OFIFIIN HATCH, UTAH, CHAIRMAN CHUCK GRASSLEY. IOWA RON WYDEN, OREGON TIM SOUTH CAROLINA MIKE CRAFO. IDAHO CHARLES SCHUMER, NEW YORK PAT ROBERTS, KANSAS DEBBIE STABENOW, MICHIGAN MICHAEL ENZI. WYOMING MARIA CANTWELL, WASHINGTON JOHN CORNYN, TEXAS BILL NELSON, FLORIDA JOHN THUNE, SOUTH DAKOTA ROBERT NEW JERSEY RICHARD BURR. NORTH CAROLINA THOMAS CARFER, DELAWARE JOHNNY ISAKSON, GEORGIA BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, MARYLAND ROB PORTMAN, OHIO SHERROD BROWN, OHIO PATHICKJ TOOMEY, MICHAELF BENNET, COLORADO 0N FINANCE DANIEL COATS. INDIANA ROBERT CASEY, JR DEAN HELLER, NEVADA MARK WARNER, VIRGINIA WASHINGTON, DC 20510?6200 CHRIS CAMPBELL, STAFF DIRECTOR JOSHUA SHEINKMAN, DEMOCRATIC STAFF DIRECTOR March 11, 2015 General Mark Bialek Inspector General Of?ce of the Inspector General; Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 20th and Constitution Avenue NW. Washington, DC. 20551 Dear General Bialek, I write to formally request that your of?ce provide my staff with a full brie?ng on an investigation that your of?ce has performed concerning a possible breach of information security. The alleged breach was a leak of information about Federal Reserve staff preparation of policy options, and information about what Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members were considering prior to the September, 2012 meeting of the FOMC. The leak allegedly involved revelation of information about market-sensitive policy options to a private- sector analyst?information that could alter trading in markets, including the market for U.S. Treasury securities, over which I have oversight responsibilities. More speci?cally, it has been reported that an analyst at a self-described ?global provider of macro policy intelligence? published a research report on October 3, 2012 containing very speci?c insights on contents of as yet unreleased minutes of the September 12-13 meeting. Those minutes were released on October 4, 2012. The analyst?s report provided details of what the unreleased minutes of the OMC meeting would say, information about the menu of policy options and possible actions that were presented by staff of the Board of Governor of the Federal Reserve System (Board) at the OMC meeting, and information suggestive of a leak from Board staff to the analyst that it took Board staff until after midnight to complete work on the ?nal draft of policy recommendations for the September 12-13 FOMC meeting). Any possibility of an information security breach may be investigated by the Of?ce of Inspector General (OIG) of the Board. Your staff has identi?ed that there was an investigation into the security breach referred to above, but your of?ce has been reluctant to arrange a meeting with my staff on the investigation. Of course, that is unacceptable. The Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, (5 USC Appendix) provides that Inspectors General will keep agency heads and Congress fully and currently informed about problems and de?ciencies within their respective agencies. I am certain that you can understand how important it is for the Finance Committee to be made aware of the existence of any past or present audit, inspection, or investigation, criminal or otherwise, so that I and other Committee Members can successfully meet our responsibilities to the American people. There is no record on the public website to indicate that any investigation occurred, or of any attendant audit or audit report, or results of any investigation that may have occurred. Lack of a record seems peculiar, especially given that your of?ce produced Audit Report 2013-AE-B- 012 associated with an early release, in 2013, of minutes of an FOMC meeting by a Congressional Liaison Of?ce of?cial at the Board. Your staff has also indicated to mine that, because your investigation of a possible information security breach may have involved information that was discussed by members of the FOMC and may be ?pre-decisional,? the matter cannot be discussed. This, too, is unacceptable. Mere identi?cation that something may have been discussed at some point by FOMC members appears to be a method to cloak information under the guise of an audit exemption which is unlikely to be at all relevant in this case. My request of information from your of?ce about a leak of market-sensitive information regarding unreleased minutes of an FOMC meeting is a request about any investigation, audit, and ?ndings at your of?ce; it is not a request for information included in Board audit exemptions in 31 714 Nonetheless, your of?ce has indicated that, because the matter may have been separately discussed by FOMC and Board of?cials, it is somehow cloaked and cannot be discussed. The notion that the Board and FOMC could cloak any information that it pleases and shield it from transparency and accountability is unacceptable. The American public and Congress must be able to have oversight over the Federal Reserve?s handling of possibly sensitive information relevant to the vast markets for US. Treasury debt obligations, whether it is potentially market- moving details of a pending release of an FOMC meeting or secret plans by the Federal Reserve and Treasury for how to deal with a debt default or sovereign credit-rating downgrade. I request that your of?ce provide my staff with a full brie?ng of any investigative or audit work associated with the possible leak of market-sensitive and possible market-moving information by an of?cial at the Board, including of?cials in the Division of Monetary Affairs, to a private- sector analyst at a ?rm that provides global macro policy intelligence. Please be prepared by bringing to the brie?ng information about: 0 Who conducted the investigation, and how it was conducted; 0 Who at the Board, including of?cials in the Division of Monetary Affairs, was interviewed; 0 Whether your of?ce gathered phone and e-mail records of individuals at the Board, including of?cials in the Division of Monetary Affairs, to ascertain whether those of?cials had contact with the private-sector analyst who authored the research report in question; 0 The status of the investigation; 0 Findings and outcomes of the investigation, including whether the source at the Board of the leak has been determined and, if so, what actions have been taken against the source; 0 Any recommendations to the Board, including the Division of Monetary Affairs, stemming from your investigation of the possible leak of market-sensitive information; 0 Why there has been no report about the investigation into this matter. Thank you for your attention. Please contact Nick Wyatt of my staff upon receipt of this letter to arrange the brie?ng that I request. Orrin G. Hatch Chairman