contract negotiations with Sun Microsystems. They put pressure on contract officers to sign a potentially bad contract. When that person refused, they had that contract officer removed under duress. All the evidence from this investigation suggests that this particular contractor had been overcharging the Federal Government for years. The contract officer believed the proposed terms were still not fair to the Government. Even worse, these reports also indicate that allegations of intimidation against the General Services Administration Office of Inspector General and its auditors may have been fabricated. This may have been done to cover high-level pressure on contract officers or maybe because the new contract was signed on terms dictated by the contractor.”