1 1 2 3 4 5 6 COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 7 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 8 WASHINGTON, D.C. 9 10 11 12 13 INTERVIEW OF: STEVE A. LINICK 14 15 16 17 Wednesday, June 3, 2020 18 19 Washington, D.C. 20 21 22 23 The interview in the above matter was held via videoconference, commencing at 9:37 a.m. 2 1 2 Appearances: 3 4 From the COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Representatives 5 Engel, Sherman, Sires, Connolly, Deutch, Keating, Cicilline, 6 Bera, Castro, Titus, Lieu, Allred, Spanberger, Houlahan, 7 Malinowski, and Zeldin. 8 9 10 From the COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM: Representatives Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Speier, Kelly, and Jordan. For the COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS (staff): For the COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM (staff): For the SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE (Staff) 5 1 2 For STEVE A. LINICK: 3 4 PETE WHITE 5 BRANDON FASKE 6 SCHULTE ROTH & ZABEL 7 901 Fifteenth Street NW 8 Suite 800 9 Washington, D.C. 20005 6 1 Chairman Engel. Okay. Well, thanks to all of you for 2 joining us this morning. I hope everyone experienced smooth 3 sailing getting into this videoconference. 4 make a few remarks before we get started. I just want to 5 Before I begin, I just want to confirm that all of the 6 members and staff in attendance are either members of staff 7 of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the House 8 Committee on Oversight and Reform, or the Senate Committee 9 on Foreign Relations. If anyone is present who is not a 10 member or staff member of these committees, they should 11 absent themselves now, and any individuals whose usernames 12 are not recognized will also be dropped by the host. 13 Let me say that this is a voluntary transcribed 14 interview of Mr. Steve Linick being conducted by the House 15 Foreign Affairs Committee with the participation of the 16 House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Senate 17 Committee on Foreign Relations. 18 Mr. Linick, thank you for joining us today and for 19 responding positively and voluntarily to the committee's 20 request to hear from you. 21 concerned, and I know some of my colleagues share this 22 concern, that Secretary Pompeo's recommendation to 23 President Trump that you be terminated as the State 24 Department's inspector general may have been motivated by a Let me say that I'm deeply 7 1 desire to halt or cover up the results of your investigation 2 that touch directly on the Secretary himself. 3 Your appearance today is one of the first steps in 4 getting to the truth about this matter. 5 you're here, and we honor your years of service to our 6 country. 7 We're grateful that Let me stress that this will be a staff-led interview, 8 and I want to set the tone right now about how I expect this 9 interview to proceed. In the House Foreign Affairs 10 Committee, we expect everyone to conduct themselves with 11 professionalism, fairness, and respect. 12 any attempts on either side to turn this into a circus. 13 I will not tolerate Mr. Linick, once staff counsel makes some explanatory 14 remarks about today's interview, you'll be given as much 15 time as you'd like to make an opening statement. 16 begin the timed questioning as staff counsel will describe 17 in more detail. 18 Then we'll Before I turn to staff counsel, let me ask for any 19 additional opening remarks that our Republican colleagues 20 would like to offer at this time. 21 members keep their statements brief so we can move ahead 22 with the interview. 23 24 I just ask that the Are there any additional opening remarks from our Republican colleagues? 8 1 2 3 Hearing none, I'll assume that we're good to go. Mr. Linick. Mr. Linick. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Engel, 4 Ranking Member McCaul, and members of the committee, also 5 committee staff members. 6 testify. 7 Thank you for the opportunity to I have dedicated close to 28 years to public service. 8 It has been an honor and a privilege to serve my country. 9 The record shows that I have served without regard to 10 politics having been nominated as an inspector general by 11 Presidents from both parties. 12 I first served as the inspector general for the Federal 13 Housing Finance Agency, FHFA, and then subsequently as 14 inspector general for the Department of State. 15 became an inspector general, the late Senator Tom Coburn 16 invited me to meet with him to discuss the importance of 17 this role. 18 ultimately inspectors generals worked for the American 19 public. 20 When I Senator Coburn told me to never forget that In keeping with that advice, every minute of my work at 21 FHFA and the Department of State has been devoted to 22 promoting the efficiency and effectiveness of both agencies 23 along with ensuring that taxpayer funds are protected 24 against waste, fraud, and abuse. carrying out my work, I've always taken the facts and evidence wherever they lead and have been faithfully committed to conducting independent and impartial oversight as required by law. During my 7-year tenure at the Department of State, we issued nearly 700 reports resulting in thousands of recommendations to strengthen the Department's operations and to protect the lives of people who work in or visit our posts and embassies abroad. We investigated numerous cases of alleged wrongdoing resulting in a range of outcomes dictated only by the facts, from administrative actions to exonerations to criminal convictions. We identified monetary savings for taxpayers of close to $2 billion. Our independent oversight of the Department has been the key to our success and it's helped improve the Department's programs in a transparent way. It has been an honor to serve in the inspector general community and to work alongside my dedicated colleagues at the Department of State Office of Inspector General. I will forever be grateful to them. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. HFAC Dem Counsel. Mr. Linick, my name is-. I am senior counsel for the Committee on Foreign Affairs 10 1 2 3 majority staff. Mr. Engel, unless you had anything further, I'd be happy to enter into some of the preliminary ground rules? 4 Chairman Engel. Certainly, yes. 5 HFAC Dem Counsel. 6 This is a transcribed interview of Steve A. Linick Thank you, sir. 7 conducted by videoconference in the House Committee on 8 Foreign Affairs. 9 investigation by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the This interview is part of a joint 10 House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and the Senate 11 Committee on Foreign Relations into the removal of Steve A. 12 Linick as inspector general for the U.S. Department of 13 State. 14 15 Sir, to begin with, can you please state your full name and spell your last name for the record. 16 Mr. Linick. Steve A. Linick, L-i-n-i-c-k. 17 HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you very much. Again, as 18 Chairman Engel did, I'd like to thank you for coming in 19 today for this interview, and we appreciate that you are 20 willing to speak with us voluntarily. 21 Stenographers are participating today to transcribe the 22 interview, but the interview will not be recorded by anyone 23 else. 24 videoconference link that they will not record any portion Attendees acknowledged upon accessing the the meeting nor enable any individual to access the video recording proceedings who is not a member or an authorized committee staff member of today's participating committees. The stenographers have a list of names and titles of today's participants. I will now read the names into the record. Currently participating from the HFAC majority are members Chairmen Eliot Engel, Mr. Brad Sherman, Mr. Albio Sires, Mr. Gerry Connolly, Mr. William Keating, Mr. Ami Bera, Mr. Joaquin Castro, Mr. Ted Lieu, Mr. Colin Allred, Ms. Abigail Spanberger, and Mr. Tom Malinowski. Mr. Members from the HFAC minority: Lee Zeldin. HFAC ma orit staff for HFAC: Majority members from the Committee on Oversight and Reform: Mr. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ms. Robin Kelly. Minority members from the Committee on Oversight and Reform: Ranking Member Jim Jordan. Majority staff for the Committee on Oversight and Reform -- Mr. Connolly. - HFAC Dem Counsel. Yes, sir. Mr. Connolly. This is Gerry Connolly. I think the record should show I am also a member of the Oversight and Reform Committee. HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that clarification. Clearly, we do know that but I was just going off the list, and I appreciate that. Majorit staff for the Committee on Oversi ht and Committee on Oversiiht and Reform minoriti staff: The Senate Forei Relations Committee minority staff: And the House stenographers: I was just reminded by one of our collea ues we also have from the HFAC majority staff Mr. Connolly. HFAC Dem Counsel, forgive me for interru tin a ain. This is Mr. Connolly. You overlooked the of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you, sir. 13 1 Among these participants are moderators from the 2 majority staff of the committees who are managing the 3 technical requirements of the WebEx platform for this 4 videoconference and who admitted you into the 5 videoconference a few moments ago. 6 The moderators will respond as needed to specific cues 7 from attendees who wish to speak, generally manage the 8 muting and unmuting of microphones to ensure audio quality 9 and an orderly process, although speakers retain the ability 10 to mute and unmute themselves if needed. 11 troubleshoot any technological challenges that arise. 12 And they will help If anyone inadvertently drops from the videoconference 13 for any reason and you are unable to log back in via the 14 meeting link you originally received, please reach out to 15 relevant majority or minority staff contacts indicated in 16 the original meeting link you received. 17 endeavor to readmit you back into the conference as quickly 18 as possible. 19 Moderators can then Before we begin, I'd like to go over the ground rules 20 for this interview. To ensure that this videoconference 21 interview can be efficient and manageable, we will proceed 22 in alternating time blocks designated by party. 23 timed blocks for each party will be 1 hour; subsequent 24 blocks will be 45 minutes. The first 14 1 Democratic counsel will begin with the first block of 2 questioning, offering an opportunity for Democratic members 3 to ask questions towards the end of that hour should they 4 wish to do so. 5 an hour of the same format. 6 The time will then shift to Republicans for After the first 2 hours, 1 hour for each party, 7 alternating 45-minute rounds will ensue until the 8 questioning is done. 9 full allotted time in any given block, we will proceed to 10 11 If either side does not utilize its the next timed block for the other party. During the interview we will do our best to limit the 12 number of people who are directing questions at you and any 13 crosstalk in general that can make it more difficult for the 14 stenographers to achieve an accurate transcript. 15 from time to time, followup or clarifying questions may be 16 useful, and if that's the case, you might hear from 17 additional people in the videoconference. 18 That said, For everyone, including the stenographers, we would ask 19 if you're not attempting to ask a question or raise another 20 issue, if you could please turn off your video monitor so 21 that it is less distracting for the witness. 22 Because we are proceeding virtually, the moderators 23 will also mute everyone other than the witness and the main 24 questioner and then unmute other microphones if and when 15 1 people indicate or request to speak, which will help with 2 our audio quality. 3 Requests to speak may be initiated through the hand 4 raising function on the WebEx platform and the chair or 5 ranking member or their designee will recognize members to 6 ask questions through this hand-raising function toward the 7 end of each question round. 8 9 10 Mr. Linick, I understand that you have counsel representing you here today in your personal capacity. that correct? 11 Mr. Linick. 12 HFAC Dem Counsel. That's correct. Could you please ask counsel to 13 identify themselves for the record and confirm -- nope, 14 that's it. 15 16 Is Just identify themselves for the record, please. Mr. White. Good morning. Pete White and Brandon Faske with Schulte Roth & Zabel. 17 HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you, sir. 18 Mr. Linick agreed to come in with private counsel for 19 today's voluntary interview, and as minority staff with 20 House Foreign Affairs Committee also agreed in advance, only 21 approved members, staff, and the witness and his personal 22 counsel have been allowed to attend. 23 24 Again, there is a stenographer taking down everything I say and everything you say to make a written record of this 16 1 interview. For the record to be clear, I ask that you 2 please wait until I finish each question before you begin 3 your answer, and I will wait until you finish your response 4 before asking you the next question. 5 other participants who may wish to ask followup questions. Same goes for any The stenographer cannot record nonverbal answers, such 6 7 as shaking your head. So it is important that you answer 8 each question with an audible verbal answer. 9 understand, sir? 10 Mr. Linick. 11 HFAC Dem Counsel. Do you [Nonverbal response.] We want you to answer our questions 12 in the most complete and truthful manner possible. 13 are going to take our time. 14 not understand any of our questions, please let us know and 15 we will be happy to clarify or rephrase. 16 sir? 17 Mr. Linick. 18 HFAC Dem Counsel. So we If you have any questions or do Do you understand, Yes. This interview will be conducted 19 entirely at the unclassified level. It is the committee's 20 expectation that neither the questions asked of you, the 21 witness, nor answers by you or your counsel would require 22 discussion of any information that is currently or at any 23 point could be properly classified under executive order 24 13526. 17 1 Moreover, E.O. 13526 states that, quote, "In no case 2 shall information be classified, continue to be maintained 3 as classified, or fail to be declassified," unquote, for the 4 purposes of concealing any violations of law or preventing 5 embarrassment of any person or entity. 6 Do you understand, sir? 7 Mr. Linick. 8 HFAC Dem Counsel. 9 If I ask you about conversations or events in the past Yes. Thank you. 10 and you are unable to recall the exact words or details, you 11 should describe the substance of those conversations or 12 events to the best of your recollection. 13 a part of a conversation or event, you should give us your 14 best recollection of those events or parts of conversations 15 that you do recall. If you recall only Do you understand? 16 Mr. Linick. Yes. 17 HFAC Dem Counsel. Please note that if you wish to 18 assert a privilege over any statement today, you should 19 clearly state the specific privilege being asserted and the 20 reason for the assertion at the time the question is asked. 21 Do you understand? 22 Mr. Linick. 23 HFAC Dem Counsel. 24 let us know. Yes. If you need to take a break, please We're happy to accommodate you. However, to 18 1 the extent that there is a pending question, I would just 2 ask that you finish answering that question before we take a 3 break. Do you understand? 4 Mr. Linick. Yes. 5 HFAC Dem Counsel. During the course of this interview, 6 we may occasionally provide you with documents related to 7 this matter. 8 arises. 9 documents that were provided to Congress by the State That will be done electronically if the need These will either be public news articles or 10 Department, the Office of the Inspector General, or other 11 Federal entities in the course of this investigation. 12 you need any additional time to review a document before 13 answering a pending question, please just ask. 14 understand? 15 Mr. Linick. 16 HFAC Dem Counsel. If Do you Yes. One final thing. Although you are 17 here voluntarily and we will not swear you in, you are 18 required by law to answer questions from Congress 19 truthfully. 20 congressional staff in an interview. This also applies to questions posed by 21 Mr. Linick. 22 HFAC Dem Counsel. Do you understand? Yes. If at any time you knowingly make 23 false statements, you could be subject to criminal 24 prosecution. Do you understand? 19 1 Mr. Linick. 2 HFAC Dem Counsel. 3 Yes. Is there any reason you are unable to provide truthful answers in today's interview? 4 Mr. Linick. No. 5 HFAC Dem Counsel. 6 Our timekeeper has turned on the video, and there is a Thank you, sir. 7 timer that should be visible. To view the timer we ask that 8 you please use the grid view. This timer video will proceed 9 beginning now, and we will commence the first round of 10 questions. EXAMINATION 11 BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: 12 13 Q Mr. Linick, to begin, could you please just describe 14 briefly your background prior to joining the State 15 Department. 16 A Yes. I was a Federal prosecutor in the Department 17 of Justice for approximately 16 years. 18 the Federal Housing Finance Agency inspector general from 19 2010 to 2013. 20 inspector general for the Department of State. 21 22 23 24 Q After that, I was And from 2013 to the present, I've been the And how did you come to end up at the State Department as an inspector general? A When I was at the Federal Housing Finance Agency I did receive a call from somebody, and I don't recall who, 20 1 from the administration at that time, the Obama 2 administration, asking if I might be interested in moving to 3 the Department of State Office of Inspector General. 4 Q And could you describe for us please some of the 5 things that your office worked on during the Obama 6 administration. 7 A Well, throughout my tenure, we have worked on many, 8 many matters. 9 practices of the Secretaries of State and FOIA practices. 10 We were involved in a review of some murders in Honduras. 11 And, of course, we've been involved in many, many reviews 12 involving contracts and financial statement audits and 13 things like that. 14 Q We did work on the review involving email So, after the 2016 election, sir, did you have any 15 interaction with officials from the transition team for then 16 President-elect Donald Trump? 17 A Yes. When the transition team came to the State 18 Department, I did meet with a couple of folks, although I 19 wouldn't be able to recollect their names at this time. 20 21 22 Q And can you recall what those interactions were like? A Those interactions were largely information 23 gathering on their part to understand what the major 24 management challenges were in the Department and the types 21 1 of things that we were doing as an Office of Inspector 2 General. 3 Q Did they give you any particular messages or 4 indications about how the Trump administration would 5 interact with the Office of the Inspector General? 6 A No. 7 Q During the course of your work during the Trump 8 administration, did you ever have occasion to interact with 9 anyone in the White House? 10 A Can you repeat that question again? 11 Q Certainly. During the course of your work as State 12 Department inspector general during the Trump 13 administration, did you ever have occasion to interact with 14 anyone in the White House? 15 A I did interact with Brian Miller, who I knew from 16 the U.S. Attorney's Office in Eastern District of Virginia. 17 And I may have interacted with -- I interacted with Uttam 18 Dhillon as well, who was also former AUSA in the 19 U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles who I knew. 20 may have been another person or two who I interacted with 21 but having nothing to do with the State Department. 22 23 24 Q And there Could you just describe for us then what the nature of those interactions was? A Sure. At the time, I had applied to be a judge, and 22 1 I had applied both through my Senators in California, and I 2 was interviewed by folks at the White House about that 3 application, but I don't remember -- I can't remember their 4 names. 5 Q Okay. 6 A It was a couple of years ago, maybe 2017. 7 Q Okay. And do you recall roughly when that occurred? And did you have any interactions other than 8 the ones you just described with anyone from the White House 9 during the Trump administration? 10 A No. 11 Q Okay. Not to my recollection, no. What kind of a relationship did you have and 12 did your office have with then-Secretary of State Rex 13 Tillerson? 14 A It was cordial, professional. I met with him on a 15 couple of occasions as part of my ordinary course to advise 16 him on things we were doing at the State Department, the 17 management challenge and so forth. 18 19 Q And did Secretary Tillerson and his staff cooperate with your office? 20 A Yes. 21 Q You said "at that time." 22 23 24 At that time, yes. Could you elaborate, please? A Yes. We had an ongoing review involving political retaliation -- allegations of political retaliation at the 23 1 Department, and two of the witnesses in that review involved 2 former chief of staff Margaret Peterlin and former deputy 3 chief of staff Christine Ciccone. 4 the Department. 5 them and we were unable to do so. 6 7 8 9 Q They were no longer at We tried to reach out to them to interview And did you seek assistance from then-Secretary Tillerson's team in securing those interviews? A Well, Christine Ciccone was at the Department -- was at DHS at the time, and I don't recall where Margaret 10 Peterlin was. 11 but we ended up going to DHS because Ms. Ciccone was under 12 obligation to speak with us, and we also went to Congress 13 and advised them of the issue with cooperation. 14 Q I had advised folks in the State Department, So just so that we're clear on that, these were two 15 individuals who had formerly worked for Secretary Tillerson 16 who were no longer employed by the State Department? 17 A That's correct. 18 Q And when you sought their testimony after they had 19 left the Department, did the remaining staff in Secretary 20 Tillerson's office either help you or hinder you in any way 21 in trying to seek the testimony of those two former 22 officials? 23 24 A Well, Secretary Tillerson was no longer in office at the time. So that's why it's difficult to answer that 24 1 question. 2 my primary point of contact was through Deputy Secretary 3 John Sullivan. 4 Q At that time, Secretary Pompeo was in place, and Okay. So then, just to close out the Tillerson era, 5 is it your testimony then that, in all relevant respects, 6 Secretary Tillerson and his staff cooperated with your 7 office while he was Secretary of State? 8 A Yes, that is the case. 9 Q Thank you. 10 11 12 Sir, when was your first interaction with Secretary Pompeo and his team? A I don't recall the exact date, but it was shortly 13 after he arrived. 14 was largely to discuss, you know, the State Department in 15 our oversight efforts. 16 17 18 Q He asked for a meeting with me, and that And do you recall anything in particular about that meeting? A About that particular meeting, no. We had a couple 19 of meetings like that, which were generally about the 20 management challenges at the State Department, but I just 21 don't have an independent recollection of specifics. 22 Q Okay. And did you have standing meetings with 23 Secretary Pompeo personally? 24 basis? Did they recur on a regular 25 1 A I had tried to have quarterly meetings, and because 2 of both of our schedules, that didn't happen. 3 meeting with him -- and, again, I don't have the exact 4 number because I don't have access to my notes or calendars. 5 It was maybe five or six times total, but I can't give you 6 the exact number. 7 8 9 Q Okay. So I ended up And, generally, who else would attend those meetings when you met with Secretary Pompeo? A Well, it varied. The first couple of meetings were 10 one-on-one, if my recollection serves me. 11 involved myself, my chief of staff, my assistant inspector 12 general for evaluations and special projects and Deputy 13 Sullivan. 14 Deputy Sullivan. 15 the topic. 16 Q Another meeting I had another meeting with the Secretary and Okay. And so it just -- it varied depending on Were there others from the Secretary's staff 17 other than the one-on-one meetings who would typically 18 attend those meetings other than the Deputy Secretary? 19 Anyone else on the Seventh Floor -- 20 A Yeah. To the best of my recollection, no. 21 Q Okay. Can you describe for us, please, as you did 22 regarding Secretary Tillerson, what kind of a relationship 23 that you typically had with Secretary Pompeo and his staff 24 in terms of their cooperation with your efforts? 26 1 A Can you repeat the question? 2 Q Could you describe for us, please, what relationship 3 you had with Secretary Pompeo and his staff in terms of 4 their cooperation with your efforts? 5 A Generally, I would say they were very cooperative. 6 When you say his staff, I'm including Deputy Secretary John 7 Sullivan, former Deputy Secretary John Sullivan. 8 weekly -- standing weekly meeting with him, which we largely 9 kept to, and we had a very positive working relationship and 10 11 12 I had a a very cooperative working relationship. Q Did you also have meetings with Undersecretary for Management Brian Bulatao? 13 A I did. 14 Q And how would you characterize your relationship 15 16 with Undersecretary Bulatao? A So I can't recall the exact number of meetings. I 17 would say a handful of times we met. I would say that 18 sometimes the relationship was professional; at other times, 19 he tried to bully me. 20 Q Can you elaborate on that for me, please? 21 A The other thing I would add to that is sometimes I 22 felt he was unfamiliar with the role of inspectors general. 