DHS IG committed ‘substantial misconduct,’ governmental watchdog finds

A committee of inspectors general and other federal investigative officials substantiated allegations that Homeland Security Department inspector general Joseph Cuffari abused his authority and engaged in substantial misconduct. The panel referred the matter to the president for “appropriate action, up to and including removal.” 

In a report sent to the president on Wednesday, the committee found, by a preponderance of evidence, that the Trump appointee committed the following actions: 

• Provided wrongfully inaccurate and misleading answers during his nomination process to become DHS IG with respect to possible misconduct when he was a federal law enforcement officer. Specifically, he failed to disclose, when asked, that at the time of his retirement from the Justice Department in 2013 he was under investigation by DOJ’s OIG for ethics violations. 
• Misrepresented his reasons for hiring a private law firm to investigate three former DHS OIG senior executives — former chief operating officer Jennifer Costello, former deputy counsel Karen Ouzts, former assistant IG Diana Shaw — who questioned Cuffari’s qualifications. 
• Spent $1.4 million to hire that firm, most likely in his personal interest and in order to retaliate against the three former employees. Costello — who submitted whistleblower complaints against Cuffari and was later fired by him — received nearly $1.2 million as part of a Merit Systems Protection Board settlement.
• Attempted to influence the independent investigation into those former employees, including by contacting two successive supervisors of Shaw in an attempt to pressure her to participate in an interview with the private law firm. 

The committee did not investigate allegations that Cuffari diminished and delayed reports about sexual harassment at DHS, did not disclose to Congress in a timely and adequate manner that the Secret Service deleted text messages that could have been relevant to Jan. 6 investigations and deleted his own work-related text messages and did not report it to the National Archives and Records Administration. 

Members of the committee said they chose not to pursue these allegations because it was unlikely further relevant information would be uncovered, they expected resistance from key witnesses and doing so would delay the investigation. 

The ranking members of the House Oversight and Accountability and Homeland Security committees, Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., on Thursday urged President Joe Biden to remove Cuffari. 

“Inspector General Cuffari's actions are an outrageous affront and embarrassment to the inspector general community and have undermined the reputation of the entire DHS Office of Inspector General,” they said in a statement. 

Democrats on these panels have previously accused Cuffari of obstructing their investigations into his office. 

The DHS OIG did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Cuffari filed a lawsuit against the committee investigating him, alleging he “has been endlessly harassed and had his office’s resources drained by a series of baseless inquiries.” But a federal court in 2023 threw out his case, arguing the IG failed to show that the oversight body’s work amounted to unlawful harassment. 

The committee also found that Costello, who led DHS OIG in an acting capacity before Cuffari’s confirmation, “abused her authority in the exercise of her official duties when she wrongfully resisted newly confirmed IG Cuffari’s leadership through a series of divisive words and actions,” including by telling DHS OIG staff that Cuffari was “dumber than a box of rocks” and at times not copying him on emails.