Published March 9, 2024
House Democrats are raising the alarm over possible interference with their probe into the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general after he thanked Republican leaders for confirming he is not being investigated by two committees and claimed he is a whistleblower.
Democrats on the House’s Homeland Security Committee and Oversight and Accountability Committee focused on a series of correspondence with embattled Inspector General Joseph Cuffari.
In August and February letters, Cuffari implied he was not under investigation by the committees’ Democrats, explicitly thanking Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) over the summer for “confirming that I am not under investigation by your respective Committees.”
But Cuffari is under investigation by the panels’ Democrats, who are looking into him for failing to notify Congress of missing Secret Service text messages from Jan. 6, 2021, as well as for separately deleting text messages from his own phone that are required to be preserved. And he is also under investigation for his office’s agreement to a $1.17 million settlement with a former employee.
“Inspector General Cuffari’s assertion—which is putatively being used as a shield to obstruct our oversight— raises grave concerns about his judgement and respect for the process of congressional oversight,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, and Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, wrote to Comer and Green in a letter obtained by The Hill.