23 I can elaborate a little bit on that. 24 Q If you don't mind. 27 1 A At one point, I met with him in 2019. I'm not sure 2 of the exact date, but he did ask me if I had plans to leave 3 the Department at the end of the administration. 4 that IGs are nonpartisan and typically stay through the 5 change of administration, and he seemed surprised. 6 7 8 9 Q If I could just stop you there, sir. I told him Do you recall roughly when that conversation took place? A date. I don't. I'm sorry. It was in 2019, but I don't have the exact Or I don't have a good sense of it. 10 Again, I don't have access to my calendars or anything. 11 I'm not able to really put those pieces together. 12 Q So And just for the sake of the record, if you're 13 speaking to him sometime in 2019 and he's asking you if you 14 plan to leave at the end of the administration, that is the 15 Trump administration, to be clear that we're not talking 16 about the transition period? 17 A Yes, that is correct. 18 Q Okay. 19 20 I apologize for interrupting. Please continue. A Well, we also had disagreements about how a leak 21 investigation should be conducted, and so we had some 22 disagreements about that. 23 direction of the DOD IG investigation. 24 Q He wanted to manage the scope and In addition -- Well, we'll come to that in a little bit greater 28 1 detail. 2 A Okay. 3 Q You said that he didn't seem to understand the 4 nature of inspectors general. 5 meant by that? 6 A Can you tell us what you One of the things that inspectors general are 7 prohibited from doing is engaging in programmatic activity 8 under the Inspector General Act, and the purpose of that 9 provision is to ensure that we're not auditing ourselves. 10 There were a couple of occasions, and I don't recall 11 specifically which ones, where he had asked me to engage in 12 some programmatic activity. 13 One does come to mind. He did ask me through an email 14 to join an effort to design -- to help design the 15 Department's response to COVID-19, the Diplomacy Strong 16 program. 17 appropriate for me to do that because we may be auditing the 18 Department's efforts to address COVID-19. 19 20 Q And I did advise him that that wouldn't be And how did Undersecretary Bulatao respond to you in that instance? 21 A He said: Okay. 22 Q Just for the sake of the record, when you say 23 programmatic activity, for those not familiar with that term 24 of art, can you just tell us a little about what that means? 29 1 A Sure. Getting involved in the Department's internal 2 operations in a way that we are making policy for the 3 Department, we're designing programs, getting involved, for 4 example, in designing how money is going to be spent, we 5 have to be careful as inspectors general to make sure that 6 we keep an arm's length relationship with the Department. 7 So, for example, the Department has a management 8 control steering committee, and sometimes I attended those 9 meetings. Those are meetings with Department principals, 10 but I didn't have a vote in those meetings intentionally 11 because I never wanted to make policy and be in the position 12 of having to audit myself. 13 14 15 16 Q You said that, on occasion, he tried to bully you. Do you have specific examples of that? A Well, this goes into the point, which I think you're going to get to, about the leak investigation. 17 Q Uh-huh? 18 A Do you want me to elaborate on that? 19 Q I think we'll come back to that chronologically, if 20 that's -- 21 A Okay. 22 Q Thank you for clarifying. 23 A Yes. 24 One other thing I would say is that, in connection with our work on the arms control, the emergency 30 1 certification on the arms control, he told me that it wasn't 2 an appropriate review because it was a review of policy. 3 And I told him that, under the Foreign Service Act of 1980, 4 it was within the IG purview to review how policy is 5 implemented. 6 that, while we don't engage in policymaking, we look at how 7 policy is carried out as we are required to by law. And I was trying to draw that distinction 8 And so, for example, when we -- when the Department 9 provides humanitarian assistance to groups in Syria, for 10 example, while we don't question whether the policy is good 11 or bad, we do look to see how that policy is being carried 12 out and whether it's being carried out in an efficient, 13 effective manner, and whether it's complying with rules and 14 regulations. 15 16 Q And what was Undersecretary Bulatao's response when you provided him with that clarification? 17 A He just continued to push back. 18 Q Okay. Had he pushed back on any other 19 investigations that you were involved in, or does his focus 20 on the arms control issue stand out in your memory? 21 A That's the only thing that stands out in my memory. 22 Q Okay. And we'll get to this in more detail later in 23 the day, sir, but briefly, can you describe for the record 24 how your office came to be involved in looking at what was 31 1 an emergency declaration under the Arms Export Control Act 2 in about this time of 2019, so spring, summer? 3 A Yes. This was a congressional request, and I don't 4 know -- at this point in time, I can't name all the members, 5 but it was -- there was a request by House and Senate to 6 review the circumstances of the emergency certification. 7 And after that we endeavored to review whether or not that 8 emergency certification, the circumstances around that 9 complied with applicable law regulations in the Department. 10 Q So this wasn't something that you decided to do on 11 your own. This wasn't something where you had decided OIG 12 independently disagrees with this policy. 13 by, I believe, all of the Democratic members at least from 14 the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to look into whether or 15 not that policy was being properly implemented and whether 16 it was lawful, and you believed that that would have been 17 within your responsibilities under the IG Act. 18 that right? 19 A Yes, that is correct. You were asked Do I have We were not judging whether 20 the policy was good or bad. We are nonpartisan. 21 look at how policies are carried out and whether they 22 comport with applicable regulations and law. 23 Q 24 One last one on the Secretary's staff. We just Thank you. Did you ever 32 1 2 3 have any interactions with Counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl? A I had -- to the best of my recollection, I had one interaction with Counselor Brechbuhl. 4 Q And what was that in connection with? 5 A That was in connection with our report involving 6 allegations of political retaliation in the Office of the 7 Secretary. 8 response to our report and sort of the logistics around 9 that. 10 Q My contact with him was largely around his Okay. I think we'll get to that in a little bit. 11 But just to take a step back to sort of frame what it is 12 that has brought us all here today, Congress was notified of 13 your termination on the evening of Friday, May 15th. 14 did you find out that the President was going to remove you 15 as inspector general? 16 A When At approximately 7:45, on May 15th, I received a 17 call from the State Department operations center. 18 stated that Deputy Secretary Biegun and Undersecretary 19 Bulatao wanted to speak with me. 20 The deputy said to me: 21 22 They The President decided to exercise his power to remove you. And at that time, one of them, I don't remember who, 23 stated I will be placed on administrative leave with no 24 access to my building or my network and that they had 33 1 2 3 4 reached out to my administrative staff and notified them. Q Did they give you an explanation for why it is that you were being immediately placed on administrative leave? A The only thing they said was the President has 5 decided to exercise his power to remove you. 6 reason for the removal, and neither provided one. 7 Deputy Secretary reiterated the sentence about the President 8 decided to exercise his power to remove you. 9 Q Were you surprised by this? 10 A Shocked. 11 Q So how did you feel? 12 13 I asked for a The What was going through your mind during that call and immediately afterwards? A I was completely taken by surprise. I just had a 14 townhall with my staff on COVID-19, and I was in a state of 15 shock because I had not been -- I had no advance notice of 16 anything like that. 17 Q So you had had a townhall earlier that day? 18 A Yes. I had a townhall with all of my staff on how 19 we were going to -- how were we going to address the State 20 Department's Diplomacy Strong plan to reopen the government. 21 They had just published it earlier, actually the week 22 before. 23 during the COVID crisis to make sure my staff knew that we 24 were in control and taking care of them. And I was holding townhalls every couple of weeks 34 Q 1 And up until you received that call, did you have 2 any indication that the Secretary was planning to recommend 3 to the President that you be removed as inspector general? 4 A I had no indication whatsoever. 5 Q When did you find out that Ambassador Stephen Akard 6 would be taking over as acting inspector general? 7 A I don't recall exactly. 8 Q Had you heard his name before? 9 A I had not heard his name. 10 Q Sitting here today with the benefit of a few weeks 11 distance from the events, why do you think that Secretary 12 Pompeo asked President Trump to remove you as inspector 13 general? A 14 Well, I'm not going to speculate, and I'm going to 15 leave that conclusion to all of you since you're doing the 16 fact finding, but I can tell you though that I've been given 17 no valid reason that would justify my removal. 18 explanations I've heard so far in the press are either 19 unfounded or misplaced. And the I've been a dedicated public servant for 28 years. 20 21 I've conducted my work with honor, integrity, and without 22 regard to politics. 23 me. 24 whom I've interacted have commented that they thought our I followed the facts wherever they take Numerous senior officials in the Department who -- with 35 1 work was fair, objective, that we accomplished our mission, 2 and that was my understanding. 3 Q Do you believe that the decision to recommend your 4 removal had anything to do with work that had been done or 5 was being done by your office during the Trump 6 administration? 7 A As I said, I'm going to leave that conclusion to 8 you, and I'm not going to speculate. 9 that I don't believe there's any valid reason that would 10 11 But I can tell you justify my removal. Q So, prior to finding out that you were going to be 12 removed, did President Trump ever tell you that he had 13 concerns with your performance? 14 A No. 15 Q Did anyone on President Trump's staff ever tell you 16 that the President had any concerns with your performance? 17 A Never. 18 Q Had Secretary Pompeo ever told you that he had 19 concerns with your performance? 20 A No. 21 Q How about anybody who works directly for Secretary 22 Pompeo. Had anybody on the Seventh Floor of the State 23 Department ever communicated dissatisfaction about your 24 performance? 36 1 A No, just the opposite. As I mentioned to you 2 before, I met regularly with Deputy Secretary Sullivan, 3 former Deputy Secretary Sullivan. 4 course of those meetings, ask him how he thought our office 5 was doing and whether or not we were accomplishing our 6 mission to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of the 7 State Department, and he always thought we were. 8 9 And I would often, in the And I had a number of other contacts within the Department, senior level, who always commented that we 10 treated people fairly, that we were a productive office, and 11 that we were doing a great job. 12 Q One point I'd like to clarify, and I apologize for 13 not asking it earlier, on the call that you had from the 14 deputy and from Undersecretary Bulatao, did they indicate to 15 you at all who would be acting in your stead after you were 16 being removed on that Friday night? 17 A I don't recall if they did. 18 Q Did you come to learn -- or rather how did you come 19 to learn that it was going to be Ambassador Akard that was 20 taking your role? 21 22 A Honestly, I don't recall, and I don't want to speculate. 23 Q Were you informed officially by the Department? 24 A No. I don't recall being -- well, let me -- I don't 37 1 remember, and I don't want to speculate. 2 very soon. 3 reports or through staff. 4 5 Q I did find out It's unclear whether I found out through news I just don't have a recollection. Did you have or have you had since the time of your removal any conversations with Ambassador Akard? 6 A No. 7 Q Undersecretary Bulatao told The Washington Post that 8 you were fired in part for not promoting Secretary Pompeo's 9 ethos statement. 10 11 Do you have any idea what he's talking about there? A Well, I'm familiar with the ethos statement. No one 12 ever told me that they were upset before I was fired. 13 receive -- the only thing I received in connection with the 14 ethos statement was an email, which had been addressed to 15 many senior level officials in the Department. 16 survey requesting information as to how various bureaus were 17 implementing the ethos statement. 18 I did It was a And we had received very similar things in the past 19 from the Department. 20 recall reading the first line of the ethos, and it said: 21 are champions of American diplomacy. 22 And the only thing I recall -- I And my first thought was, well, this is really 23 inconsistent with our mission under the Inspector General 24 Act, which requires that we promote the effectiveness and We 38 1 efficiency of Department programs. 2 values, and goals, and we spent years working on that in the 3 OIG. 4 We have our own vision, And, frankly, I had told someone in my office to call 5 or to reach out to the person who sent that and indicate 6 that, you know, we were not -- you know, we were independent 7 and that the IG, you know, had a different mission and that 8 it might be inappropriate for us to promote the Department's 9 agenda and mission given that we oversee them. 10 But I had never heard from anyone that they were 11 unhappy with that response. 12 learn that in the press. 13 Biegun or Undersecretary Bulatao or anyone. 14 15 Q So it was a surprise to me to I had never heard that from Deputy Do you recall when you got that email and when you asked someone to send back a response? 16 A I do not. 17 Q Do you recall who you had asked to send back the 18 response? 19 A I don't. I'm sorry. 20 Q And, again, I recognize that you don't have access 21 to your records, and it may have been a while ago, but just 22 for the sake of completeness, do you recall to whom that 23 response was sent or which office or bureau within the State 24 Department? 39 1 A I don't, as I sit here now, remember that. 2 Q Okay. And having clarified in response to, you 3 know, the ethos statement, the importance of the 4 independence of inspectors general and given that your job 5 is to make sure that the Department is working as 6 efficiently as possible and that, as you said, you don't 7 want to get involved in auditing yourself, do you recall 8 getting any feedback to having offered that clarification 9 vis-a-vis the ethos statement? 10 A No, I received no feedback on that. 11 Q Okay. 12 13 14 15 What kind of a message do you think that your removal sends to inspectors general across the government? A I'm not going to -- it wouldn't be my practice to speculate what message it sends to others. Q As you know, sir, President Trump has removed or 16 replaced four other inspectors general in the span of the 17 past 6 weeks, including the inspector general for the 18 intelligence community, the Department of Transportation, 19 the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and 20 Human Services. 21 night by the inspector general for the Department of Labor. There was also a resignation just last 22 What kind of a message do you think that your inclusion 23 in that list sends either to IGs or to the public generally? 24 A It really wouldn't be appropriate for me as 40 1 inspector general to speculate on what type of message that 2 sends. 3 give you a personal opinion about it. I don't have work on that, and I'm just -- I can't 4 Q Thank you. 5 So I'd just like to walk through some of your specific 6 experiences as inspector general for the State Department. 7 First of all, what is the process that the IG's Office uses 8 to notify someone who is either the subject of an 9 investigation or whose input, testimony, documents, et 10 cetera, you will seek in the course of an investigation once 11 something has been initiated? 12 And for the sake of the record, I understand that your 13 office and inspectors general overall have a variety of 14 different terms that you use to address particular matters, 15 whether it's a review, an audit, an inspection. 16 purposes of today's interview, would it be appropriate to 17 stipulate that the term "investigation" would just refer to 18 any work being done by your office, or is there a different 19 term you would prefer as an umbrella? 20 A For the I think that we should use a different term because 21 we typically use the term "investigation" for either 22 criminal, civil matters, and sometimes administrative. 23 we call audits -- we don't call audits investigations or 24 inspections investigations or evaluations. But 41 1 And I would say generally, when we're talking about an 2 audit, an evaluation, an inspection, we notify the 3 Department through some sort of formal notice that we are 4 starting work. 5 A criminal investigation, that's a whole different 6 animal because that could involve other government equities, 7 so I don't really want to get into that. 8 9 In terms of an administrative review or administrative investigation, oftentimes we'll do some preliminary work, 10 and that preliminary work may either end if there's no 11 credible evidence to support allegations or we may go 12 further. 13 notify the Department in a more formal way. 14 Q And then, at some point, if we go further, we may Okay. Just for the sake of today's interview, sir, 15 would it be fair to use the term "matter" to refer as an 16 umbrella term to the various different types of efforts that 17 your office might be involved in? 18 our questions don't come across as unintentionally narrow. I want to make sure that 19 A I would say reviews. 20 Q Okay. 21 Do you follow the same processes that you just We will say reviews. 22 described for various reviews, understanding that, within 23 that subset there may be different processes, such as for 24 criminal matters you mentioned? Do you always follow those 42 1 processes for reviews that either involved or touched upon 2 the Secretary? 3 A Everything we do is standardized. It doesn't matter 4 whether it's the Secretary or whether it's a career civil 5 servant. 6 know, use the sort of same thresholds to determine whether 7 we move forward or not. 8 9 Q We always follow the same procedures, and we, you So it's been reported that -- Secretary Pompeo has said that he didn't know that he was either involved in or 10 touched upon in any way by a review at the time that you 11 were removed from your position. 12 that Secretary Pompeo did know that he was either the 13 subject of or would have information relevant to any review 14 that was underway in your office at the time that you were 15 removed? 16 17 A Is it your understanding I think it would be easier if I talked about specific reviews. 18 Q Yes, please. 19 A We had an administrative review of allegations 20 relating to misuse of government's resources by the 21 Secretary and his wife, but I can't talk about the merits of 22 that. 23 directly about it. 24 As to that review, I never spoke with the Secretary There was a point in time in late 2019 that my office 43 1 reached out to get documents from the Office of the 2 Secretary as well as the Office of the Legal Adviser. 3 during that same period of time, I did speak with 4 Undersecretary Bulatao, possibly Deputy Secretary Sullivan, 5 but I am not sure, about the reasons -- about the fact that 6 we were making these document requests so they weren't 7 surprised. 8 9 Q And these were document requests that related to, as you said, allegations of improper use of Department 10 resources by Secretary Pompeo and his wife. 11 right? 12 A Yes. 13 Q And you had a conversation with Undersecretary 14 15 Bulatao about that in late 2019. A Yes. Did I get that Is that right? And I also advised Deputy Secretary Biegun 16 about those allegations and that we would be obtaining 17 documents, et cetera. 18 19 20 And Q And would those have included seeking documents from Secretary Pompeo? A I don't know. My staff was reaching out to the 21 office of the Secretary, and that's really all I can say 22 about that. 23 of Legal Adviser as well to request documents, and I do know 24 my staff communicated with Lisa Kenna about documents. I know my office communicated with the Office 44 1 2 Q And for the sake of the record, Lisa Kenna's title is what, sir? 3 A She is the Executive Secretary. 4 Q And to whom does she report? 5 A I don't know exactly. 6 7 I think it's Secretary Pompeo, but I'm not entirely sure. Q And in any of those conversations regarding this 8 review into the potential misuse of government resources by 9 the Secretary and his wife, did you ask any of the 10 individuals with whom you spoke not to tell Secretary Pompeo 11 about your conversations? 12 A No. 13 Q Would it have been your expectation that they would 14 have potentially informed him about those conversations? 15 A I'm not going to speculate about that. 16 Q Okay. At any point during the Trump administration, 17 Mr. Linick, did anyone at the State Department ever pressure 18 you to change a finding or a conclusion or a recommendation 19 in any of your work products? 20 A No. I mean, we had -- you know, that doesn't mean 21 that there wasn't disagreement, but I don't take 22 disagreement as an effort to pressure or change in that 23 sense. 24 Q Were there specific instances in which individuals 45 1 at the State Department expressed that type of disagreement 2 that you can recall? 3 A I mean, that's very normal when we issue reports 4 that some findings may not be agreeable to the audited 5 entity, and there's usually an interchange back and forth. 6 If we got the facts wrong, we want to know that. 7 very interested in the Department's perspective. 8 9 So we're It doesn't always mean we're going to change the facts or change -- you know, change the finding. But there is 10 always opportunity for healthy exchange, and we want that. 11 But I've never felt pressured unduly to change any of my 12 findings or conclusions, and I had never done so. 13 Q So one thing I'd like to spend some time on, and we 14 may turn to it a little later in the day, is a report that 15 you referred to earlier regarding allegations of prohibited 16 personnel practices in the Office of the Secretary, and in 17 particular, that dealt with Brian Hook. 18 Did any senior officials at the State Department 19 express, as you said, disagreement to you regarding 20 specifically the statements in that report about Brian Hook? 21 A Well, I believe the Department's response from 22 Mr. Brechbuhl adopted Brian Hook's response, and I don't 23 have a very clear memory of all of that, and I don't have 24 those documents in front of me. But, again, we did not -- I 46 1 did not feel pressure to change anything. 2 disagreed with our findings, but, again, I didn't take that 3 as pressure to change findings. 4 disagreement. 5 6 Q Mr. Hook himself We definitely had Did anyone else besides Mr. Hook express disagreement with your findings regarding Mr. Hook? 7 A No, not that I can recall. 8 Q Did you have any conversations or exchange any 9 10 11 correspondence with Undersecretary Bulatao regarding the report on Brian Hook? A I don't recall, as I sit here. 47 1 2 3 [10:37 a.m.] Mr. Linick. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: 4 5 I don't recall, as I sit here. Q And I believe you may have referred to this earlier, 6 but did you have any conversations with or did you exchange 7 any correspondence with Counselor Brechbuhl regarding the 8 Brian Hook report? 9 A There was definitely a phone conversation, and there 10 may have been some correspondence, but I just don't have 11 clarity on that. 12 13 14 Q Can you describe what you do recall about that phone conversation and correspondence, please? A I think the phone call really had to do with how we 15 were going to treat the Department's response, how we were 16 going to include it in our report. 17 conversation. 18 did some followup work, and that extended the timetable for 19 our issuance of the report. 20 21 22 That was the gist of the There had been a Department response, and we That was the nature of it. Other than that, I just can't give you any clarity on that. Q Did anybody during the course of your work on that 23 report reach out to you and say, hey, you got it wrong, I 24 know Mr. Hook, clearly he couldn't have done something like 48 1 this? 2 A I don't recall that happening to me, no. 3 Q Okay. 4 HFAC Dem Counsel. Given the time and before we go into 5 a longer discussion, this might be an opportune moment to 6 see if any of the Democratic Members have questions that 7 they would like to ask during this round. 8 9 If I could ask that the clock be stopped momentarily while we take stock of everyone to see if folks have 10 questions. And, of course, we will extend that same 11 courtesy to our Republican colleagues in their round as 12 well. 13 Mr. Sherman. I have a question. 14 HFAC Dem Counsel. 15 Mr. Sherman. Sherman here. Go ahead, sir. Hello. Yes. I note that two of our 16 focuses here will be the personal errands and the Saudi arms 17 sale, but a third issue that's come up is the fact that the 18 Hatch Act applies to Secretaries in the President's Cabinet. 19 And, you know, we know Mike Pompeo. He is keeping his 20 political options open. He might have run for Senate; he 21 might run for something else someday. 