Claire McCaskill

Now is the moment to work on this issue because we have a new Administration.

the contract language could maybe get you enough information that you could get the attention of a prosecutor

Well, first of all, that notion is insulting to risk assessment done by you as professionals.

the more that we have uniformity and the more that it is embraced systemwide in the IG community that whistleblowers are sacrosanct and need to be protected at all costs, I think it is really important.

Well, if you would, follow up for the Subcommittee and find out, what is the backlog at Justice as it relates to these fraud cases.

Common sense is on a vacation. We had the chance to fix it in that stimulus bill.

It is almost like we are saying it is more important to catch crooks in the stimulus money than it is to catch crooks anywhere else?

I think that some people in government see you as someone who is causing trouble for the head of the agency.

Yes, that language would help.

We have got to get more agents for DCIS.

We have to go in and say that when somebody from the government comes and asks you questions, a material omission or twisting is somehow OK?

The Project on Government Oversight recently released a report on whistleblower protections...

But this is a unilateral decision just made by GSA?

Thank you very much.

So if you go to someone and ask them if they used a government contract to, instead of do reconnaissance work somewhere, they were doing a charter service of the boat for deep sea fishing and they said no, they would not be in trouble even…

We have got to do a better job on the computer matching.

Generally speaking, do most IG shops have a formalized reprisal investigation protocol?

I will tell you it is not reassuring to me at a hearing on contracting oversight that I find out that maybe the reason that we weren't doing as well as we need to do with the hotline is because we were hiring contractors to do it.

The Recovery Act provides for that, but otherwise, it is not available to subcontractors in investigations.

So you can't make anybody talk to you?

76 percent is a huge majority.

Absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Thank you, Senator Collins. And speaking of champions, no one has been a more aggressive champion on acquisition workforce issues than Senator Collins.

We need to protect our whistleblowers and we do the investigations.

Can anyone help me figure out where we are getting this push-back?