22 "Madison Dinners," where he brings in people that any 23 political fundraiser who is running a Senate campaign would 24 want to bring in and entertains them at State Department And he's had these 49 1 expense. 2 private State Department planes. 3 He also has the numerous flights to Kansas on I wonder whether either of those were subjects of your 4 investigation and what you can tell us about the possible 5 use of State Department resources to build a Senate or some 6 other political campaign. 7 Mr. Linick. Unfortunately, I can't comment on any of 8 those matters other than what I've already said, that we 9 have a review of allegations relating to the misuse of 10 11 government resources. HFAC Dem Counsel. That's all I can say at this time. Sorry to interrupt. Could you just 12 clarify, Mr. Linick, for the record why it is that you don't 13 believe you can say anything further? 14 Mr. Linick. Because this is a pending review and I 15 don't want to impact the integrity of the review. 16 wouldn't be my policy to talk about -- it would be against 17 my policy to talk about findings or specific information 18 about these reviews. 19 existence of it. 20 And it So I'm only able to talk about the It's in the same way, when we did the report, the 21 review on allegations regarding political retaliation in the 22 Department, we confirmed the existence of that but we would 23 not discuss specific findings or information about that 24 particular review. 50 1 2 Mr. Sherman. Thank you. service. 3 Mr. Linick. 4 Chairman Engel. 5 Mr. Connolly of Virginia. Thank you. 6 Mr. Connolly. 7 Mr. Linick. 8 Mr. Connolly. 9 And thank you for your clarify. I want to now recognize my colleague Thank you. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Mr. Linick, I wonder if you could You've told us that Secretary Pompeo never told 10 you he was dissatisfied with your work, if I understand your 11 testimony correctly? 12 Mr. Linick. Yes. 13 Mr. Connolly. So who told you you were being 14 terminated? 15 understanding, what is your understanding for the reason for 16 your termination? 17 What reason did they give? Mr. Linick. And what was your The Deputy Secretary, Steve Biegun, and 18 Undersecretary Bulatao called me and told me that the 19 President decided to exercise his power to remove you. 20 asked for a reason, and none was provided other than what I 21 have just stated. 22 As I mentioned earlier, I have not heard any valid 23 reason that would justify my removal. And before I was 24 removed, no one questioned my performance or gave me any I 51 1 advance notice of that. 2 removed is accounts in the media, and those explanations are 3 either misplaced or unfounded. 4 Mr. Connolly. 5 about your termination. 6 you were terminated? All I've heard since I've been Well, you're here voluntarily to talk What is your understanding of why 7 And I understand I'm asking you, in some ways, to 8 speculate, but you're the witness and you're the person who 9 is affected by the termination. As you contemplate that 10 act, what is the best understanding you possess of why you 11 were terminated? 12 Mr. Linick. Well, I really don't know why I was 13 terminated. 14 you know, as the IG, I don't like to offer speculations. 15 And I really don't want to speculate because, So I don't know how to answer that question other than, 16 I believe that conclusion should be left to this 17 fact-finding body. 18 would justify my removal. 19 Mr. Connolly. But I have heard no valid reason that I just -- I don't know why. So let me ask one final question. 20 subcommittee has jurisdiction for IGs, the Government 21 Operations Subcommittee. 22 termination, in the context of the termination of your 23 colleagues, can have a chilling effect on the work 24 [inaudible]? Are you concerned that your The 52 1 Mr. Linick. Well, again, in accordance with my 2 practices, I don't want to speculate as to what kind of 3 effect it will have. 4 heard people express some fear. I can tell you that anecdotally I have 5 Mr. Connolly. 6 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: 7 8 9 10 11 12 Thank you. Q Mr. Linick, could you please just elaborate briefly on anecdotally having people express fear to you regarding that chilling effect? A You know, I've just had people reach out. And that's what I mean by "anecdotally." 13 Q And what have they said? 14 A They have said that they're fearful. 15 Q And are these people in the same rough line of work? 16 Are these private citizens? 17 respecting people's confidentially, broad strokes of who it 18 is that you think might be fearful in the wake of your 19 firing? 20 21 22 23 24 A Can you give us, obviously I mean, the folks who have reached out to me are folks in the IG community. Q The folks in the inspector general community are, themselves, fearful for their jobs? A No, I'm not going to say all of them. I'm just 53 1 saying, anecdotally, people have expressed fear. 2 as much as I can tell you. 3 Q 4 HFAC Dem Counsel. 5 Chairman Engel. 6 But that's Thank you, sir. Mr. Engel? Yes. I now would recognize my colleague Ms. Jackie Speier. 7 Ms. Speier. 8 Thank you for your service, Mr. Linick. 9 The ethos statement that you were asked in a survey to 10 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. comment on, approximately what date was that? Mr. Linick. 11 Unfortunately, I don't have access to 12 those records, so I really don't remember. 13 ago. 14 wasn't something that had happened -- it was before COVID. 15 That's probably a good way to -- before mid-March. 16 that would be a safe assertion. 17 can't remember. 18 19 20 21 It wasn't something that happened -- I can say it Ms. Speier. I think But other than that, I So it was this year, however? It was in 2020? Mr. Linick. No, I -- it may have been last year. I really -- 22 Ms. Speier. Okay. 23 Mr. Linick. Yeah. 24 It was a while It may have been last year. don't -- I don't want to speculate or guess. I just 54 1 Ms. Speier. So I understand you can't comment on 2 ongoing investigations. 3 to make sure that any documentation is saved and not 4 disposed of. 5 nature of documents that may have been collected as a result 6 of that investigation? 7 But, from our perspective, we want Can you give us any indication as to the Mr. Linick. I'm really not in a position to do that, 8 and I think that would be a better question directed at the 9 office. I have not been in the office since -- you know, 10 other than obtaining some personal effects, I've not been in 11 the office. 12 detail without potentially impacting the integrity of that 13 work. 14 of information. 15 And I really can't get into that specific So I don't feel comfortable talking about the types Ms. Speier. I'm not even asking for types of 16 information. 17 folders full of documents or boxes full of documents? 18 I just want to know, are we talking about file Mr. Linick. I wouldn't be able to tell you that 19 because the person running that review is largely, sort of, 20 in charge of document collection. 21 just don't -- I don't have the knowledge to tell you what 22 exactly we're talking about. 23 24 Ms. Speier. It wouldn't be me. And who is that individual who is in charge of that particular review, then? So I removed. And on -- at some oint, I received word from my who 55 Mr. Linick. _is the lead on that. He is the least, he was before I left. Ms. Speier. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: And just briefly, sir, if I could, because you've referenced this. When you had gone back to get your personal effects from the office, what happened? A Friday night, I received word that I was being escorted me into my office on Saturday and allowed me to take photos out and other, sort of, personal effects. And the same occurred on Sunday too. I had 7 years' worth of personal effects in there. And that was it. And why is it that you had to be escorted, sir? A My access to the building -- I had no more access to the building, and I had no more access to the network. I don't know. I don't really know what else to tell you other than that was the only way I could get in the building, through an escort. And so both your physical access to the building and your access to materials had been cut off by Saturday 56 1 morning following your Friday evening phone call from the 2 Deputy Secretary and Undersecretary Bulatao. 3 correct? Is that 4 A Yes. 5 Q And that is despite the fact that you were told on 6 that call that you were being placed on administrative 7 leave. 8 A 9 leave, yes. 10 Q 11 Is that correct? I was told I was being placed on administrative And yet you were locked out of the building and locked out of your files. 12 A Yes. 13 Q Thanks. 14 HFAC Dem Counsel. 15 Chairman Engel. 16 Mr. Lieu. 17 And thank you, Mr. Linick, for your long career of 18 19 Mr. Engel? Mr. Ted Lieu of California. Thank you, Mr. Chair. public service and for being here voluntarily. At the time that you were informed that Donald Trump 20 was removing you, your office was conducting an ongoing 21 investigation into Secretary Pompeo and his wife potentially 22 misusing Department resources, correct? 23 Mr. Linick. 24 Mr. Lieu. That's correct. Your office was also conducting a review or investigation of the Saudi arms sale and whether there was potentially an inappropriate justification for the sale. Is that right? Mr. Linick. Well, I?d like to it was not an investigation. Our was conducting a review of that. Mr. Lieu. Okay. And that was an ongoing review, correct? Mr. Linick. That's correct. Mr. Lieu. [Inaudible] interviewed Secretary Pompeo before you were told you were going to be removed? Mr. Linick. I am sorry. Can you repeat the question? You phased out. Mr. Lieu. Have you or your office interviewed Secretary Pompeo related to that review of the Saudi arms sale? Mr. Linick. No. Before I left, before I was removed, our team asked for an interview of the Secretary. Mr. Lieu. Okay. And did the Secretary understand what the interview was related to? Mr. Linick. Well, I did not talk to the Secretary personally, so I can't tell you what he understood or what he didn't understand. But what I can tell you is that I told Undersecretary Bulatao, Deputy Secretary Steve Biegun, 58 1 2 and the Legal Adviser about the request. He ultimately submitted -- as he already stated in 3 public, in the media, he submitted some written answers to 4 topic areas that we provided in advance of requesting our 5 interview. 6 7 8 9 10 11 Mr. Lieu. Okay. So, clearly, he understood there was a review ongoing of the Saudi arms sale. Mr. Linick. Again, he provided the document to us. don't want to speculate in any way. Mr. Lieu. All right. But the written document was related to the Saudi arms sale. 12 Mr. Linick. 13 Mr. Lieu. 14 Was there a third investigation or review that your 15 16 17 18 He did provide a document -- right. Okay. office was conducting related to workplace violence? Mr. Linick. time. I'm not going to comment on that at this I can't comment on that. Mr. Lieu. Were there other investigations or reviews 19 that your office was conducting that would put Secretary 20 Pompeo or the administration in a negative light or -- 21 Mr. Linick. 22 Mr. Lieu. 23 Mr. Linick. 24 I I don't -- yeah. -- cause embarrassment? I don't want to speculate what would put them in a negative light or not. 59 1 Mr. Lieu. Right. 2 Mr. Linick. 3 Mr. Lieu. 4 Mr. Linick. I can -- go ahead. Go ahead. Finish. I can confirm the existence of the 5 following matters, which I understand my office already 6 disclosed to the committee, and that is -- and these matters 7 involve the Office of the Secretary in some way. 8 9 So we were doing an audit of Special Immigrant Visas. We were doing an ongoing review involving the International 10 Women of Courage Award. We were doing an ongoing review 11 involving individuals in the Office of the Protocol. 12 not at liberty to talk about the details of those. I'm 13 And, of course -- and this goes for anything I would 14 say in this hearing -- is, I am never going to confirm or 15 deny the existence of any criminal investigations. 16 never do that, you know, in any respect. 17 make that clear for the record. So I just want to 18 Mr. Lieu. 19 asking for details. Thank you for providing those three 20 additional reviews. Are there any other reviews that you 21 think would be helpful for us to know that your office was 22 conducting at the time? 23 24 All right. I would Mr. Linick. Thank you, sir. And I'm not None that I can recollect as I sit here, but this is something that you would probably need to go 60 1 back to the office for and request. 2 I recall having been ongoing. 3 Mr. Lieu. Thank you. These are the ones that So I guess what I'm asking is, 4 it'd be helpful if we knew what to request. 5 provide us a list of potential questions we could ask, that 6 would be very helpful. 7 we're just asking you to help with the investigation. 8 instead of us just randomly asking for topics, if you have 9 some that you felt we might want to look at, that would be 10 11 We're not asking to you speculate; So, helpful. Mr. Linick. Well, I don't have -- I'm really not in a 12 position to give you topics to ask them. 13 have access to the office. 14 So if you could I don't really All I would say is, it would be best if you posed that 15 question, as to what ongoing work is there, to the office. 16 I wouldn't be able to provide you with specific topics, 17 because I just don't, as I sit here now, recall any specific 18 topics. 19 I've given you the topics that I'm aware of. So I don't think I could be of any additional help. 20 And I don't want to impact the -- or undermine the integrity 21 of any ongoing work that the office is doing. 22 Mr. Lieu. So if we asked the question of, just give us 23 everything your office is working on, there's no reason they 24 wouldn't just give us a list. Is that right? Is that what 61 1 2 I'm understanding? Mr. Linick. I have not been -- I don't have 3 communication with the Acting IG, and I can't speculate what 4 the office would give you or wouldn't give you. 5 been in charge since I was removed. Let me just take a step back. We're trying 7 to do an investigation of why you were fired. I'm sure you 8 would like to know that answer as well. 6 9 Mr. Lieu. I have not So I'm just asking -- we just want to know, what were 10 the investigations your office was conducting up to the time 11 you were told you were going to be removed? 12 reason we couldn't just get a list of what those 13 investigations were? 14 Mr. Linick. Is there any Well, I've already given you what I'm 15 aware of. 16 other than what I've said. 17 would have to go to the office and get a list. 18 to provide that. 19 So there's no other list that I can give you Mr. Lieu. It may not be exhaustive. You I'm unable I have no access -- Ah. Okay. I got it. You've already given 20 us what you're aware of at the time that you were removed, 21 correct? 22 Mr. Linick. 23 Mr. Lieu. 24 Mr. Linick. Yes. And it's my understanding -- Okay. -- that my office has already disclosed 62 1 that to the committee. 2 exhaustive. But I am not suggesting that that is It may be. Okay. I just can't say for certain. 3 Mr. Lieu. Understood. Thank you very much. 4 Mr. Linick. 5 HFAC Dem Counsel. 6 And I'd just like to note for the record, we appreciate Yes. Thank you, sir. 7 your indulgence with Mr. Lieu's questions. By my watch, 8 that went over by a minute and 54 seconds. So, happy to 9 extend an additional 2 minutes to our Republican colleagues 10 11 12 13 14 15 for their round as well. With that, we will turn the clock over to our Republican counterparts. Mr. White. Thank you. HFAC Dem Counsel, per our agreement, we'd like to have a 5-minute break at this point. HFAC Dem Counsel. Sir, that was just a little garbled, 16 but just for the sake of the record, we would like to take a 17 short break. 18 5 minutes sound okay, Mr. White and Mr. Linick? And we will come back on the record -- does 19 Mr. White. That's adequate. 20 HFAC Dem Counsel. 21 [Recess.] 22 HFAC Dem Counsel. Great. Thank you. Thank you both. Over to our Republican colleagues 23 for an hour, with an additional 2 minutes given that we ran 24 slightly over. Thank you. EXAMINATION BY HFAC REP COUNSEL: Hi, Mr. Linick. My name is- I am senior counsel for the Foreign Affairs minority staff. Good to see you again. I'd like to begin by going back to what my colleague mentioned in terms of discussing your departure and some of your investigations. You said that Undersecretary Bulatao bullied you. Can you expound some more on that for us? A Sure. We had a number of disagreements about the way in which a leak investigation was going to be handled. And I would rephrase that, not that he bullied me, but that he attempted to bully me. He wanted to sort of take control over a leak investigation that was being conducted by the DOD I6. 50 that's one example of that. The other has to do with the work we were doing on the arms control, in trying to have us not work on that matter, stating that it was a policy matter and it was not within our jurisdiction to look at it. So that was sort of the nature of that attempt to bully. Those are examples. Okay. Let's deal with the -- since we had already 64 1 talked about the arms control one first, let's go back to 2 that one. 3 articulate to you as his concern? 4 policy and not implementation? 5 A What exactly did Undersecretary Bulatao He just thought it was I can't tell you what his understanding was, but I 6 can tell you that he strenuously objected to our doing work 7 on a policy matter. 8 tell you what was in his mind. 9 that's what he said. 10 I don't really understand -- I can't I can only tell you that And in response to that, I cited the Foreign Service 11 Act, which requires us to review implementation of policy, 12 not to judge whether it's a good policy or a bad policy, 13 which does not concern me one bit, but whether or not the 14 policy is being carried out in accordance with the 15 regs -- the regulations and the law. 16 Q So the confusion, from where I sit on this, just 17 speaking for myself, is, when we talk about the decision in 18 that instance, about utilizing that emergency authority, it 19 seems like, at least in terms of the State Department, it 20 was a discussion about whether to utilize the authority, 21 about what the policy should be, not so much implementation 22 of the policy. 23 24 And so I'm wondering if you can better define for us, kind of, the scope of what you were exactly looking at when 65 1 2 it came to that arms transfer issue. A All I can tell you at this point is that we were 3 looking at the implementation of that policy. 4 not at liberty to go further into that. 5 Q 6 right? 7 A That's an ongoing matter, yes. 8 Q But, generally speaking, do you review the 9 10 Okay. And that review is still open. I'm really Is that predecisional discussions about what a policy should be? A I'm not really -- that's a hypothetical question. 11 I'm not going to get into whether we review predecisional 12 questions. 13 particular with respect to this matter. 14 classified aspects of this matter, and I really don't want 15 to have further discussion about it for fear of wading into 16 that territory. 17 Q I'm just not able to answer that, and in There are So you said another example of a time when 18 Undersecretary Bulatao attempted to bully you was in regard 19 to a leak investigation. Can you tell us about that? 20 A Absolutely. 21 So there was a Daily Beast article which was issued in 22 mid-September of 2019. This was after we submitted our 23 report on political retaliation within the Office of the 24 Secretary to the Department for comment. The article 66 1 indicated that the OIG was set to recommend discipline for 2 Brian Hook, and the Secretary was concerned that the leak to 3 The Daily Beast about that recommendation may have come from 4 the Inspector General's Office. 5 So we had a meeting on that -- in other words, "we" 6 meaning the Secretary and I met on that right after that 7 article came out, and he was very upset about this 8 particular article -- 9 Q Mr. Linick, I'm sorry to interrupt. Just so we're 10 clear, is this the article from September 13, 2019, in The 11 Daily Beast that had the headline, quote, "State IG Set to 12 Recommend Discipline for Trump's Top Iran Hand"? 13 A Yes, that's the article. 14 Q And that was authored by Erin Banco. 15 A I don't remember who that's authored by. 16 Q Okay. 17 Is that right? And this meeting with the Secretary was soon thereafter that publication? 18 A Yes. 19 Q Okay. 20 A What would you -- would you like me to describe that 21 I'm sorry to interrupt. Please continue. meeting? 22 Q Yes, please. 23 A So the Secretary was concerned about a possible 24 leak. It was very upsetting to me, the thought of a leak 67 1 coming from the IG's Office, because that is not something 2 that I would tolerate. 3 integrity of our report and our office, and the report was 4 due to come out in a few weeks. 5 And it would certainly undermine the At that meeting, I told him that. I told him I 6 certainly did not leak it or have any communication with The 7 Daily Beast or any periodical. 8 of my knowledge, no one in my office leaked it, and if they 9 did, they would be subject to swift action, including 10 I told him that, to the best removal. 11 And I also told him that information about that report 12 could have been leaked from a variety of sources, including 13 the fact that the Department already had the report. 14 Certain Members of Congress were conducting an investigation 15 was my understanding of that, and some of the portions of 16 the report had been seen by various subjects. 17 In any event, I took the leak very seriously, and I 18 told him that I would conduct an independent review to 19 ensure that no one in my office leaked that document. 20 In any event, he said at the time that he wanted the 21 Bureau of Diplomatic Security to investigate that leak. And 22 that's the Department's internal affairs group. 23 that that would not be appropriate for a variety of reasons. 24 One, we're the overseers of the Department of State, not I told him 68 1 vice versa. 2 involving an unclassified report and a potential violation 3 of OIG rules, and anyone who leaked this document would be 4 subject to OIG discipline. 5 Two, it involved an alleged leak of information And I told him that the typical response to these 6 things -- and these are common in the IG community -- in 7 other words, allegations of leaks -- would be either for an 8 internal review by the IG, the subject IG, or for an 9 independent IG to actually do the review. 10 In any event, I ended up calling the Council for 11 Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the CIGIE, 12 and asked them -- I said, these allegations are serious and 13 I wanted an independent review to be conducted. 14 the Integrity Committee told me that CIGIE does not review 15 offices. 16 this report. 17 yourself or find another IG to do it. 18 The head of And I had approximately 14 people who had touched And they said that you need to either do it The head of the Integrity Committee's name is Scott 19 Dahl. He was also the IG at Labor OIG. I asked him if his 20 office could do the review. 21 went to the VA OIG and asked if their office could do the 22 review. 23 and asked them if they could do the review, and then they 24 said that they could. He said he couldn't. They said they couldn't. I then I then went to the DOD IG 69 1 I think all that background is important, because you 2 asked me about Brian Bulatao. 3 about the fact that CIGIE was not the appropriate place to 4 bring this matter; I was told that by CIGIE. 5 that the DOD IG was going to be conducting the independent 6 review. 7 I had told Brian Bulatao And I told him And he insisted that the CIGIE do the review. I told him that CIGIE only looks at particular 8 individuals and that he was welcome to file a claim against 9 me in particular, if he wished to do so, with the CIGIE. 10 11 Apparently he had not done that. So I followed the procedure. This was a serious 12 situation, and I wanted to make sure that if there was a 13 leak in my office that we found it and took appropriate 14 action, because this would impact the reputation of the 15 office. 16 17 18 Q Do you recall when this conversation with Undersecretary Bulatao took place? A Well, it would have been shortly after my meeting 19 with the Secretary in September, because all of this was 20 happening fairly quickly. 21 to do the review in October. 22 have an independent recollection of the exact date, but it 23 had to occur in the fall. 24 2019. I believe we invited the DOD IG So it had to -- again, I don't It had to occur in the fall of 70 1 2 Q Did you have any conversations with anyone else in Department leadership about this leak investigation? 3 A I did with Deputy Sullivan as well. 4 Q And when, approximately, did that conversation take 5 place? 6 A It would have occurred at or around the same time. 7 I don't have an independent recollection of that. 8 it occurred before he left that post. Clearly, 9 Q Can you tell us about that conversation? 10 A I had the same conversation with him as I did with 11 Undersecretary Bulatao. 12 investigate offices, that I was advised by CIGIE to either 13 do it internally or find another inspector general to do it, 14 and that was the sum and substance of the conversation, and 15 that it was my interest to have an independent review to 16 determine whether anyone in our office leaked. 17 I told him that the CIGIE doesn't At the same time, we also were conducting an 18 investigation of the Department with the Bureau of 19 Diplomatic Security to see whether or not anyone in the 20 Department leaked it, because a number of people had the 21 report at that time in the Department. 22 as well, that we were actually partnering with the Bureau of 23 Diplomatic Security. 24 Q So I told him that So when you completed that conversation with Deputy 71 1 Secretary Sullivan, what were the do-outs? 2 think that you were going to consult with other IGs and 3 bring someone on who could do the investigation since you 4 had told him CIGIE could not? 5 back from you after that conversation? A 6 I mean, did he Was he expecting anything I am not going to speculate as to what he expected 7 or what he thought. 8 him that the CIGIE would not investigate an office. 9 told him that, after having consulted with three IGs, big 10 IGs, I found one who had the time and the resources to do 11 it. 12 I can tell you what I told him. I told And I I told him that. Q So Deputy Sullivan knew you had consulted with the 13 three other IGs in an effort to find an IG to conduct the 14 investigation. 15 A I told him that. 16 Q Did he ask for any type of updates or any type of 17 final report from that investigation when you -- I guess, 18 was he told -- let me back up. 19 had agreed to do the investigation? Did you tell him that DOD IG 20 A Oh, yes. 21 Q At that same discussion? 22 A I don't know if it was the same discussion. I just 23 remember telling him that the DOD IG was going to do the 24 review. 72 1 Q Okay. After you informed Deputy Sullivan that the 2 DOD IG was going to be doing the investigation, did Deputy 3 Secretary Sullivan ask for any status updates or any final 4 report or recommendations once the DOD IG completed its 5 work? 6 A I don't recall if he asked that. I mean, once he 7 was nominated to be Ambassador to Russia, you know, he left 8 his post, so we didn't have a lot of interaction -- we 9 didn't have a lot of interaction about it. 10 11 Q Did anyone else in Department leadership ask for similar updates or conclusions -- 12 A Yes. 13 Q -- from that report? 14 A So I do recall one instance. And this occurred 15 before, sort of, March 17 or March 16, when everything 16 started shutting down at the State Department. 17 pre-COVID. 18 that there had been a leak to the press in our office. 19 shortly after that, I met with Brian Bulatao and 20 Deputy Secretary Biegun, and I told them about those results 21 verbally. 22 This was I learned from the DOD IG that they hadn't found Undersecretary Bulatao asked for the internal 23 investigation of that report, and I told him that it 24 wouldn't be my practice just to hand over an internal And 73 1 investigation of OIG personnel who are being investigated 2 for violating OIG rules. 3 wanted to be transparent, that I would share some version of 4 the report with the Deputy when it was finalized, but I 5 wanted an opportunity as to how to assess that. 6 However, I did tell him, because I And I told him that I had several concerns. One, these 7 were DOD IG records. Two, it involved an investigation of 8 individuals involved in investigating the Department for 9 political retaliation, and I could imagine the Department 10 using information in the report against them, and wanted to 11 make sure their confidentiality was protected. 12 I didn't want to set a precedent of just turning over any 13 internal reviews that the Department asked for. 14 And, three, I received the final report at or around March 17, and 15 that's when COVID was in full swing. 16 March 16, we began sending everyone home. 17 in-person meetings, including with the Deputy, were 18 canceled. 19 with, you know, addressing COVID and figuring out how to 20 protect staff. 21 On or about Monday, All of my And, at that point, we were completely consumed But for the COVID crisis, I had planned to sit down in 22 person with the Deputy and let him review that report in 23 camera in order to be transparent about it but also to 24 protect the equities that I mentioned. 74 1 2 Q So it was your position that Department leadership could only review the findings of that report in camera. 3 A That was going to be my position, yes. 4 Q And so, what date did you receive the written report 5 6 from DOD IG? A I'm not exactly sure. 7 is March 17. 8 access to my system. 9 10 11 Q I know the date of the report So I couldn't tell you. Again, I don't have In between now and the time of your termination, did you ever provide that report to Department leadership? A No. Given the exit, what happened was, we got that 12 report at a time when we were sending everybody home. 13 the exigencies of COVID and the fact that the report 14 confirmed what I had just told them earlier, namely that 15 there was no leak, it wasn't on the top of my list. 16 I had a couple of calls with the Deputy and Bulatao, 17 Undersecretary Bulatao, and it never came up. 18 waiting, really, for a time where I could meet with the 19 Deputy personally. 20 addressing COVID. 21 Given Q It wasn't on their radar. And I was They were But this was a -- when you received it, I guess 22 March 17, this was a completed investigation at that point, 23 correct? 24 A Yes. 75 Q 1 And so I'm having trouble understanding why you were 2 fearful of giving just full access to that report to 3 Department leadership if it was, in fact, complete on that 4 day? 5 A Well, as I said before, it wouldn't be my practice, 6 from an independence point of view, to turn over an internal 7 investigation of OIG personnel who were being investigated 8 for violating OIG rules. 9 I wouldn't do that. So it wasn't a matter of being fearful. 10 don't think that's appropriate. 11 impose discipline for those rules. 12 I just -- I Those are my rules, and we However, I did recognize the importance of providing 13 some transparency around it. 14 permitting the Deputy Secretary to read it in camera, that 15 would satisfy both the transparency goal and my own 16 government equities. 17 Q And it was my view that, by Are those rules -- you said those are your rules. 18 Have you articulated those in any type of internal policy 19 document? 20 21 22 A Are they in writing anywhere? You mean that you shouldn't be submitting a report to the media in advance of publication? Q No, I'm sorry, that you shouldn't be providing 23 internal OIG investigations, once complete, to Department 24 leadership. 76 1 2 A I didn't say that was a rule. I said that was my practice. 3 The rule I was talking about is an internal OIG policy, 4 which is, we don't want people sending reports to the press, 5 for example, before a report is issued. 6 determine, sort of, how and when our reports are issued. 7 And one of the things we don't want people to do is send a 8 report to the press in advance of publication. 9 rules around how that publication process works. 10 11 You know, we We have That's what I was referring to. Q Okay. So your practice was to not share internal 12 OIG reviews or reports about your office, once complete, to 13 Department leadership. 14 A Is that right? Well, particularly if it's a DOD -- I mean, I had 15 certain concerns. 16 they involved investigations of individuals who were 17 investigating the Department for political retaliation. 18 yeah, I mean, there are confidentiality concerns, there is a 19 variety of concerns as to why we wouldn't just, you know, 20 give a report over. 21 One, they were DOD IG records. And, two, And at the time that I expressed my concerns to them, I 22 told them I wanted to assess this when I received the 23 completed report. 24 So, Q You're saying that DOD IG was investigating for 77 1 2 political retaliation at that point? A No, I didn't say that. The DOD IG was doing the 3 leak investigation. 4 Department for political retaliation against Department 5 employees. 6 for allegedly leaking the report. 7 Q Our staff was investigating the They were the ones who were being investigated And because your staff was undertaking the political 8 targeting investigation, you did not think that the DOD IG 9 report, once final, should be given to Department 10 leadership. 11 A At the time I was having conversations with the 12 Deputy and Undersecretary Bulatao, I did not know exactly 13 what -- I wasn't sure exactly how a final product would 14 look, so I didn't really know exactly, you know, what a 15 final review would entail. 16 Q You didn't understand what a final review of -- 17 A I didn't understand what their final report would 18 contain -- interviews with witnesses and so forth. 19 wanted an opportunity to assess that. 20 21 Q And I Which you were able to do when you received it on March 17, correct? 22 A That's true. 23 Q So, after March 17, then, what's the hesitation with 24 Yes. sharing it with Department leadership? 78 1 A There wasn't a hesitation. As I said before, 2 everything shut down. 3 had no more in-person meetings with the Deputy at that time. 4 And given the exigencies of COVID and the fact the report 5 confirmed what I already told them, it just wasn't at the 6 top of my list. 7 Everybody was focused on COVID-19. I I had fully intended to share it with them, but -- this 8 is important. I was on two phone conversations with 9 both -- well, I won't say "two." I remember it was more 10 than one. 11 phone conversations, they never followed up on that end at 12 all with it. 13 after March -- you know, whatever the date -- after the date 14 I received it. 15 16 17 Q It may have been more than two. But during those So there was no communication about the report Well, how would anyone in the Department have known that you received it in March? A No, I didn't say that. They didn't ask -- they 18 didn't follow up about the report in the phone conversations 19 that I had after we shut down. 20 Q But isn't it possible that they didn't follow up 21 because they had no knowledge -- they thought the report was 22 still ongoing? 23 24 A Yeah. didn't know. They didn't know -I don't know what they knew or what they They probably -- I mean, I didn't tell them 79 1 2 3 4 5 6 that I had the final report. Q It would've made it hard for them to ask for it, if they didn't know you had it, right? A Well, they could've asked about the status of the report. Q But they had asked previously what the results of 7 the report would be. 8 a final report." 9 10 11 A Yeah. At that time, you said, "We don't have Is that correct? Pre-COVID, we did discuss it. That's correct. Q So you did know they wanted to know the results. 12 But they did not bring it up again in phone calls that you 13 had after that time. Is that right? 14 A Yes. Yes. 15 Q So I'm just a little confused, though, as -- you 16 knew Department leadership wanted to see the report. 17 were able to review that report when you received it in 18 writing, approximately March 17. 19 understanding why -- the only thing I'm hearing about why 20 you didn't then send it on in an email to those who were 21 interested is because they didn't ask for it a second time. 22 A No. You And I'm just not quite Honestly, we were completely focused on COVID 23 at that time. And I would imagine it would be normal to 24 follow up if they still cared about it. Frankly, I didn't 80 1 think it was a top-burner issue for them. 2 told them the results of it. 3 it to them. 4 Q You told them the results -- 5 A Pre-COVID, I told them the results. 6 Q You told them the results prior to your receiving 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 I had already And that's why I didn't give the final report? A Yes. As I said before, I met with them and I told them the results, that DOD IG had cleared us. I told them that pre-COVID. Q How were you conveyed that information if you had not yet received the written report at that time? A You know, I had learned of it from somebody at DOD IG, and I don't remember who. 15 Q They had just called you and said -- 16 A I don't remember if they provided a draft or if they 17 18 provided a verbal indication. Q I just don't remember. So I'd like to turn to very general questions about 19 your process, totally separate from any specific review that 20 you've undertaken. 21 nomenclature wrong. 22 between reviews and investigations. 23 generally or a little bit about what triggers your office to 24 open up an investigation or a review of any given topic and, And I know I will certainly get the I know you talked about the difference But can you just talk 81 1 2 kind of, the steps you take? A Well, it varies, but if we talk about an audit, for 3 example, typically, it may be that we get a request to do 4 work from the Hill, or it may be that we have mandatory work 5 required by statute, or it may be that we decide internally 6 to pursue something because we think that it's a risk area. 7 Typically, what we would do is staff would do some 8 preliminary work to decide whether it's something that we 9 want to pursue. And then, after doing -- and, again, this 10 is a generalization; this is not with everything -- after we 11 do some preliminary work for an audit or an inspection or 12 evaluation, we would let the Department know in a notice 13 that we were doing the work. 14 15 Q And how do you relay findings or drafts or stages of a review or investigation with the Hill? 16 A How do we review it with the Hill? 17 Q How do you -- 18 A We don't tell findings -- our policy is not to share 19 20 21 findings of ongoing work with the Hill. Q So how do you convey to the Hill ultimate findings of a review? 22 So let's say you do step one of your review. If you do 23 step one -- and I'm not sure exactly what step one is. 24 if you take your first step in the review and you either But 82 1 find there's nothing else to review or you're able to reach 2 conclusions, how do you relay that information to the Hill, 3 if step one is it, if that's the end of your review? 4 A Oh. Sometimes we might meet with the Hill if 5 there's Hill interest. 6 and we don't think that the work is warranted. 7 occasions when staff will meet with the Hill and say, this 8 is not something that we're going to continue to pursue. 9 Q Okay. It might be that they request work There may be If you do continue to pursue an 10 investigation, at what point does your office correspond 11 with the Hill on conclusions or findings resulting from that 12 investigation? 13 A Well, I'm going to use "review" instead of 14 "investigation," because "investigation," in my view, is a 15 term of art. 16 findings to them through the report or some sort of a 17 document. 18 19 Q But the way we do that is we convey the Do you only send the final report, or do you send a draft report? 20 A We wouldn't send a draft report to Congress, ever. 21 Q Have you ever come to know that anyone in your 22 office conveyed information or drafts of a report to Members 23 of Congress or their staff prior to your final report? 24 A No, not to my recollection. And if they did that, 83 1 that would be a violation of our internal rules on conveying 2 findings. 3 Q I want to take you back to the article that we 4 referenced earlier that was on September 13. 5 that article to staff. 6 I'm not going to go all through it, but just if you want a 7 copy for reference, I think that's been circulated. 8 9 10 11 12 Mr. White. referring to? I think it may have been circulated. Counsel, what article is it you're I'd like to see if I can get a copy for him. HFAC REP COUNSEL. Sure. Let me just pause for a second and ask if staff has sent that article out. Mr. White. I believe it was sent to us, but I haven't 13 printed a copy for the witness yet. 14 I'll see if I can get it. You can go ahead, and BY HFAC REP COUNSEL: 15 16 And I provided Q Okay. This is the September 13, 2019, Daily Beast 17 article by Erin Banco with the headline, quote, "State IG 18 Set to Recommend Discipline for Trump's Top Iran Hand." 19 just going to quote from, I think it's the second paragraph, 20 briefly. 21 I'm A portion of that article states, quote, "The State 22 Department is preparing to recommend that the Trump 23 administration's top representative for Iran policy receive 24 disciplinary action for his role in politically motivated 84 1 firings of employees at the Department, according to two 2 government sources involved in carrying out the 3 investigation." 4 So my question, Mr. Linick, on that is, when you hear 5 the phrase "according to two government sources involved in 6 carrying out the investigation," who does that initially 7 lead you to believe might be the source for this 8 information? 9 A Well, look, it was very concerning to me that it 10 said "two government sources involved in carrying out the 11 investigation." 12 serious matter if there's a leak in our office. 13 tell you why or how the reporter wrote that. 14 you what they were thinking. 15 that's why I invited the DOD IG to do a review. 16 Obviously, as I said before, it's a very I can't I can't tell But, yes, very concerning, and I will say that, you know, the Congress was also 17 carrying out an investigation of this, and the report had 18 been issued to the Department. 19 number of possibilities. 20 sure that our office wasn't involved in this, for all the 21 reasons I've already stated. 22 Q So, in my mind, there were a But I was going to certainly make But the Department was the entity being reviewed, 23 and any witnesses who would've known that was going on 24 because they were interviewed, they were interviewed as 85 1 2 potential fact witnesses, right? A Let me go back a little bit. This report had been 3 given to the Department prior to the Daily Beast report 4 coming out. 5 touched the report. 6 of witnesses, we interviewed a number of folks in connection 7 with that report. 8 obviously had some involvement in that report. 9 So there were people at the Department who And, obviously, we interviewed a number So there were a number of people who So that's all to say that that's why we also lodged our 10 own investigation of the Department with the Bureau of 11 Diplomatic Security to see if anyone from the Department 12 might have leaked the report. 13 Q My only point here was that, while people in the 14 Department certainly had received the report and were aware 15 of it, no one in the Department was involved in carrying out 16 the investigation. 17 A That was your office, right? Well, sure, we were carrying out an investigation, 18 as well as Congress. And I can't speculate as to why the 19 reporter wrote that. But, again, you know, it was very 20 upsetting to see that language. 21 is for our office to be accused of a leak, because that 22 hurts our reputation and the integrity of the final report 23 we ended up issuing several weeks later. 24 Q And the last thing I wanted And so what was the result of your investigation 1 that you did in conjunction with Diplomatic Security? 86 87 1 2 3 [11:41 a.m.] Mr. Linick. Unfortunately, I can't -- I can't speak to 4 that because that's an ongoing matter, or it hasn't been 5 published yet. 6 our office. BY HFAC REP COUNSEL: 7 8 9 And I'm going to have to refer you back to Q So, over the course of your tenure as inspector general, did you ever become aware of any members of your 10 staff leaking information to the press or providing 11 information to staff members on Capitol Hill without your 12 knowledge or authorization? 13 A Not to my recollection. I mean, I don't 14 believe -- to the best of my knowledge, I don't believe 15 anybody on my staff has leaked, has leaked information 16 either way. 17 18 Chairman Engel. Excuse me. chair over to Mr. Connolly of Virginia. 19 Mr. Connolly. 20 Counsel may proceed. 21 HFAC REP COUNSEL. 24 [Presiding.] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Connolly. BY HFAC REP COUNSEL: 22 23 I want to now turn the Q I'd like to move back to this question -- and I am not in any way referring to any specific investigation. I 88 1 think maybe something had been lost in translation. 2 didn't phrase the question correctly the first time. Maybe I But just as a general matter, regardless of what you're 3 4 reviewing, do you look at decision-making processes as part 5 of your review into any -- any -- whatever the given topic 6 is? 7 A Do we look at decision-making processes? 8 Q So, to clarify, do you look at who is making 9 decisions or what is leading to decisions regarding what 10 policy should be versus how it is then implemented in the 11 field? 12 A 13 14 I'm not sure I understand that question. Can you clarify? Q I'll certainly try. So when you are undertaking 15 reviews, you are -- as you said, by law, you're tasked with 16 looking at implementation of policy, correct? 17 A Yes. 18 Q As part of that work, do you ever look at how policy 19 decisions are made, not how they are necessarily 20 implemented, but how the policy decision is arrived at? 21 A Typically not, but I'm not going to rule that out 22 entirely because this is sort of a hypothetical, and I can't 23 predict how that might come up. 24 what the decision was and how the decision was made. But, typically, we look at 89 1 Q So you do look at the motive behind the decision? 2 A Well, I'm not -- I'm saying typically -- I'm not 3 going to rule that out. 4 for me in a vacuum to answer that question. 5 Q That's hard for me -- that's hard Well, let me ask you not as a hypothetical. Just 6 have you ever looked at decision-making regarding policy and 7 how or why a certain policy is arrived at? 8 A I don't -- I can't tell you that, sitting here. 9 don't know. I I can't tell -- give you an answer to that. 10 don't -- I don't have sufficient recollection of reports 11 we've done and so forth to say one way or the other. 12 HFAC REP COUNSEL. Okay. 13 Given the time, I know we have at least one member, I I Thank you for that. 14 think Mr. Yoho has a question, so I want to pause and allow 15 him to ask his question. 16 Mr. Yoho? 17 Okay, I'll double-check with his team and see if he is 18 still on and would like to ask a question. In the meantime, 19 I think Mr. Jordan is on the line and may also have a 20 question. 21 Mr. Jordan. 22 Mr. Jordan. 23 Mr. Linick, how long have you been an IG? 24 Mr. Linick. Thank you. Ten years. 90 1 2 Mr. Jordan. And how many investigations or, slash, reviews have you done in that 10-year timeframe? 3 Mr. Linick. I can't tell you a number. 4 Mr. Jordan. A lot. 5 6 7 8 9 10 50, what? Is that 100? A lot. Is that 200? Is it Give me an idea. Mr. Linick. I can't give you a number. Dozens of them. Mr. Jordan. Dozens? Have you ever had a problem with leaks in any of those other investigations? Mr. Linick. We did actually have a problem when I was 11 at FHFA, and that person ended up leaving the office after 12 we discovered it. 13 14 15 Mr. Jordan. So dozens of investigations, only one other time have you had a problem with a leak? Mr. Linick. Only one -- yeah, I mean, we've 16 not -- there's been no allegation other than -- other than 17 that FHFA instance and other than what we've just talked 18 about today. 19 Mr. Jordan. And in your time at the State Department 20 as inspector general, this is the only occasion where there 21 was a concern about leaking information of an ongoing 22 review. 23 24 Is that right? Mr. Linick. Actually, there was one occasion where I spoke with the Secretary, and he said to me that Chairman 91 1 Engel might have had a report, and I think it was our Office 2 of International Organizations report. 3 he -- if I knew anything about that, which I didn't. 4 particular report had been sent to the Department and -- but 5 it hadn't been published yet. 6 And he asked me if And I never heard anything about that. That It didn't come 7 to anything. So there was a concern that the Secretary 8 expressed to me about a leak to -- of a report to Chairman 9 Engel. 10 Mr. Jordan. So a leak to Congress? 11 Mr. Linick. Correct. 12 Mr. Jordan. But not to the press? 13 Mr. Linick. Not that I can recall, no. 14 Mr. Jordan. And you've done some high-profile reviews 15 16 and investigations. Mr. Linick. I mean, I know -- I know -- Yes. Oh yeah, actually, you know what, 17 there actually was an allegation. 18 when we were doing the review of the Secretary's email back 19 in 2016, there was an allegation I believe that someone from 20 our office might have leaked information. 21 the case. 22 Mr. Jordan. Now that you mention it, I believe that's Well, I'm confused because a little bit 23 ago it seemed to me you gave the impression to our counsel's 24 questions that this was like the only time there had ever 92 1 been a leak concern, and now you're telling me there's been 2 several occasions where there were. 3 Mr. Linick. No, no, no. So which is it? I just recall the situation 4 in 2016. 5 was an allegation. 6 and I'm also aware of a conversation I had with Secretary 7 Pompeo about a leak to Congress. 8 So I'm aware of an instance in 2016 where there Mr. Jordan. I'm aware of The Daily Beast allegation, So I would say -- Is it fair to say -- is it fair to say 9 that what happened in the situation with Mr. Hook and The 10 Daily Beast wasn't an allegation, because The Daily Beast 11 actually ran a story and attributed it to two sources 12 involved in carrying out the investigation. 13 14 15 Mr. Linick. No. Is that fair? There was an allegation -- can I answer the question? Mr. Jordan. Yes, but let me back up a second. Nothing 16 like that happened in the Clinton email investigation. 17 There was no -- was there a story written? 18 19 Mr. Linick. You know, I don't recall. I don't recall the facts of that. 20 Mr. Jordan. Okay. 21 Mr. Linick. But to answer your question, the 22 allegation was that somebody in the State Department IG 23 leaked that report. 24 Mr. Jordan. That was the allegation -- Right. 93 1 Mr. Linick. -- that the Secretary was concerned about. 2 Mr. Jordan. Right. 3 4 We don't know -- do you know who leaked it? Mr. Linick. No. And I certainly didn't leak it, and 5 to the best of my knowledge, no one on my staff leaked it. 6 And the DOD, you know, found that to be the case. 7 find out that somebody leaked that information, I would 8 discipline that person and consider removal. If I did 9 Mr. Jordan. Right. But who do you think leaked it? 10 Mr. Linick. I have no -- I don't know who leaked it. 11 I can't speculate. I know that a number of people touched 12 the report. 13 know, we provided in camera reviews to some of the witnesses 14 of portions of the report so they could check for accuracy. 15 I really don't know who leaked that report or who leaked 16 information from the report. 17 the report was leaked. The report was in the Department's hands. You It's not even clear to me that 18 Mr. Jordan. I understand. 19 Mr. Linick. It could have been information from the 20 report that was leaked. 21 today. 22 Mr. Jordan. So I just don't know, sitting here And when Mr. Fine, the DOD did the 23 investigation, I think he looked at 15 people in your office 24 who had access to the information that was in the report. 94 1 2 3 Is that right? Including yourself. Mr. Linick. He looked at everybody who touched the report. 4 Mr. Jordan. And all 15 and he found none of them did? 5 Mr. Linick. That is correct. 6 Mr. Jordan. Okay. When you talked with Mr. Sullivan, 7 you talked about this a little earlier, Mr. Sullivan 8 recommended that CIGIE do the investigation, and you said 9 that they couldn't do it. 10 Mr. Linick. Why couldn't they do it, again? I didn't say he recommended that CIGIE do 11 the investigation. 12 CIGIE. 13 that CIGIE doesn't investigate offices. 14 investigations of offices. 15 I said that we had a conversation about I don't really know how it came up. But I told him They don't do leak And I spoke with the head of the Integrity Committee, 16 Scott Dahl, about that. And that's why they don't do it. 17 And Mr. Dahl basically told me that I needed to find another 18 IG to do it. 19 said he didn't have the time or the resources. 20 to the VA IG. 21 I went to the DOD IG. 22 Mr. Jordan. And I asked if his office would do it. He Then I went They didn't have the time or resources. Then I thought you made a distinction earlier, 23 Mr. Linick, that if the allegation were that a specific 24 person in the State Department Office of Inspector General 95 1 was alleged to have leaked it, then, in fact, CIGIE could 2 investigate. Is that accurate? Mr. Linick. 3 No. Only if it's a covered person. There 4 are certain individuals, including myself or -- you know, if 5 there's an allegation against me, the CIGIE would look at 6 it. 7 allegations against an assistant inspector general, the 8 CIGIE would cover it. 9 Mr. Jordan. There are other covered individuals. If there are Well, is that -- so that seems to me to 10 be -- I mean, come on. 11 some of your top assistants, but they can't investigate a 12 leak that supposedly came from your office, that seems to 13 be, you know, a distinction that's not really that critical. 14 If CIGIE can only investigate you or If they're going -- if they can investigate that, why 15 can't they investigate just a general concern that a leak 16 came from your office? 17 indicate earlier that somehow that was just not tolerated. 18 That would be just totally wrong. 19 distinction without much of a difference. 20 Mr. Linick. And you're saying -- you seemed to But it seems to me a I'm not telling you what I'm saying. I'm 21 telling you what CIGIE is saying. And if you go to the 22 CIGIE website and their mission and their FAQs, it discusses 23 that issue. 24 CIGIE because I specifically asked CIGIE, can you -- is this So that's something that you should direct to 96 1 something that you can handle? 2 don't investigate offices. 3 that I'm saying; that's what CIGIE is saying. Mr. Jordan. 4 5 Okay. And I was told no; they So, again, that's not something Okay. And then how did you decide on Mr. Fine? Mr. Linick. 6 Well, I went to -- as I said, I went 7 to -- I tried to go to big IGs. I started with the Labor 8 IG. 9 because I knew they had a lot of resources Then I went to VA, and then I went to DOD, largely 10 and -- and -- that smaller IGs wouldn't have. 11 going down the line. 12 or HHS IG after that. 13 Mr. Jordan. 14 15 I was just I probably would have gone to HUD IG When did Congress get a draft of the -- of your review and investigation of Mr. Hook, what date? Mr. Linick. Oh, I don't have the date. I think -- I 16 mean, I know that was -- I'm just trying to think. 17 somewhere around late October, maybe early November. 18 don't have the exact date on it. 19 Mr. Jordan. It was I Was there anyone in Congress that you were 20 talking to or anyone in your office talking to prior to the 21 September Daily Beast story? 22 Mr. Linick. We had -- folks in our office were in 23 communication with some of the committees. You know, they 24 had asked about the status of the report and that kind of 97 1 thing. 2 were -- there were meetings between our staff and committee 3 staff who were asking about the pace of the report and so 4 forth. 5 So, yeah, I wasn't involved in those, but there So that there were definitely meetings. Mr. Jordan. Were details or any information other than 6 just the timing and pace and when you expect to complete it, 7 when you expect to complete the investigation, was any of 8 that type of information conveyed? 9 Mr. Linick. It wasn't supposed to be. 10 Mr. Jordan. Okay. 11 Mr. Linick. It wasn't supposed to be. 12 Mr. Jordan. All right. I yield back. BY HFAC REP COUNSEL: 13 14 Okay. Q Mr. Linick, going to when you got the DOD IG to do 15 the investigation, how did that come about? 16 that request in writing to the DOD IG to come do the report? 17 A 18 and I said: 19 and I need an independent review. 20 Q No. I called IGs. Did you send I basically just called them, There's an allegation of a leak in my office, So that's how I did it. So, after the DOD IG agreed, how did you know what 21 he was going to be reviewing? How was the -- how was his 22 review scoped? 23 you to say, here's the allegation, can you look at XYZ, how 24 did he determine the scope of his investigation? If he didn't have anything in writing from 98 1 A Oh, I don't remember how -- once he agreed to do it, 2 there was some communication about -- I don't recall how 3 that occurred. 4 who were doing the review in their Office of Investigation, 5 the DCIS folks. 6 There was some communication with the folks There was some communication about who touched the 7 report and all of that. 8 between my general counsel at the time and folks at the DOD 9 IG, you know, the specifics. 10 That's how. And it may have -- it may have been I wasn't involved in that. There was a briefing at some point where 11 they talked about, you know, who touched the report and gave 12 them the report, that kind of stuff. 13 Q Was there ever a memorandum of understanding or any 14 type of written document framing out what they would be 15 doing for your office? 16 A Yes, and that was -- that was executed by -- between 17 the general counsel and their office. 18 was a memo of understanding, yes. 19 20 21 Q And can you tell us some details about the scope of that investigation? A There wasn't -- there They were looking at leaks to whom? Well, the scope of that was to determine whether or 22 not there had been leaks to the press. And I think it's all 23 outlined in the final report, so -- but they -- the scope 24 was to interview all the folks who touched the report, to 99 1 look at all of their Department of State and OIG emails over 2 a certain period of time. 3 conducted that review. 4 the actual report. Q 5 And that was basically how they More of those facts are outlined in But why is the scope of that review only focused on 6 leaks to members of the press? 7 to Capitol Hill, to members of the executive branch? 8 it just about leaks to the press? A 9 Why didn't it look at leaks Why is Well, because that was the allegation in front of 10 us. And that was the allegation that the Secretary was 11 concerned about. 12 limited time, and given that the allegation was that there 13 was a leak to The Daily Beast, that's what they were looking 14 at. So everybody has limited resources and 15 Q But you told us -- 16 A Let me finish. Generally, you know, you investigate 17 issues where there's some predicate. 18 was The Daily Beast article which says, according 19 to -- which said, "according to government sources carrying 20 out the investigation." 21 Q And the predicate here That was the basis for the review. But you told us that it was your understanding that 22 a lot of people beyond your office had access to the report 23 and that they could have been the source of the leaks. 24 A Oh, yes, yes. 100 1 Q So I'm just wondering why you only scoped it to 2 leaks from your office to the press instead of other avenues 3 by which your office could have leaked. 4 A I guess I'm not following you. We actually engaged 5 in an investigation of our own of people outside of our 6 office with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, to see 7 whether they leaked to the press. 8 9 Q But why doesn't the DOD investigation mirror that? Why aren't you looking to see -- why didn't you have the DOD 10 IG look at leaks to anyone, not just the press? I 11 understand that there was the press report, which was the 12 trigger for all of this, but, as you said, there were other 13 people who could have leaked -- who could have received it 14 from your office, conceptually. 15 So I'm just wondering why the scope of the DOD IG 16 investigation is only about leaks from your office to press 17 outlets. 18 A Okay. So two things: First of all, I didn't put 19 limits on the DOD IG investigation. And, secondly, I didn't 20 say that there was any evidence that people outside my 21 office were leaking to other places. 22 the issue was whether or not someone from inside our office 23 leaked to The Daily Beast, and then the issue was also 24 whether somebody outside our office was leaking to The Daily All I said was that 101 1 Beast. 2 Beast article. 3 4 5 Q And that was based on the evidence in The Daily Well, someone limited the scope of the DOD IG's investigation. A So who would that have been? Well, the DOD IG knew what we were concerned about, 6 namely the leak to The Daily Beast, and that's what they 7 were looking at. 8 Q I mean, what else would they look at? Well, they could look at leaks to other individuals. 9 I mean, you just articulated that, that there could have 10 been other people outside IG who gave the information to 11 press outlets. 12 A Well, so they interviewed -- they interviewed all of 13 the individuals, and they asked them those questions. 14 performed a reasonable, in my view, leak investigation, 15 something that we do -- I mean, you know, interviewing the 16 people who had the report, looking at all their emails, 17 that's a reasonable way to do this investigation. 18 None of the people they interviewed -- I mean, they 19 followed through if people said they sent it somewhere. 20 have the report. 21 followed the lead. 22 They Q You So, you know, I mean, they basically They followed the evidence. So my understanding is that they were looking at 23 whether emails were sent out to any press outlets, which is 24 a much -- that's a far limited scope -- Actually, that's not true. They actually asked folks whether or not they shared the report with anyone outside the office. But did they review email to that extent as well, or were they just looking at email in regard to press outlets? A They looked at everybody's email to see whether or not they shared the report outside of the office. To anyone? A To anyone, yes. Okay. A Yes. It's in the report. HFAC REP COUNSEL. Mr. Zeldin. Mr. Jordan. can I get back in for a second? HFAC REP COUNSEL. Absolutely. Mr. Jordan. Thank you. Mr. Linick, so you mentioned that there was somewhat of a concern back when you did the Clinton email investigation, did your review of that. Did any of the other concerns about leaks in prior investigations require an outside inspector general to come in and do a review? Mr. Linick. No. It's usually I mean, this can be done internally. Often we do it internally. And if you 103 1 want -- there's no rule. 2 come in. 3 practice in the IG community. 4 You can call an independent IG to So I'm not aware of any rule. Mr. Jordan. No, I understand. It's just a I'm just trying to get 5 a handle on it. 6 you said earlier, dozens of reports. 7 Never really had a concern with leaks before. 8 9 You've done dozens of reports. When I questioned you, you said: That's what Earlier you said: Well, there was maybe a concern with the Clinton email investigation. 10 There was maybe one other example I think you gave. 11 I'm just trying to see if this is like a -- would you 12 characterize what happened with the Brian Hook 13 investigation, the leak concern investigation, as this is 14 unique? This is -- 15 Mr. Linick. Yes. 16 Mr. Jordan. You've done nothing like this ever? 17 Mr. Linick. Yeah, to me this was unique. This was 18 unique in that this is the first time that we asked an 19 independent IG to come in and look at -- 20 21 Mr. Jordan. Okay. That's what I thought. That's what I thought. 22 Mr. Linick. Yes. 23 Mr. Jordan. And I didn't think it was going to be that 24 complicated to get. That's what I assumed when I started 104 asking you questions. Now, going back to CIGIE versus Mr. Fine and the route that you took. You said there are certain designated individuals who fall under CIGIE, and then they would investigate if it was about -- if it was an allegation that you leaked or certain people that worked for you. I think when Mr. Fine did his review or his investigation, he determined that there were 15 people who had access to the information and talked to all 15 of them, I think, as I read. Is that accurate? Mr. Linick. You'd have to refresh my recollection with the report, so -- again, I'm not -- I don't have it in front he lists them all out, of me. Mr. Jordan. -- those are the people that were part of his investigation, right? Mr. Linick. Yeah, I see that. Yeah. Mr. Jordan. He reviewed their emails, talked to them -- Mr. Linick. Yes. Mr. Jordan. -- interviewed them that kind of thing. Now, of those 15 people, how many of those are covered individuals that would fall under Mr. Linick. Well, I certainly would. The- Mr. Jordan. Okay. So I'm just trying to figure out because it seems to me -- as I said earlier, it seems to me a distinction without a difference. Mr. Linick. Yeah. Mr. Jordan. And if you're saying certain covered individuals would, in fact, kick in for CIGIEfall under that category, I want to know why CIGIE couldn't do it versus the route that was taken with Mr. Fine being the individual who did the investigation. Mr. Linick. Well, you'd have to ask that to CIGIE. I would have been happy if they could have done it as well. So it didn?t matter to me. I just wanted an independent review of our office. I went to the CIGIE, and then I went to other 165 to get this done. Mr. Jordan. All right. Thank you, Mr. Linick. Thank you for being here. I'll yield back or whoever is up next. would- The gwould- The- _would. Probably about half of them. 105 HFAC REP COUNSEL. Mr. Zeldin, did you have a question? Mr. Zeldin. Yes, thank you. Mr. Linick, did you have a prior working relationship 106 with Glenn Fine? Did you know him previously? Mr. Linick. Yes, I did. Mr. Zeldin. Can you explain that? Mr. Linick. Yeah. I mean, we were I'm the -- I conduct joint oversight with him on the Overseas Contingency Operations for Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, I know many of the 165. I mean, we're a close community. So I know Glenn Fine, and I knew him before that. Mr. Zeldin. So -- but did you work together in previous positions before that? Mr. Linick. Oh, no, no, not -- no, we've never worked together in -- you mean like -- I didn't work with him at DOJ. He was -- that was his -- I wasn't in his office or anything like that. Never worked with him. Mr. Zeldinthe same time as an AUSA, correct? Mr. Linick. No, I don't -- you know, I don't know exactly when he was at DOJ. I only got to know him when he was an 16. When I was an AUSA, he was an 16, and that's when I got to know him, as well as many other IGs. Mr. Zeldin. Oka . Just for the sake of time, I'm going to yield back, -. HFAC REP COUNSEL. Okay, thank you, Mr. Zeldin. I'm going to stop there unless any other members have any 107 questions and reserve our questions for the next round, but if any other member on our side has a question, please speak up. Okay. With that -- I'm sorry? Okay. With 30 seconds remaining, we will yield back the balance of our time. HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you, sir. Mr. Connolly. Mr. Connolly. Yes. Thank you,- Mr. Jordan, I hope you're still on. I'd like to follow up on your questioning. Mr. Linick, do I understand that what you told Mr. Jordan is you first went to CIGIE to inquire as to whether they could investigate a potential leak from your office? Is that correct? Mr. Linick. Yes. Mr. Connolly. And somebody at CIGIE told you, "We don't do that"? Mr. Linick. Yes. Mr. Connolly. So you were then left with the option of actually going hat in hand to other 165 to beg them to do an official investigation of a potential leak of a sensitive matter in your office. Is that correct? Mr. Linick. Yes, I was begging. 108 Mr. Connolly. 1 So, Mr. Jordan, if you're still on, you 2 know, I've got a bill to strengthen the role of CIGIE. I 3 think we've just uncovered here a real hole. 4 aside from the issue at hand with Mr. Linick, the fact that 5 an IG seeking to make sure that something that shouldn't 6 have happened didn't happen and, if it did happen, that 7 people were corrected, he can't rely on the one entity that 8 is charged with oversight of the integrity of IGs. 9 find that extraordinary. You know, And I I mean, I just -- Congress cannot find that an 10 11 acceptable process. 12 too. 13 around trying to get somebody to investigate his own office 14 to make sure there was no problem. 15 wrong in that respect, but the fact is there was no 16 machinery for him. 17 IG. 18 There has to be accountability for IGs And in this case, we have an IG, an honest IG shopping Mr. Linick did nothing It was all ad hoc. He finally found an If I understand you, Mr. Linick, you shopped around 19 three different offices before you found one. 20 correct? 21 22 23 24 Mr. Linick. Yes. Is that I started with Labor, and then I went to VA, and then I went to DOD. Mr. Connolly. And when you were turned down by the previous two, what was the reason they gave you why they had 109 1 2 to say no? Mr. Linick. A lot of it had to do with just time and 3 resources. I don't remember the specifics, but one of them 4 told me it would just take a long time. 5 Another -- it was time and resources, that's really 6 what it comes down to because, look, the reality is they 7 have to give us investigators to do work that they're really 8 not getting any credit for. 9 is -- you know, this is like volunteer work for them. 10 11 I mean, this is -- this And, unfortunately, that's how it works. So it's not the most appealing work from an IG's point 12 of view. 13 shops, and, you know, that means we're not getting work done 14 in our own shop when we do that. 15 I mean, we've been asked it to do work in other IG Mr. Connolly. So that's the issue. So, in theory, based on what you've 16 described, the lack of accountability, really, formal 17 accountability in this kind of example, presumably a whole 18 IG office could, frankly, be tainted with bias or bordering 19 on corruption, and it would not be the subject of a formal 20 investigation by the Committee of Integrity and, in fact, it 21 could get away with impunity because there is no formal 22 mechanism for investigating them. 23 24 That's what I understood your answer to me and to Mr. Jordan to add up to. Is that correct? 110 Mr. Linick. Well, I'm not saying that they could get away with impunity. I didn't I didn't say that. All I'm saying is that -- Mr. Connolly. No, Mr. Linick, I understand you didn't say that. Mr. Linick. Oh, okay. Mr. Connolly. That is the conclusion I am drawing. This is a real gap in accountability for 16 offices that it seems to me, to preserve integrity and credibility for 165, we need to fix. You don't have to comment on that part. But, Mr. Jordan, I invite you, on a bipartisan basis, to collaborate in trying to address this issue subsequent to this deposition. Mr. Jordan. Gerry, thank you. I look forward to working with you. I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Mr. Connoll . Thank you, Mr. Jordan. HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you. I would just like to reflect thanks for my colleagues? indulgence on that. That did go over, that colloquy, by my clock about 3 minutes and 45 seconds. We've happy to add that to our colleagues? time for the next round. At this point, Mr. Linick, would you and your counsel 111 1 like a lunch break? 2 Mr. White. 3 HFAC Dem Counsel. 4 [Discussion off the record.] 5 Mr. White. 6 7 Can we go on mute for a second? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, if we could have a half hour for lunch now. HFAC Dem Counsel. 8 watch, it's 12:13. 9 the record. That would be fine. So, by my Let's just call it 12:45 to resume on And if we could just ask for everyone to stay 10 logged in, that will probably be the easiest way to prevent 11 any hiccups when we come back. 12 [Recess.] Thanks. 112 1 2 [12:46 p.m.] 3 Mr. Castro. 4 HFAC Dem Counsel. Counsel may proceed. Thank you, sir. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: 5 6 [Presiding.] Q Mr. Linick, welcome back. I'd just like to quickly 7 address a few things that my colleagues spent some time on 8 in the last round regarding the Daily Beast article. 9 Both the article itself and, more importantly, the 10 report that your office did on prohibited personnel 11 practices in the Office of the Secretary, that was all 12 unclassified. Is that right? 13 A Oh, yes. 14 Q Okay. And it was something that related not to 15 grave matters of national security but to personnel matters 16 and improper conduct in the workplace. Is that right? 17 A Yes, that's right. 18 Q Okay. 19 Sir, are you aware that at a hearing before the Foreign 20 Affairs Committee in 2018 Secretary Pompeo told Chairman 21 Engel that he did not believe that someone who engaged in 22 prohibited personnel practices either on the basis of 23 national origin or perceived political belief should be 24 working at the State Department? Were you aware that he 113 1 told Chairman Engel that at a hearing in 2018? 2 A I don't recall that. 3 Q Okay. Would you agree with me that the conclusions 4 that were ultimately in the report regarding Mr. Hook did 5 seem to imply that he discriminated against someone on the 6 basis of perceived national origin? 7 8 9 10 11 12 A Yeah, yes. Our conclusion was that that was the case. Q Okay. In terms of the DOD OIG review, is independent peer review common in the inspector general community? A Well, when you say, is it common, yes. I mean, we 13 all do independent peer review by regulation. In other 14 words, our audit staff has other IGs peer-review it, our 15 inspections staff has other -- yes. 16 fairly common in the IG community. So peer review is 17 Q Thank you. 18 If you could, sir, we had provided -- and I believe 19 we're working to get it on the screen -- to staff from all 20 the committees, as well as to your counsel, a letter dated 21 June 1, 2020, that Undersecretary Bulatao wrote to Chairman 22 Engel regarding this matter. 23 to your counsel, I believe, yesterday. 24 working to get that on the screen. So this would've been provided And I think we're 114 1 2 Mr. White. find it for you. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: 3 4 I know you've got it over there, but let us Q Yep. So this is the June 1, 2020, letter from 5 Undersecretary Bulatao to Chairman Engel of the Foreign 6 Affairs Committee. 7 have that, sir. If you could just let me know when you 8 A Hang on. I'm getting it. 9 Q Yep. 10 A Okay, I have it. 11 Q Thank you. 12 I'd like to direct your attention, if I could, to the Yes, sir. 13 second page of that letter, the second full paragraph, 14 beginning with, "Specifically, it is my understanding." 15 you see that? 16 A Yes. 17 Q Okay. Do So I'd like to go point by point through the 18 things that Undersecretary Bulatao raises in this paragraph 19 and just ask you for your comments on them. 20 So the first point he raises is, "It is my 21 understanding that last fall, the former Deputy 22 Secretary" -- that would be Deputy Secretary Sullivan. 23 that right? 24 A Yes. Is 115 1 Q -- "asked Mr. Linick to refer for review the 2 unauthorized disclosure of a draft inspector general report, 3 which media attributed to 'two government sources involved 4 in carrying out the investigation.'" 5 Is it true, sir, that last fall the former Deputy 6 Secretary asked you to refer that unauthorized disclosure 7 for review? 8 A 9 Just taking that portion of the sentence. Yeah. I mean, all I can tell you is we had a conversation about it. 10 anything like that. 11 and the CIGIE -- I don't remember his words or We had a conversation about the report 12 Q Okay. 13 A -- as I described earlier. 14 Q So you don't recall him specifically asking you to 15 16 make a specific type of referral. A I don't recall his words. Is that right? I did tell him -- I 17 explained to him why the CIGIE was not the entity that was 18 going to review this for the reasons that I described 19 earlier and that we had ultimately landed on the DOD IG. 20 Q Okay. 21 So, then, to just walk through the relevant portions of 22 Mr. Bulatao's sentence there, he says that the Deputy 23 Secretary asked you to refer this matter for review -- and 24 then, if you go to the other side of the dash -- to the 116 1 Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, 2 CIGIE. 3 4 Is it your testimony that the Deputy Secretary formally asked you to refer this specifically to CIGIE? 5 A 6 words. 7 you should refer it to CIGIE. 8 discussion about CIGIE. 9 you know, if CIGIE is a place where this should land, then 10 I don't recall -- again, I just don't recall his My understanding is that he wasn't actually saying, And I remember specifically saying, you'd have to make a referral about me -- 11 Q Uh-huh. 12 A -- in particular. 13 14 I remember we had a I do remember saying that. And that didn't happen. Q Sir, in the next sentence, where the Undersecretary 15 says, "It is my understanding that Mr. Linick agreed to that 16 request," he seems to be saying that you specifically agreed 17 with Deputy Secretary Sullivan to refer this matter to the 18 CIGIE. 19 20 21 Did you make such an agreement with the Deputy Secretary? A No, I didn't. Because I had talked to the CIGIE 22 about this, I mean, I asked them about this, and they said 23 that they would not review allegations dealing with an 24 office. 117 1 2 Q Okay. And you explained that to Deputy Secretary Sullivan, I believe you said? 3 A Yeah. 4 Q And do you recall when you explained that to him? 5 A I don't recall. 6 Q Do you believe it was near in time to the 7 publication of the Daily Beast article on September 13, 8 2019? 9 10 A Well, it had to be in the timeframe, in the fall timeframe, you know, when the DOD IG was in play because -- 11 Q Uh-huh. 12 A -- we talked about the DOD IG, and all of that 13 14 occurred in a very short period of time. Q Okay. So you talked to the DOD IG, as you say, near 15 in time to that September story. 16 told you that -- And that was after CIGIE 17 A Yes. 18 Q -- under its own regulations, they couldn't do it 19 unless it was about a specific person. 20 A 21 Labor. 22 Q Yes. Yes. Is that right? Because I had already gone to the VA and And they are the ones who told you, you need to see, 23 you know, where else there's capacity, which is how you 24 ended up at DOD IG, right? 118 1 A Well, they didn't say, you need to see -- they just 2 said they couldn't, that for a variety of reasons it wasn't 3 practical for them to do it. 4 Q Okay. 5 And at the time that you landed on the fact that it 6 would be the DOD IG that looked into this matter, did you 7 communicate that fact to the State Department? 8 A Yes. 9 Q And do you recall roughly when you communicated that 10 fact to the State Department? 11 A I don't. 12 Q Would it have been near in time to settling on the 13 fact that it would be the DOD IG? 14 A Yes. 15 Q Okay. 16 So Mr. Bulatao's sentence -- I'm continuing in this 17 letter -- says, "Further, it is my understanding that 18 Mr. Linick agreed to that request, but the Department 19 learned months later that, instead of referring the matter 20 to CIGIE, Mr. Linick had asked another agency's inspector 21 general to review the issue." 22 Would it have been months after that September article 23 that the Department became aware that it would be the DOD IG 24 looking into this? 119 1 2 3 4 5 6 A No. It was at or around the time that I asked the DOD IG to do it. Q So Mr. Bulatao's statement that the Department only learned about this months later is not true? A As I said, I let them know at or around the time when I selected the DOD IG. 7 Q 8 Mr. Bulatao goes on to say that Mr. Linick, quote, 9 Okay. "failed to inform the Department that he had hand-picked a 10 different entity to investigate potential misconduct by his 11 own office." 12 Are the statements in that sentence true, sir? 13 A 14 15 No. I did notify the Department that we selected DOD IG, only after being turned down by Labor and the VA. Q And did anyone in the Department raise any concerns 16 or protest in any way after you told them that it would be 17 the DOD IG that would be doing this work? 18 A Yes. I mean, Brian Bulatao and I -- he did not want 19 the DOD IG to do it; he wanted CIGIE to do it. 20 trying to explain to him that that wasn't going to work 21 because of what CIGIE told me. 22 raise that issue. 23 24 Q And I kept So he continued to, sort of, And, to be clear, did you explain to him that it's not that you didn't want CIGIE to do it but that, rather, 120 1 under CIGIE's own regulations, that it wouldn't be possible? 2 A I thought I had communicated that. 3 Q And I believe you also said that you informed 4 Mr. Bulatao that if he had questions about this process or 5 about you in particular that he, himself, could 6 independently contact CIGIE. Is that right? 7 A 8 And the other thing was, there was a point in time 9 Yes. where he actually wanted to get a better understanding of 10 what the DOD IG was going to do in this investigation, and I 11 actually talked to Glenn Fine and said that he may be 12 calling you. 13 But I did discuss with Undersecretary Bulatao -- I told 14 him that it wouldn't be appropriate for him to manage the 15 DOD IG investigation. 16 17 Q So two points on that. Are you aware of whether Undersecretary Bulatao actually did reach out to Mr. Fine? 18 A I don't think he did, but I'm not sure. 19 Q Okay. 20 And then you said you had communicated to him that it 21 would be inappropriate for Mr. Bulatao to manage the DOD IG 22 investigation. 23 24 A Can you expand on that a little, please? Well, he wanted to contact DOD -- we were talking about the DOD IG, and he wanted it to be CIGIE, and he kept 121 1 pushing that issue. 2 Q Uh-huh. 3 A And, at one point, he said he would like to get a 4 better understanding of what DOD IG is doing, the scope; he 5 wants to, sort of, talk through it with the DOD IG. 6 7 8 9 10 Q Uh-huh. Did he indicate to you that he wanted to help direct that process? A I don't recall exactly what he said, but I recall telling him that it would be inappropriate to manage that. Q And can you just explain for the sake of the record 11 why you believe that it would be inappropriate for a 12 high-ranking official at a government agency to try and 13 manage an inspector general's investigation? 14 A Well, for the same reason that I thought it would be 15 inappropriate for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security to be 16 investigating us, in that there's an independence issue. 17 And we wanted another IG to peer-review us precisely to 18 ensure that it was an independent review, as opposed to our 19 overseer investigating us. 20 Q Okay. 21 A Or, excuse me, not the overseer. 22 The auditee. Excuse me. 23 Q Yes, I'm sorry, the agency that you -- 24 A Yes. 122 1 Q -- were responsible for auditing. 2 A Yes. 3 Q Yep. 4 So, then, to go to the next sentence, Mr. Bulatao says, That's what I meant, yes. 5 "In other words, Mr. Linick failed to inform the Department 6 that he had hand-picked a different entity to investigate." 7 Is that a fair characterization of how you came to have 8 the DOD IG looking into this? 9 first hand-picked that entity and then failed to inform the 10 11 Is it fair to say that you Department about it? A "Hand-picked" is a distortion. As I had mentioned 12 before, I had gone to the CIGIE, and they told me to go find 13 somebody to do it, and I started with Labor, then VA, and 14 then I ended with DOD IG. 15 hat in hand, hoping that they would be willing to do a 16 review and expend their resources. 17 Q I didn't hand-pick them. I had And had you ever conveyed to Department 18 officials -- I believe you've confirmed this, but just 19 again. 20 the process you went through in arriving at DOD IG. 21 right? 22 A I believe so. 23 Q Okay. 24 You explained that to senior Department officials, Is that Do you recall whether you explained that to Undersecretary Bulatao? 123 1 A I believe so. 2 Q And so, to the extent that the Undersecretary is 3 saying that you hand-picked the different entity, is it your 4 testimony that you believe you would've provided him 5 information showing that that characterization of what 6 happened is not accurate? 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 A As I said, I had told him that -- I explained to him the process and how we landed on the DOD IG. Q Right. was hand-picked. A So he should know better than to say that it Is that fair? I don't want to characterize what he should know or he shouldn't know. Q But you gave him details of what the process actually was. 15 A I did give him the details of the process. 16 Q Okay. 17 Further on in that sentence, Mr. Bulatao alleges that 18 you, quote, "deviated from the clear course agreed upon with 19 Department leadership." 20 Is that an accurate statement? 21 A 22 Well, I disagree with that because, as I said, I told them about the DOD IG. 23 Q Okay. 24 He then goes on to say, "To the extent that this 124 1 hand-picked investigator" -- and, again, you testified that 2 that is a distortion -- "completed its review, the 3 Department has not received any documented findings on the 4 matter." 5 And I'll get to the documentation in a moment. But 6 just so that the record is clear, do you recall roughly when 7 and to whom you communicated verbally the results of the DOD 8 IG work as you understood them? 9 A It had to be before March 15 when -- pre-COVID, I 10 would say. 11 believe, to the best of my recollection, it was during a 12 meeting with Steve Biegun and Brian Bulatao. 13 Q And it was during that meeting with -- I Okay. And at that meeting with Deputy Secretary 14 Biegun and Undersecretary Bulatao where you informed them 15 verbally of what you understood the findings to be, do you 16 recall roughly what you told them? 17 A Well, just that, that conclusions were that the 18 DOD IG had found that there was not a leak from OIG to the 19 press. 20 Q 21 22 23 24 That's it. And did they have a particular reaction to that information that you can recall today? A As I stated previously, that's when Deputy Bulatao asked for the internal investigation when it was complete. Q Okay. So he did ask you for the written product, 125 1 correct? 2 A Yes. 3 Q Okay. And I believe you've testified that you 4 didn't have it at the time and that ultimately they never 5 asked you for it again. Is that correct? 6 A Yeah, that's correct. 7 Q And you've also said that, given the nature of your 8 office's work and the fact that the names of many of your 9 employees are in that DOD IG product, you would've had 10 hesitation about providing that document to Undersecretary 11 Bulatao even if you had had it at the time. 12 correct? 13 A Yes. 14 Q Okay. Is that Can you say more about that, please? Why 15 would you have been hesitant to provide that document to the 16 Undersecretary? 17 A Well, the document contained the names of 18 individuals, and I was concerned that not only would it, you 19 know, contain the names of the individuals but their 20 interviews and what they said. 21 were involved in the investigation of the political 22 retaliation matter in the Office of the Secretary. 23 was concerned -- or I could imagine the Department using 24 information in that report against them. These were individuals who And I 126 1 So I was concerned about that, and I also just didn't 2 want to set a precedent of turning over an internal 3 investigation involving potential violation, you know -- an 4 investigation of potential violations of OIG rules. 5 wanted an opportunity to assess that. 6 7 8 9 So I I also mentioned earlier that DOD IG had equities since they were preparing the document. Q So, if I have your testimony correct, it is that your staff had just finished looking into allegations that 10 folks on the Seventh Floor of the State Department had 11 inappropriately retaliated against career officials. 12 that part correct? 13 A Well, we issued that report, I believe, in November 14 of 2019. 15 would've been shortly after we issued that report. 16 Q Is So it would've been shortly -- you know, it Right. And that the DOD IG document contained the 17 names of all of the people who had looked into whether or 18 not the folks on the Seventh Floor engaged in improper 19 retaliation. Is that correct? 20 A Yes. 21 Q And you were concerned that if you gave those names 22 to the Seventh Floor that they might in turn retaliate 23 against the people who had been looking into that matter. 24 Is that correct? 127 1 A Correct. 2 Q Okay. 3 Can you tell us a little bit, sir, about your own 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Thank you. involvement in the DOD IG matter? And we can go ahead and take the exhibit down, if that's okay, just because I can't see the witness anymore. Can you tell us about your involvement with DOD IG's look at all of this? A review. Q I mean, I didn't have any involvement in their They did the review independently of our office. I'm sorry, not -- that was poor phrasing on my part. Were you yourself interviewed as part of that process? 13 A Oh, yes. 14 Q Okay. Can you describe those interactions for me, Yeah. I mean, they interviewed me. 15 16 Yes, yes. I was interviewed, yes. Yes. please? A They asked me 17 if I provided the report or any information to the media. 18 said, no, I didn't. 19 Do you want me to go through that? 20 Q If you don't mind, just because I do think there is 21 some confusion about it, and I think it would be helpful to 22 clarify. 23 24 A I Yeah. I told them that I didn't provide the report or any information about the report to the media. 128 1 Q Did you answer their questions truthfully, sir? 2 A Oh, absolutely. 3 Q Were there any questions that you refused to answer? 4 A No. 5 Q Okay. 6 I answered every single question they asked me. Were your various government email accounts made available to those DOD IG investigators? 7 A Oh, yes. 8 Q And did you restrict the access that they had to 9 And my personal email account was too. looking through those records in any way? 10 A Oh, no. They had absolute complete access to all of 11 my records. 12 Q 13 And their conclusion, as is reflected in the letter Okay. 14 that was ultimately provided -- I would just like to read 15 the top line. 16 This is on page 2. Quote, "DCIS found no evidence that any DOS OIG 17 personnel emailed or discussed any details of the evaluation 18 report with the authors of The Daily Beast article, or other 19 members of the media, prior to The Daily Beast article on 20 September 13, 2019." 21 And then they further say, in the very last sentence of 22 their overall conclusions, or the last two: "We determine 23 that all emails identified by DCIS relevant to this limited 24 inquiry were maintained in the DOS system of record. Our 129 1 review of IG Linick's Gmail account also showed no further 2 dissemination of the report." 3 So they had your testimony, they had the testimony of 4 folks who worked for you and worked on this report, they had 5 unfettered access to all of your emails, and they found no 6 indication that either you or anyone in your staff was 7 involved in a leak. Is that right? 8 A Yes. 9 Q And did you verbally communicate roughly that to 10 11 12 13 Deputy Secretary Biegun and Undersecretary Bulatao? A No. All I said to them was that they didn't find any leak to the press. Q That's what I told them. And that, as we've said already -- and I won't 14 belabor it -- nobody asked you afterwards to provide this, 15 nor would you have felt comfortable for the reasons that 16 we've discussed. 17 A Is that right? Well, I said that, after March -- when the COVID 18 crisis hit and we started sending people home, we had no 19 further in-person meetings between Bulatao and the Deputy 20 Secretary and myself. 21 that that were touch-base phone calls, and in none of those 22 phone calls did the issue come up. We had a couple of phone calls after 23 Q Okay. 24 I'd like to turn to the substance of that report by 130 Mr. Hook, if I could. I'm not going to refer to any particular passages, but just to remind you of the topic. First of all, that is a closed report, right, that has been publicly issued, the work on the prohibited personnel practices involving Brian Hook? A Yes. Okay. How did your office get involved in that matter? A I believe we actually received a request from your committee to look into that matter. Okay. And what reception did you get in the State Department once it became apparent that you were looking into these issues? Did anybody try to discourage you from doing what Congress essentially had asked, which is looking into whether there had been such prohibited personnel practices? A No. Okay. Who did you speak with in the Office of the Secretary during the course of that review? A I don't recall. I don't want to misstate anything. To your knowledge, did your office ask to speak with 131 1 anyone who was at the time employed by the State Department 2 who refused to speak to you? 3 A I'm sorry. Say that again. 4 Q I believe we've talked about Ms. Ciccone and 5 Ms. Peterlin, both of whom were at the time former 6 employees. 7 A Right. 8 Q Did you ask to speak to any current employees in 9 10 11 connection with this who refused to speak with your office? A I don't recollect anybody refusing to speak with the office who is currently employed. I don't recall. 12 Q Did you interview Brian Hook? 13 A Not me personally. 14 Q Okay. 15 16 My office, yes. Can you tell us what your knowledge is of the interviews that your office conducted with Mr. Hook? A I mean, just generally, my office, you know, asked 17 him about the various facts involving the issue at hand. 18 There were a number of -- I think there were two or three 19 interviews. 20 want to go further. 21 while, so I'm really unable to say exactly what they asked 22 him, other than they did ask him about his reasons for 23 terminating Employee 1 in the report. 24 Q My memory is faulty on this, and I really don't I haven't looked at this matter in a Do you recall whether, after any of those interviews 132 1 with Mr. Hook, any of the folks in your office indicated to 2 you whether or not they thought Mr. Hook had been answering 3 their questions truthfully? 4 A I don't have a good enough recollection on that. 5 Q Okay. 6 In the report itself, you did take a rather remarkable 7 step of fact-checking several written statements that 8 Mr. Hook had submitted to OIG, particularly around his 9 claims that he had forced the employee out not because of 10 discrimination but because they had already found someone 11 else to do the job. 12 Mr. Hook claims that in writing to you. And your 13 report challenges the accuracy of those statements and 14 essentially says: 15 out you didn't even know some of those people at the time in 16 question. 17 A We looked at your records, and it turns Is that a fair summary? You know, I don't have the report in front of me, 18 and I really don't want to mischaracterize that, so I'll let 19 the record speak for itself. 20 Q Okay. 21 When did the first draft of that report go to the State 22 Department? 23 A 24 If memory serves me, I believe the first draft went to the State Department August 30 or thereabout, the end of 133 1 2 3 August. Q Okay. you would expect their written comments? 4 A Yes. 5 Q Okay. 6 And did you give them a timeframe for when It's normally 2 weeks. Did you get written comments from the Department within 2 weeks? 7 A No, we didn't. 8 Q Did they ask you for an extension? 9 A You know, I don't recall. 10 11 12 I'd really have to check with the report writer on that. Q Do you recall who the point of contact was in the Office of the Secretary who received that draft report? 13 A I believe it was Lisa Kenna. 14 Q Okay. And Lisa Kenna's name, we'll stipulate, is 15 mentioned in the report as having been in the Office of the 16 Secretary, and her name came up in the course of looking at 17 those prohibited personnel practices. 18 Did it give you or give anyone else in your office 19 pause that the draft report was going to be submitted to 20 somebody whose name was in the report on behalf of the 21 Department? 22 A Yeah, that's not something that was discussed at the 23 time. And she was really the only contact in the -- or the 24 natural contact in the Office of the Secretary, as the 134 1 2 Executive Secretary of the office. Q Did you have any in-person interactions with Brian 3 Hook after the draft report was submitted to the State 4 Department? 5 A 6 Yes. There was a point when he asked to see me, and he did pay a visit to me at my office in Rosslyn. 7 Q And can you tell us about that visit, please? 8 A He was upset about our findings in the report. 9 Q How did you know he was upset? 10 A I could tell from his demeanor, and his voice was 11 raised. 12 Q Okay. What did he say to you? 13 A I don't remember exactly what he said to me. I do 14 recall him saying something about being upset about the leak 15 to The Daily Beast. I do remember that. 16 Q Uh-huh. 17 A And I do believe that he didn't think my staff 18 treated him well. 19 Q Did he have specific complaints? 20 A I think he said to me that my staff appeared to be 21 biased. 22 Q And did he offer anything to substantiate that 23 allegation? 24 A Not that I recall. 135 1 Q Did you have any reason to believe that your staff 2 was biased? 3 A No. I thought my staff acted in accordance with the 4 principles and procedures in the IG's Office and the 5 standards. 6 Q Might there have been a reason other than perceived 7 bias that Mr. Hook would have been unhappy about what was 8 contained in the draft report that you submitted on 9 August 30? 10 A I don't want to speculate on that. 11 Q Did the draft that you submitted on August 30 12 conclude that he had engaged in prohibited personnel 13 practices? 14 A Yes. 15 Q Okay. 16 Did Mr. Hook threaten you at all during that meeting? 17 A No. 18 Q Did he ever indicate that he was going to take 19 further action because of the draft report? 20 A I don't recall anything like that. 21 Q Did he ever say anything like, "I'm going to get you 22 guys"? 23 A No, I don't recall anything like that. 24 Q Okay. Was there anyone else present at that 136 meeting? A Yes. resent at that meetin He is the I believe, if my memory serves me, that might have been resent at that meeting as well. -was the And just one last question on this before I turn to Members. There was a news report that came out in Vox in December, shortly after your report was published, and it's a look at Mr. Hook. But of relevance here, that article says, quote, "According to a senior administration official, Mr. Hook is telling State Department officials that the IG report was biased against him and faulty from the start. He is considering some sort of direct action against the IG Office staff, but it's unclear exactly what that may be." Did Mr. Hook ever threaten or engage in -- and I'm just quoting Vox here ?direct action against the IG Office's staff?? A I don?t recall hearing that. Do you think he held a grudge against you? A Oh, I don?t want to speculate as to what he believed. you think he was happy with your work? A Again, it really wouldn't be appropriate for me to -- Simply based, sir, on your observations of his body language, tone of voice, and whatnot that you've testified to already, did he indicate in the meeting with you that he was happy with your work or unhappy with your work? A Well, he was upset. He did not like our conclusions. Okay. HFAC Dem Counsel. With apologies for going over -- we have just over 11 minutes left -- I'd like to turn to Members if they have any questions. Mr. Castro. This is Joaquin Castro, vice chair. I know, that Ted had some followup questions from before. I don't know if he's still on. Mr. Lieu. Yes, I do have some additional questions, if that's okay, Mr. Chair. Mr. Castro. Sure. Mr. Lieu. Mr. Linick, you had earlier confirmed that, at the time you were removed, there was an ongoing review of allegations that Secretary Pompeo and his wife misused State Department resources. You also testified that you had submitted a document 138 1 request. Can you remind me again around what time period 2 that document request was submitted? 3 Mr. Linick. 4 Mr. Lieu. 5 6 7 Roughly, the fall or early winter of 2019. Okay. And the document request, was it addressed to Secretary Pompeo? Mr. Linick. I don't know who it was addressed to. I didn't make the document request; my staff did. 8 Mr. Lieu. 9 Mr. Linick. It sought documents from Secretary Pompeo? I really don't want to characterize that. 10 I know they reached out to Lisa Kenna in the Office of the 11 Secretary. 12 That's the most I can say. I know they reached out to the Legal Adviser. 13 Mr. Lieu. 14 Mr. Linick. 15 Mr. Lieu. 16 Mr. Linick. 17 Mr. Lieu. 18 19 20 Okay. Lisa Kenna is the Executive Secretary. Okay. And the document request was seeking, in part, documents from the Secretary himself. Mr. Linick. Is that right? I really don't want to characterize that. I don't want to misstate. Mr. Lieu. 22 Mr. Linick. 24 To Secretary Pompeo? Yes. 21 23 And who is Lisa again? Can we get a copy of the document request? You're going to have to ask -- again, I have no access to my office. Mr. Lieu. Right. Okay. 139 1 2 3 4 Mr. Linick. You'll have to direct that to the office, but -- yeah. Mr. Lieu. Would the document request have stated what it was in relation to? 5 Mr. Linick. 6 Mr. Lieu. Again, I am unable to characterize -In your normal practice, when you issue 7 document requests, do you explain with some sort of 8 introduction why you're requesting those documents? 9 Mr. Linick. 10 the documents. 11 Mr. Lieu. 12 Mr. Linick. Not necessarily. We might just ask for That would probably be more typical. Okay. And did you get those documents? I know that some were received, but I'm 13 just not clear on, sort of, where that stands. Yes, some 14 were received, yes. 15 Mr. Lieu. 16 I'd like to ask you a few questions about the Okay. 17 publishing of reports. 18 review of Secretary Pompeo and his wife and you had found 19 some inappropriate conduct. 20 you not to publish the report, or do you have an independent 21 statutory authority to be able to publish whatever it is you 22 want? 23 24 Mr. Linick. Let's say you had completed the Could Secretary Pompeo order They cannot order me to do that. In the IG Act, we control what our work is focused on and how we 140 1 2 publish our work. Mr. Lieu. And that would also go to the Saudi arms 3 sale review as well. 4 suppress your ability to publish that report if you had been 5 able to complete it, correct? 6 Mr. Linick. No. Secretary Pompeo would not be able to But there could be issues -- and I'm 7 not suggesting -- just generically, sometimes the 8 Department -- first of all, if it's classified, we obviously 9 have to pay attention to that. 10 issues, as well, in some cases. 11 limitations that -- 12 Mr. Lieu. I see. And there may be privilege So those are some But you would have authority to 13 publish the report without the classified information and 14 without the privileges -- 15 Mr. Linick. Right, right, right. Exactly. 16 Mr. Lieu. 17 And one way to stop you from doing any of that would be Okay. 18 to fire you, correct? 19 Mr. Linick. Well, that's -- again, I don't know why I 20 have been removed, and there's been no valid reason 21 presented to me for that removal. 22 Mr. Lieu. Okay. 23 I yield back. 24 HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you. If I could just ask one quick 141 1 followup on that, Mr. Linick. 2 you were fired, it would be in the discretion of the person 3 put in charge of that office and the Acting Inspector 4 General as to whether that work would continue or whether it 5 would be published, right? 6 If work had been ongoing and It may not be the Secretary who says, don't publish it, 7 but the new boss of the IG Office will have the ability to 8 control, in some form or fashion, whether work goes forward 9 and whether it's published. 10 11 Mr. Linick. Yes. Is that right? The Acting IG or the IG always has that authority. 12 HFAC Dem Counsel. 13 Mr. Castro? 14 Ms. Speier. May I ask a question, Mr. Chairman? 15 Mr. Castro. Yeah. 16 Okay. We had Keating, and then we'll turn it over to you. 17 Ms. Speier. Thank you. 18 Mr. Castro. Uh-huh. 19 Thank you. Keating -- Sherman, actually, and then -- is that Jackie? 20 Ms. Speier. Yes, it is. 21 Mr. Castro. Okay. 22 Mr. Sherman? 23 Mr. Sherman. 24 Mr. Castro. I'm on? Yep. 142 1 Mr. Sherman. 2 Mr. Castro. 3 Mr. Sherman. Hello? Yep, you're on. There's a draft report on the arms sale 4 to Saudi Arabia and the UAE that the administration rammed 5 through using its -- or abusing its emergency powers under 6 the Arms Control Act. 7 there's such a report. 8 draft, what is the status of the review of that by the IG? 9 Mr. Linick. At least according to the press, And if there is in fact no such All I can say is it's ongoing and -- their 10 report is ongoing. That's the best I can say. I haven't 11 been in the office for almost several weeks now, so I don't 12 know the exact status. 13 Mr. Sherman. When you were forced from the IG 14 position, what was the status of the report then? 15 also raises the question of if your firing was for the 16 purpose of stopping that investigation. 17 Mr. Linick. And it Yeah, I mean, I don't feel comfortable 18 talking about, sort of, where it was and so forth. 19 tell you it's been ongoing, and it's been ongoing since last 20 year. 21 Mr. Sherman. It seems to be an abuse of power. I can Is 22 part of that investigation looking at whether the revolving 23 door and undue influence was involved, or is the 24 investigation just a focus on the abuse of power of the 143 1 2 3 4 5 6 President? And my guess is you're not inclined to really get into that. Mr. Linick. It would be inappropriate for me to get into that. Mr. Sherman. Okay. Well, in some public hearings, 7 I've given a few witnesses some questions they were 8 uncomfortable with. 9 you for your service. 10 Mr. Castro. 11 Jackie? 12 Ms. Speier. 13 Again, thank you, Mr. Linick, for your 28 years of 14 That wasn't my intention here. Thank Thank you, Brad. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. service to our country. 15 Following the last set of questions by Congressman 16 Lieu, if an incoming inspector general decided not to pursue 17 these ongoing investigations, what would happen to the 18 documents? 19 documents? 20 Do they have the discretion to destroy the Mr. Linick. Well, I mean, as a general matter, the 21 office is subject to the Federal records rules, and 22 typically those documents would be preserved. 23 24 Ms. Speier. them? So is there any prohibition to destroy 144 Mr. Linick. 1 I think under the Federal Records Act you 2 need to maintain Federal records, so you wouldn't be able 3 to -- I mean, you could destroy copies and things like that, 4 but records need to be maintained under the Federal Records 5 Act. Ms. Speier. 6 Do you believe that, as we look at the 7 role of inspectors general, regardless of administrations, 8 whether or not there should be a requirement that firing is 9 only allowed for cause? Mr. Linick. 10 So I'm really -- typically, when I'm asked 11 to offer an opinion about legislation and so forth, I'm 12 happy to do so. 13 that, and I really don't want to -- I feel uncomfortable 14 giving you an off-the-cuff answer about what the law should 15 be. But I would want an opportunity to study 16 Ms. Speier. All right. 17 The investigation into Brian Hook, he was one of a 18 number of employees that was being investigated for 19 retaliating against other employees within the Department. 20 Is that correct? 21 Mr. Linick. That's correct. 22 Ms. Speier. And that report is now public? 23 Mr. Linick. Yes, it is. 24 Ms. Speier. So, for those of us that have not had the 145 1 opportunity to read it, can you just outline what the 2 findings were? 3 were their names, and what were they found to have done? 4 5 Mr. Linick. How many of these employees were there, what Well, I can give you a general summary. I don't have that report in front of me. 6 Ms. Speier. That would be fine. 7 Mr. Linick. We looked at five instances where there 8 was allegation of retaliation. And, basically, we concluded 9 that in one of those instances Brian Hook and others -- 10 [Audio interference.] 11 Mr. Linick. I'm sorry. 12 Ms. Speier. I think someone was just overheard talking 13 Was there a question? or was unmuted. 14 Mr. Linick. 15 And we concluded that Brian Hook and others engaged in 16 an unlawful, prohibited personnel practice in terminating a 17 detail who we characterized as Employee 1 in our report. 18 And it was on the basis of ethnicity and a perceived 19 political affiliation that served as the basis for the 20 termination. 21 22 23 24 Ms. Speier. Okay. And this Employee 1 has been -- what's the status of this employee now? Mr. Linick. this moment. I don't know. I couldn't answer that at 146 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ms. Speier. So, as a result of your report, that particular employee was not reinstated? Mr. Linick. question. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that I'm sorry. Ms. Speier. But this report dates back to last year, correct? 7 Mr. Linick. That's correct. 8 Mr. Castro. We're out of time here. 9 With the minority's permission, we just had one 10 followup question on this from Mr. Lieu. 11 get his question real quick, and we can keep it brief, and 12 we can add that amount of time to the minority's time, if 13 that's okay. 14 Mr. Lieu. If I could just Mr. Linick, the document request you sent 15 for Secretary Pompeo, did Undersecretary Brian 16 Bulatao -- was he aware of that request? 17 18 19 Mr. Linick. I did inform him that we were going to be requesting documents, yes. Mr. Lieu. And did you inform it was related to a 20 matter about Secretary Pompeo and his wife potentially 21 misusing resources? 22 Mr. Linick. 23 Mr. Lieu. 24 Yes. And you're aware Undersecretary Brian Bulatao was a longtime friend of Secretary Pompeo, correct? 147 1 2 3 Mr. Linick. I don't know. I can't answer that question. Mr. Lieu. They founded Thayer Company together, 4 graduates of West Point. 5 very long time. They've known each other for a 6 I yield back. 7 Mr. Castro. 8 HFAC Dem Counsel. 9 And just before we go, that was an additional, looks Okay. We'll turn it over to the minority. Thank you. 10 like, 49 seconds. 11 45 seconds from the end of the last round. 12 thank my colleagues for their indulgence on that. 13 14 15 16 17 And I know we had 3 minutes and I would like to So if we could add -- I was an English major -- like, 4-1/2 minutes to their clock. Mr. White. , this is Pete White again. Could we take 5 minutes to stretch? HFAC Dem Counsel. Yes. I apologize. Before we 18 begin -- so we'll add 4-1/2 minutes to their clock when we 19 resume. Five-minute break at this moment. 20 Mr. White. Thank you. 21 HFAC Dem Counsel. 22 [Recess.] Thanks, everybody. Mr. Castro. [Presiding All right, everybody. Are we almost ready? Mr. white. The witness and counsel and are ready. COR REP COUNSEL. Minority counsel ready. HFAC REP COUNSEL. I am going to turn things over to my colleague on the Oversight Committee, with questions. BY COR REP COUNSEL: Thank you, Hi, Mr. Linick. Thank for joining us today what is obviously a very long today for everybody here. I am a counsel for the minority on the Oversight Committee. I wanted to start off by going back to the first hour,- had asked you what some of the larger sort of reviews you had conducted were during your tenure and as a 16. And the very first thing you said was a review of email practices of former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Is that right? A We actually did a review of practices of the Secretary -- a number of Secretaries of State. Including Secretary Clinton, correct? A Yes. When did that review begin? 149 1 A I don't remember. 2 Q Okay. 3 You became State Department inspector general, when, 2013? Does that sound about right? 4 A Yes. 5 Q And who was Secretary of State at that time? 6 A John Kerry. 7 Q And the previous Secretary of State was Secretary 8 Clinton, correct? 9 A Yes. 10 Q And is it your understanding that during Secretary 11 Clinton's entire tenure as Secretary of State, there was no 12 presidentially nominated inspector general at the State 13 Department? 14 A I believe that's right. 15 Q And when you became inspector general of the State 16 Department in 2013, you were nominated by who? 17 A President Obama then. 18 Q Okay. And then in, in 2010, I believe you became 19 inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, 20 correct? 21 A Yes. 22 Q And when you were ultimately approved by the Senate 23 for that position, that was when President Obama nominated 24 you, correct? 150 1 2 3 A Yes, I had been initially nominated by President Bush in 2008. Q I want to go to the night of -- I think, it was 4 May 15 you talked about earlier, at 7:45 at night where you 5 received a phone call from State Operations Center. 6 remember that phone call? 7 A I remember it well. 8 Q Okay. 9 10 Do you Were you given any instructions by anybody on the phone call not to have any further contact with anybody at the Department? 11 A At the Department? 12 Q Yes? 13 A Correct. 14 Q What about not having any further contact with 15 anybody at OIG? 16 A No. 17 Q So you were given none of those instructions, if you 18 remember? 19 A Not that I recall, no. 20 Q Did the President do anything illegal when he 21 22 decided to remove you from office? A I'm not going to opine on the legality of it. 23 said before, I am not aware of any valid reason for my 24 removal. As I 151 1 Q Valid according to who? 2 A I have not heard any reason offered by Secretary 3 Pompeo -- 4 Q Justify according to who? 5 A In other words, the reasons offered are unfounded or 6 misplaced. 7 about the leak, our office leaking, I think, the report 8 clearly shows that no one in my office leaked. 9 assertion that the office was the source of the leak is 10 false. 11 Q 12 As I said before, for example, the argument The Do you believe that a President should have full faith and confidence in his or her political appointees? 13 A I'm not going to comment on that question. 14 Q Do you believe that the President has the exclusive 15 16 17 18 19 power to remove presidentially appointed executive officers? A Generally, if I am presidentially appointed, I serve at the pleasure of the President. Q So do you agree that the President has the authority to remove inspectors general? 20 A Generally, yes. 21 Q And that's codified by the statute as well, correct? 22 A Yes. 23 Q Are you familiar with the D.C. Circuit Court ruling 24 holding that the President -- that there's a case of Gerald 152 1 Walpin? Are you familiar with him, correct? 2 A I remember him, yes. 3 Q You remember him. So he was inspector general that 4 President Obama had removed. 5 Circuit Court held that the rationale that the White House, 6 the President gave in his removal, quote, satisfies the 7 minimal statutory mandate that the President communicate to 8 the Congress his reasons for removal, and that statutory 9 mandate is identical to the statutory mandate that the 10 Mr. Walpin sued. And the D.C. President gave for your removal. 11 Are you familiar with those facts at all? 12 A No, not really. 13 Q So are you familiar with the fact that the D.C. 14 Circuit Court has held that the statute pertaining to your 15 removal imposes no clear duty to explain the reasons in any 16 greater detail? 17 18 19 20 A No, I mean -- I am not familiar with that. have that in front of me. Q Just not something you have studied in the last 2 weeks? 21 A Excuse me. 22 Q This is not something that you have studied 23 24 I don't indefinitely? A I have not studied it, no. So I am unable to 153 confirm whether that is acceptable. All right, that's fine. You are familiar with the reports that the Undersecretary for Management said that you were the only part the only bureau of the Department that did not promote the Secretary's ethos statement. Is that correct? A I did see something like that in the press, yes. Yeah, and you talked earlier I believe in the first hour with that you thought the first line of the statement was inconsistent with the Office of the Inspector General. Is that right? A Yes. And you had your staff reached out and said that the 016 was an independent entity, is that correct? A I told them that -- I had my staff reach out in a space with whomever sent the email and say that, you know, we -- our mission is codified in the Inspector General Act and we have a different -- we have a different mission. And we also have, you know, our own sort of values and vision which flow from that. So I am going to read you a couple of lines from the Department of State professional ethos statement and just ask if you agree with them. We can go through them one by one: 154 1 2 3 I am a champion of American diplomacy. Is that something you agree with? A I'm not sure what you're saying. Our mission is not 4 to be the champion of American diplomacy. 5 promote the effectiveness and efficiency of Department 6 programs. 7 Q The next line: Our mission to My colleagues and I proudly serve 8 the United States and the American people at the Department 9 of State. 10 A Yeah. 11 Q First, the executive department? 12 A What's the question? 13 Q Well, is that something that you agree with? 14 My colleagues and I proudly -- 15 A Sure. 16 Q We support and defend the Constitution of the United 17 Sure. States? 18 A Of course. 19 Q We protect the American people and promote their 20 interests and values around the world by leading our 21 Nation's foreign policy? 22 A Well, we don't lead foreign policy at OIG. So again 23 that's -- we oversee how the Department implemented foreign 24 policy. 155 1 Q As a member of this team, I serve with unfailing 2 professionalism in both my demeanor and my action even in 3 the face of adversity? 4 A Do I agree with that? Absolutely. And, in fact, we 5 have a whole set of values at OIG, and some of those values 6 actually reflect those types of assertions with respect for 7 others. 8 9 Q I act with uncompromising personal and professional integrity? 10 A 11 our values. 12 Q 13 Sure. And that's actually part of -- that's part of I take ownership of and responsibility for my actions and decisions? 14 A Accountability is also important. 15 Q And I show unstinting respect in work and deed for 16 my colleagues and all who serve alongside me? 17 A Yes. 18 Q And in the last line, together we are the United 19 20 I agree with that. States Department of State. So you have talked a lot about sort of your 21 independence at the OIG. 22 office was the overseer of the Department of State. 23 familiar with the Department of State organization chart? 24 A Yes. You said, at one point, your Are you 156 1 2 Q And do you know where the Office of Inspector General is on that organization chart? 3 A Yes, I do. 4 Q And where is that? 5 A There's a line to the Secretary. 6 Q A line to the Secretary. 7 Okay. And by statute, as the inspector general, by statute, who do you report to? 8 A I report to Congress and to the Secretary. 9 Q You report to the Secretary. 10 A And to Congress. 11 12 Okay. I have a dual reporting responsibility. Q Let's talk for a few minutes about this DOD peer 13 review that has been so heavily discussed. 14 copy of that in front of you? 15 A Yes. 16 Q How did you obtain a copy of that? 17 A I actually got it from my counsel. 18 Q Okay. 19 Mr. White. 20 21 yesterday. 24 You got it through counsel, okay. If you -- Counsel, it was provided to us, I believe, I provided it to my client. COR Rep Counsel. Thanks, Pete. BY COR REP COUNSEL: 22 23 Do you have a Q Have you spoken with anybody in the Inspector General's Office since your removal as inspector general? 157 1 A Oh, yes. People have reached out to me. 2 Q Have you reached out to anybody on your own? 3 A I have made the calls to folks to see how they're 4 doing, yes. 5 Q Did you make any -- did you have a copy of this DOD 6 review in the 2 weeks between when you were removed from 7 office and when your counsel received it yesterday? 8 A No. 9 Q And you received it yesterday from your counsel? 10 A Correct. 11 Q Did you take any proactive steps to obtain the DOD 12 review since you were removal as inspector general? 13 A Yeah, I tried to get a copy of it from my office. 14 Q And how did you do that? 15 A Sure. Can you explain that? I called -- or I was on the phone with -- I 16 forget, if she called me, the deputy IG and I -- I asked for 17 a copy of it. 18 Q And why did you ask for a copy of it? 19 A Because I didn't have a copy of it because it was on 20 my system at the office. 21 hearing. 22 Q And I wanted it in advance of the During the end of the minority's last hour, not last 23 hour, I won't say, obviously, I recall you saying something 24 along the lines of you did not limit the DOD inquiry in 158 1 anyway. Do you remember that? 2 A The limitation was -- yes, exactly. 3 Q Okay. If I could turn your attention to page 4 of 4 the DOD review, the memorandum of findings. In the very 5 first sentence, it says: 6 General Steve Linick, Department of State, Office of 7 Inspector General, asked Principal Deputy Inspector General 8 Glenn A. Fine, performing the duties of inspector general, 9 Department of Defense, if the DOD OIG could conduct a On September 27, 2019, Inspector 10 limited inquiry on the alleged unauthorized release of 11 information to the media from DOS OIG evaluation report. 12 13 14 So what was the limited inquiry you asked Mr. Fine to pursue? A Well, the question is whether I limited Mr. Fine in 15 his work. 16 whether or not this particular report or information report 17 had been leaked to the media. 18 19 20 21 22 Q I told Mr. Fine that the issue at hand was And so you set the parameters of determining whether or not it was leaked to the media. A Is that correct? No, I told him what the issue was. I said this needs to be investigated. Q So I guess I am having trouble understanding why you 23 asked him to conduct a limited inquiry as opposed to just a 24 full inquiry of possible leaking? 159 1 2 3 A I didn't ask him to conduct a limited -- I asked him to conduct a full inquiry of this particular issue. Q I guess I am having trouble, you know, squaring that 4 with the language in the review that says, you specifically 5 asked the DOD OIG to conduct a quote/unquote limited 6 inquiry. 7 Why not a full inquiry into the -- 8 9 10 A What was limited about the inquiry you asked him? The language you're reading is his language. ought to direct that at him. So you I asked him to conduct -- can I finish? 11 Q Yeah, go ahead. 12 A I asked him to conduct a full inquiry and do 13 whatever he needs to do to ascertain whether or not the 14 report had been leaked. 15 Q So your testimony is you asked him to conduct a full 16 inquiry. 17 limited inquiry. 18 19 20 A He cites you as saying you asked him to conduct a When you received that -- I think "limited" refers to the issue. The issue was whether the report leaked or not. Q Yes, but that is also in the sentence: a limited 21 inquiry on the alleged unauthorized release of information 22 to the media. 23 24 You could have said: A full inquiry on the alleged unauthorized release of information to the media. It is 160 1 still -- 2 3 4 5 A That's his language, and you ought to direct it to Q Did you bring that up with him when you read the him. report that he attributed a limited inquiry to you? 6 A No. No. 7 Q So this report, let's keep going through it. Out of 8 the 15 email accounts that were reviewed by the Department 9 of Defense Inspector General's Office, how many employees 10 out of those 15 email drafts of the -- of the PPP report 11 outside of the OIG? 12 A Do you have an answer to that? Yes, I just -- just me. I sent it to Michael 13 Horowitz at the DOJ OIG. 14 sent a draft to myself so I could work on it. 15 Q While I was on vacation, I also So how many different times did the IG discover you 16 sent the work product from your IG email to your personal 17 Gmail account? 18 19 20 21 22 A Between -- I believe it was 23 times between March of 2019 and September of 2019. Q Twenty-three times, and nobody else they reviewed had done it even once. A Is that correct? Well, actually, they did interview a few people, and 23 they said that they had emailed materials to themselves. 24 had a big problem getting onto our system at that time. We And 161 1 the only time I would send anything to myself was when our 2 system was down or I couldn't get access to it. 3 the -- and this was in accordance with the State Department 4 rules that would permit usage of your personal email 5 accounts to limited circumstances such as these. 6 did that, it would involve an unclassified matter. 7 the instances where I sent myself the report, the report at 8 issue, I password-protected it and made sure that it was 9 safe. 10 11 12 Q And Anytime I And in How many other times outside of the PPP report had you emailed those to your personal Gmail account? A How many other times -- oh, I don't know. Again, it 13 would be very limited. 14 getting access to information that I was unable to 15 do -- unable to get access to because my system was either 16 down or, you know, or not functioning. 17 Q And it would be for the purpose of So you say it was very limited, yet it occurred 18 eight times over 6 days in August of 2019 during the 19 conclusion of the draft report on PPP? 20 A So I was traveling at that time. 21 the report. 22 overseas and on the West Coast. 23 times that I sent it to myself, actually, three or four of 24 those times, the report was actually in pieces. It was a 2-week period. I had not finished I was on vacation And, actually, the eight So part of 162 1 the report was one of the emails. 2 was another email. 3 one. 4 times. 5 segments. Part two of the report Part three of the report was another So it wasn't that I emailed myself in the report eight It was that they came in -- it came in different 6 Q So may I turn your attention to page, I believe it 7 was page 5. 8 footnote. The pages aren't numbered. 9 A Okay. 10 Q And footnote 1, second sentence: It's page with the U.S. OIG also has 11 email policy that is documented via an information systems 12 rules of behavior. 13 Use OIG-provided equipment and systems/applications at all 14 times, including OIG email, to conduct official OIG 15 business. 16 information systems/applications, to include to email or 17 other file storage sites to store, process, or transmit OIG 18 or Department data is prohibited. 19 20 21 These documents states in part, quote: The use of corporate or personal equipment to Is there an exception there for when OIG servers are not functioning properly? A So, at the time, I was doing it, I had State 22 Department rules in mind. I did not have in mind this OIG 23 rule. 24 done the time same thing because I needed to get my work But, honestly, if I had thought about, I would have 163 1 done, but I probably would have talked to the IT folks to 2 say I need an exception to this and take the appropriate 3 precautions. 4 Q So it seems a little convenient to me that you liked 5 to have independence from the Department. 6 where you are emailing yourself on dozens of occasions, you 7 are going to take the State Department policy and not abide 8 by the strict OIG policy. 9 A Well, actually, at the time, I actually didn't have 10 the OIG policy in mind. 11 State Department policy. 12 Q Yet in the case I thought we actually tracked the So the emails that sent to yourself between 13 March 2019 and September 2019, they contained -- they 14 contained talking points under these matters, is that right? 15 A Yeah, actually, the large majority of those emails 16 when I checked were actually sent in August while I was 17 away, there was a handful of emails that I sent in that 18 6-month period, probably about seven or eight. 19 has to do with talking points for Federal News Network 20 interview. 21 related to a conference. 22 there was another one involving a retirement speech that I 23 was giving. 24 Committee press releases. One of them Another one had to do with some talking points All of this was unclassified. And And then some links to the Appropriations And then two other, then a couple 164 1 other emails involved instances where folks sent me an email 2 at my State address as well as my personal address, and I 3 replied back to them. 4 found. 5 Q So on the last page of the report -- 6 A Hold on. 7 Q That's fine. So I copied myself. That's what I So the paragraph right above Overall 8 Conclusions, the first sentence: Additionally, DCIS 9 reviewed IG Linick's personal Gmail account sent and trash 10 folders and found no instances where the evaluation report 11 was emailed from his personal Gmail account to anyone other 12 than his own DOS OIG email address. 13 A Yes. 14 Q Do you know if Gmail automatically clears out trash 15 16 after a certain period of time? A I have no idea. But I will just tell you, I have 17 never emailed any report or information from a report or 18 conveyed any information from a report that hasn't been 19 published to the press. 20 clear. 21 Q So let's just -- let's make that So had you -- hypothetically, if somebody were to 22 send an email in Gmail and then they subsequently deleted 23 that from their sent folder, would that further show up in 24 the sent folder if somebody came back and reviewed it? 165 1 A I don't know the answer to that question. But as I 2 said before, I have never leaked information about any of 3 our work to anyone, and I would never do that. 4 Q Do you know if the DOD IG went to Google and asked 5 for a complete review of your account as opposed to -- as 6 opposed to simply reviewing the account on their own? 7 A You know, based on the scope and methodology, I 8 don't think they went to Google. But you'll -- you know, 9 that I -- my understanding is, is that, apart from me, they 10 just looked at DOS and DOS OIG Gmail accounts and they 11 looked at my Gmail accounts. 12 Q Did they look at your personal cell phone? 13 A Yeah, I gave them my cell phone. 14 Q Your OIG cell phone or your personal cell phone? 15 A No, no, I gave them -- my personal cell phone had my 16 17 18 emails in them. Q Do you know if they did a review of your text messages? 19 A I don't know. 20 Q Do you know if they did a review of your outgoing or 21 22 23 24 incoming phone calls? A I don't know. I mean, based on methodology here, I don't think they did that. Q But you'd have to ask them. Staying on the last page, first paragraph, second 166 1 sentence, last clause of the second sentence. I'm sorry. 2 It says, IG Linick spoke about the evaluation report with 3 Glenn Fine, principal deputy inspector general performing 4 the duties of the inspector general Department of Defense 5 OIG? 6 A Right. 7 Q So, prior to The Daily Beast article, you had spoken 8 9 with Glenn Fine about the report. A Is that correct? I actually, it was prior to that. It was quite a 10 while prior to that. 11 he handled some political retaliation at the Justice 12 Department. 13 analyzed it legally. 14 15 Q I actually solicited his advice on how And really I was trying to understand how he So -- And then you subsequently asked him to review a possible leak from your office. Is that right? 16 A Yeah, many months later, yeah. 17 Q So there's been a lot of discussion over this, other 18 the CIGIE issue versus looking at the individual IGs? 19 A Yes. 20 Q You testified earlier that you had asked three 21 specific IGs to review a possible leak. 22 A Yes. 23 Q So Labor, that's Scott Dahl. 24 A Yes. Is that correct? Starting with Labor, then VA, and then DOD. Is that correct? 167 Q 1 2 Scott Dahl to his position as Labor inspector general? A 3 4 I'm not sure. Probably President Obama. I'm not sure. Q 5 6 And do you know who -- do you know who nominated VA. And then you went and talked with Michael Missal at Is that correct? 7 A Correct. 8 Q And do you know who nominated him to his position? 9 A I believe he is an Obama -- 10 Q He was Obama. 11 And Glenn Fine, do you know who nominated Glenn Fine to 12 13 his position? A Well, he wasn't nominated to his position. 14 the principal deputy. 15 servant. 16 Correct. Q He was He was a career -- he was a civil Well, who placed him in his position as a principal 17 deputy or acting IG at the Department of Defense? 18 know who did that? Do you 19 A I think it was John Rymer. 20 Q And do you know who nominated Mr. Fine to become 21 inspector general at the Justice Department? 22 A I don't actually. 23 Q I believe that was President Clinton. 24 Do you know how many inspectors general there are across the government? think there's 74. Seventy-four. And out of those 74, you picked 3. The only three that you spoke with were all appointees of Democratic Presidents. Is that correct? A Well, again, that's -- I know the first two were. I'll take your word for it on Glenn Fine. So you talked about how you spoke with CIGIE about running a possible review into your office. Is that correct? A Yes. And you said CIGIE doesn't do general reviews of that nature, correct? A No, I said CIGIE doesn't investigate offices. They don't investigate offices; they investigate people. A Specific individuals that fall within their jurisdiction. Do you fall within their jurisdiction? Yes. Does-fall within their jurisdiction? I believe so. fall within their jurisdiction? No. A A Would A fall within their jurisdiction? think so as the acting, but I'm not sure. Would fall within their jurisdiction? A I believe so? Would fall within their jurisdiction? A I believe so. Would fall within their jurisdiction? A -had left, but probably would, yes. Would fall within their jurisdiction? A Yes. Did you ask CIGIE to run an investigation into any of those people? A You missed a couple. - and- and neither of those would fall within their jurisdiction. No, but I asked them to specifically -- I told them that we had about 12 to 14 people, and I gave them a general sense of who they were. And you can ask CIGIE, but they would not investigate the office. But they would investigate individuals on possible leaks. Is that correct? A I believe they would -- if there's allegations against specific individuals, I believe that they would. And that's why I actually offered both Brian Bulatao and 170 1 John Sullivan, obviously, the opportunity -- they could make 2 a referral on me or any other specific party. 3 Q But you didn't do that yourself, make the referral? 4 A Make -- well -- 5 Q Make a referral. 6 A Well, technically, I did because I told CIGIE that I 7 was one of the individuals that needed to be reviewed since 8 I touched the report. 9 individual. 10 Q So they knew I was a covered If the Integrity Committee were to conduct an 11 investigation, do you know -- do you know that dissemination 12 of the conclusions of their investigation, do you know who 13 that goes to? 14 A No, I don't have any idea. 15 Q Would it surprise you to learn it would go to the 16 head of the Department? 17 A Again, I don't know. 18 Q So, in this case, if CIGIE were to have reviewed, 19 conducted a review of you or another one of the individuals 20 that we had discussed under CIGIE IG's jurisdiction, the 21 results of that would have gone to Secretary Pompeo. 22 However, since you chose Mr. Fine, the report for Mr. Fine 23 went only to you. 24 A Is that correct? As I said before, I went to the CIGIE. They told me 171 1 that they wouldn't do the review and that I needed to go 2 find somebody else. 3 Q So, when you learned about the results of this 4 review, you said it was sometime in the March 15 to 17 5 timeframe right before COVID took over. 6 verbally to the Deputy Secretary and Undersecretary, 7 correct? 8 9 10 11 A You relayed that No after I -- it was before COVID that I relayed it to them verbally. Q Right. or a review. Correct. And they asked you for a report, Is that correct? 12 A They asked for the internal investigation. 13 Q They asked you for the internal investigation. 14 15 And you declined to give it to them? A No, I did not decline to give it to them. I said 16 that I had concerns that it wouldn't be my normal practice 17 just to hand over an internal investigation that involved a 18 violation of the OIG rules and regulations and that I would 19 have to assess how to go about doing that. 20 before, I had concerns about sort of the confidentiality of 21 the information in that -- potential information in that 22 report and setting a precedent. 23 proper for me, as a matter of course, to just turn over 24 internal investigations if the Department wanted them As I stated I didn't think it would be 172 1 2 3 4 involving OIG rules and regulations. Q But the bottom line is they asked, and you didn't deliver? A Well, no, yes. As I said before, with COVID and all 5 of the resulting issues that we were facing, it was one of 6 those things that -- it wasn't on the top of my list, and 7 they didn't follow up on it. 8 conveyed the conclusions to them, and I had anticipated 9 sitting down with the deputy, as I told you, and letting him 10 11 12 13 And, frankly, I had already read the report in camera. Q So, even though they had asked, you were waiting for them to follow up before you provided them -A I wasn't waiting for them to follow up. I was 14 waiting for an opportunity where I could sit down in person 15 with the deputy. 16 situation because I had 400 employees who were pretty 17 scared, and that completely consumed me for a very long 18 period of time after that. 19 Q And when I got through the whole COVID The limited inquiry that DOD covered, DOD IG 20 covered, it did not include possible sharing of the draft 21 report to individuals other than the media. 22 correct? 23 24 A Is that Well, they did ask all of us whether we shared, who we shared the report with. So that's incorrect. 173 1 Q Are you aware of the draft report being shared with 2 any Member or staff member of Congress prior to its release 3 by your office? 4 A No, I'm not aware of that. If they had shared the 5 report in advance of the appropriate time, that would be a 6 violation of our rules and totally unacceptable. 7 Q I am going to talk about the arms control 8 investigation that your office had been running. 9 office brief the Department earlier this year on the results 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Did your of that -- of your review? A I think they may -- they may have done some sort of briefing. Q Was that done in the normal course of events upon the completion of an IG review? A It would always be in the normal course of events. We have our whole process. 17 Q Right, but upon the completion of the review, is 18 that right? 19 A I actually don't know offhand the circumstances 20 about that particular briefing well enough to recount the 21 circumstances. 22 Q But the review is complete? 23 A No. 24 earlier. It's not complete. I said it was ongoing 174 1 2 3 4 5 6 Q Is the review ongoing, or is the further drafting, dissemination, and reporting back from the Department? A When I left the review, it was ongoing, and that's the most I can say about it. Q Is the Secretary involved in the timing of the release of your report? 7 A I am sorry? 8 Q Is the Secretary involved in the timing of the 9 release of that report? 10 A I don't understand the question. 11 Q The question is, is Secretary Pompeo involved in the 12 13 14 15 timing of the release of the report on the arms sales? A No. We always -- we're the ones who control the timing. Q Correct. So, to the extent that report has not been 16 concluded and it has not been shared, that is simply because 17 your office, the Inspector General's Office is continuing to 18 look into it. Is that right? 19 A If it's ongoing, that means we're looking into it. 20 Q Okay. 21 22 23 24 What was the rationale or the reason that you began that review in the first place? A Well, all I'm going to say about that is we received a request, a congressional request. Q Was there any other request? Was there requests 175 1 from anybody else other than congressional Democrats? A 2 I don't know who actually made that request. But it 3 was -- it -- the only request was from Congress, and I don't 4 remember if it was just Democrats, or if it included 5 Republicans. Q 6 7 Was there any reason for you to take up a review of this matter but for the congressional request you received? 8 A I'm not going to go into our thinking about this. 9 Q Okay. 10 The Secretary's decision to utilize the national emergency, is that purely a policy decision? 11 A I'm not going to go into that. 12 Q Does your office normally investigate policy 13 decisions? A 14 No, as a matter, our office reviews the 15 implementation of policy, and that comes right out of the 16 Foreign Service Act. Q 17 18 Right. But is it appropriate for your office to investigate purely policy decisions? A We don't investigate whether our policy is good or 21 Q So the answer I assume would be no? 22 A Correct. 23 Q Okay. 19 20 24 bad. Are you aware of any prior Secretaries of State or Presidents using the same authority here? 176 1 A I'm not going to get into that. 2 Q I mean, it would be -- 3 A I don't know. I'm not going to get into sort of 4 facts around declarations and so forth. 5 not -- I'm not going to do that. 6 7 Q I'm really So you're not -- you are not sure whether or not President Carter used that same authority? 8 A I just don't know. 9 Q You don't know whether or not President Reagan used 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 that same authority? A As I said, I am not going to get into commentary about the Arms Control Act. Q So you don't know whether or not Clinton or Bush used that same authority? A As I said, I am not going to get into discussion about the Arms Control Act. Q Do you know whether or not State OIG investigated any of those instances? 19 A Same answer. 20 Q Did you or any of your team ever look at past 21 22 23 24 instances of Presidential Secretary declarations? A The same answer. I'm not going to get into what we did or didn't look at. Q Whether prior State OIGs did or did not, would that 177 1 have been relevant to your review in this case? 2 A No comment. 3 Q Is there a statute requiring the Department to 4 consult with Congress on the utilization of this authority? 5 A I am not going to get into that. 6 Q Do you know whether or not career officers were 7 involved or consulted in their recommendation to the 8 Secretary on this matter? 9 A I am not going to comment on that. 10 Q Do you know if career attorneys in the Office of 11 Legal Adviser approved recommendations to the Secretary for 12 these authorities? 13 A I am not going to comment on that. 14 Q What about whether or not Deputy Undersecretary 15 David Hale approved? 16 A I'm not going to comment on that. 17 Q Other career Foreign Service Officers in NEA who 18 approved? 19 A No comment. 20 Q Okay. 21 Did you review the action memo in this particular -- 22 A No comment. 23 Q Did you review the clearance page in this particular 24 matter? 178 1 A No comment. 2 Q Would it have been normal in the course of OIG to 3 4 review the clearance page in this matter? Mr. White. Counsel, he has answered that he is not 5 going to answer questions about the process. 6 wasting time. 7 long day. 8 9 You are You are wasting the witness' time during a I suggest that you move on. COR Rep Counsel. of view. Pete, I appreciate that's your point But these are important questions for our members, 10 understanding the internal processes of OIG, given the facts 11 and everything that has occurred. 12 simply whether it would have been normal. 13 about this particular instance. 14 would have been normal. 15 Mr. White. And my question was I'm not asking I am asking whether it Counsel, you are also getting into areas 16 that cause the witness to have to deal with matters that are 17 classified. 18 questions. 19 the right forum. You know the right way to do that. This is not Please move on. BY COR REP COUNSEL: 20 21 He has said he is not answering these Q In your investigation of Brian Hook, did -- for his 22 personnel practices, did the OIG identify any emails, any 23 emails at all in which Mr. Hook suggested he was personally 24 motivated to end a detailed employee 1 because of perceived 179 political opinions, place of birth, or similar issues? A I haven't -- I had come prepared to talk about my removal and not that report. So I am not going to make comments on that at this time. Okay. In that report, did the 016, did your office identify any documents in which Mr. Hook suggested he was personally motivated to end the detail because of employee l's perceived political opinions -- A Again, again, I am not going to comment about what we found or what we didn't find in that report. I am not prepared to discuss the report. Okay, so I assume if I ask the same question about whether or not any witnesses made such statements, you would give me the same answer? A Again, I just haven't studied this material, and I am just not in a position to go through the facts in a way in which I would feel comfortable with because I want to ensure accuracy. 50 I just don't feel comfortable. Okay. Let me ask you this. Any of the questions that I was asking about the Saudi arms sale, reviewing the clearance memo, just very basic process questions, the questions of process, those aren't classified, are they, as to whether or not your office performed a -- A I am not going to get into any further commentary on 180 that report. I am going to turn it back over to-on the Foreign Affairs Committee to complete our time. BY HFAC REP COUNSEL: Mr. Linick, can you hear me okay? I just want to go back to the issue of turning over the internal report to De artment leadership. I believe I heard you say to and I think you touched on it again just with you said the DOD 16 had equities in there that you wanted to make sure were preserved, and you were also not willing to give the report that contained names of people in your office to the Department. Is that right? A I said it wasn't my -- I had gone over this before. I said it wasn't my practice to turn over internal investigation involving OIG personnel who might have violated OIG rules without carefully assessing what's in the document. There are several concerns that I had, including the fact that DOD obviously had equities in it. Also, there were -- there were discussion of personnel who were involved in issuing the oversight report on the Department on the political retaliation issue. And I was concerned about any confidential information that might be disclosed as to them. And I didn?t want to set a precedent for turning over these kinds of reports. I had already told Brian Bulatao and 181 1 Steve Biegun that this report did not find a leak. 2 report itself obviously confirmed that that there wasn't a 3 leak. 4 Q And the But after you received the report, can you -- I 5 mean, we all have that. What in there is to you susceptible 6 to disclosure to the Department about people inside your 7 office? 8 disclosed anything, and so what was the -- I am just trying 9 to understand the concern that you have for people in your I mean, if the report found that they hadn't 10 office and the report just going to the Department 11 leadership? 12 Mr. White. Counsel, we are 5 hours in at this point. 13 This has been beaten to death. 14 any questions that he has already answered anymore. 15 have got something new, we're happy to do this. 16 voluntarily and wanted to give all of you all that you need. 17 But he will not be answering the same questions again, and 18 this one qualifies. 19 He is not going to answer If you We are here Move on. HFAC REP COUNSEL. Just, respectfully, I don't think 20 that this is a repeated question. This is a specific 21 question about -- I would like him to identify what in the 22 report after he -- because he said he needed a chance to 23 review it, and I understand that. 24 he can articulate what was in the report that he thought was I am just now asking if 182 1 a danger to show to the Department since they had requested 2 it. That's all. 3 Mr. White. He has already talked about that. 4 HFAC REP COUNSEL. 5 Mr. Castro. Okay. I know you guys have been asking that same 6 question. 7 details of a report that he didn't have a chance to study. 8 Move on. HFAC REP COUNSEL. 9 10 He is here to talk about his termination, not the Did you not have a chance to review that report? Mr. White. 11 This has all been gone over several times. 12 He's brought up a sequence of what he knew and when he got 13 it. 14 here voluntarily. 15 that are different from what he's been asked already, that's 16 great. 17 He is not answering other questions about it. He is If you have questions you want answers to Otherwise, he will voluntarily leave. HFAC REP COUNSEL. I am not trying to be obtuse. 18 Congressman Castro said he had not reviewed the report. 19 just wanted to make sure I understood correctly that he had 20 or had not. 21 22 I That's not -- Mr. Castro. Counsel, this is not the subject of this interview. 23 Does somebody want to make a motion? 24 COR Rep Counsel. Mr. Castro, with all due respect, 183 1 this is clearly within the subject of the interview. 2 is the report that Mr. Linick himself commissioned from his 3 handpicked IG. 4 Undersecretary gave for the inspector general's dismissal. 5 This is squarely within the purview of the interview. 6 Mr. Castro. This And it has to do with one of the reasons the Okay. It's my understanding that he has 7 answered that as best as he is able to answer it right now. 8 I don't think you are going to get anything else out of him 9 right now. 10 Mr. White. Mr. Linick? 11 HFAC REP COUNSEL. 12 Mr. Linick. Here. Mr. Linick, are you there? 184 1 2 [2:27 p.m.] BY HFAC REP COUNSEL: 3 4 Q You said it was not your practice. Had you been 5 involved -- during your tenure, even before you were at 6 State, in your other IG capacity, had you been involved in 7 other internal investigations such as this? 8 9 A Oh, sure. There's always -- we've done internal investigations on our own on various things over the years. 10 Q Had you ever done -- 11 A Personnel matters. 12 13 14 There's a lot of stuff that we're -Q Had you ever done an internal investigation over a leak? 15 A I believe so, but I'm not 100 percent sure. 16 Q When you did that, and you may not recall, but did 17 you handle this in a similar fashion, where an outside IG 18 came in and interviewed folks? 19 investigation, meaning you or someone directly under you 20 handled it for the office? Or was it just an internal 21 A That was an internal investigation. 22 Q But, in this instance, I know you said -- I know 23 there's the DOD IG review, and then you were conducting a 24 review that I believe is still ongoing. That review that 185 1 you were undertaking, did that look at State as well as your 2 office? Or was your office just with the DOD IG review? 3 A I'm not following you. 4 Q You conducted an investigation about this leak, 5 6 7 correct? A My office did conduct an investigation of the State Department regarding this leak. 8 Q 9 clear: 10 Yeah. That is correct. And I think I understand the answer, but just to be And so that review did not look at your staff in your office? 11 A No. We had the DOD IG do it. 12 Q So, since you had had internal reviews previously, 13 before this incident, is the only reason an IG was brought 14 in this time because of the conversations you had with 15 Department leadership? 16 A No. I just wanted to be sure that we were doing 17 this in a very clean way with an independent IG involved. 18 And, you know, because I touched the report, as well as 19 13 other people, I just thought that would be a better way 20 to do it. 21 Q And I also wanted to raise, I think you said you 22 were interviewed -- and I think your assumption is that the 23 other interviews went similarly -- that you were asked by 24 the DOD IG about whether you had disclosed any information 186 about this report to anyone. Was that correct? A [Inaudible.] I'm sorry, did you answer the question? A Yes. And that very well may be true. I do want to point out that it appears to me, in my reading of the DOD IG report, that they frame it as only asked about disclosures to the media. For example, at the top of page -- again, I'm sorry, this is not numbered, but 1, 2 top of page 4, it says, and the other 13 members of the DOS 016 staff that DCIS interviewed denied disclosing to the media any information contained in the evaluation report." And so that seems to be at odds with what you just testified, that they asked you about disclosures to anyone. The DOD report seems to be framing it in the context of solely disclosures to the media. And I just wondered if you had any insight as to why that discrepancy is. A They asked me -- I can only tell you what they asked me, because I wasn't present for any other interviews. They asked me if I disclosed the report to anybody else. Okay. And that may be a decision -- and maybe we need to ask the DOD IG -- that goes back to their whole 187 limited versus full review, et cetera. But I just wanted to ask you while you were here if you knew why that was. I will stop there and just make sure -- I know we have very few moments left. Are any of our Members on and would like to ask any questions? COR Rep Counsel. -, I just have two very quick followup questions. BY COR REP COUNSEL: First question: Did you ever email yourself from your 016 address to your personal address anything regarding the administrative review on misuse of government resources? A On misuse of government resources? No, absolutely not. No. What about on arms control, arms sale? Any part of that report at all that you emailed? A I don't recall what I -- I mean, nothing I don't recall that. I'm not sure. Okay. A I'm not sure. In other words, I'm not sure what's among the 21. But whatever it was, it was unclassified, whatever it was. Mr. Jordan. Hey, -.7 Mr. Linick, so I just wanted to make sure I got it square here too. You said you wanted to be sure everything 188 1 was done right. You went to three -- well, you went to two 2 IGs, and then they couldn't do it. 3 Mr. Fine. 4 exonerates your staff. 5 the people at the State Department. He does the report. You settled with It exonerates you; it But you still don't share it with 6 Mr. Linick. What was the question? 7 Mr. Jordan. So the question is, you wanted to make 8 sure everything was done right. 9 inspectors general. You talked to three The third one, Mr. Fine, says he will 10 do the investigation. 11 investigation, to my understanding, exonerates you, 12 exonerates -- says there was no leak from you or any of the 13 other 14 people that Mr. Fine looked at. 14 report. 15 that report with Mr. Pompeo and people at the State 16 Department. 17 He does the investigation. The You get that And then, for some reason, you don't want to share Mr. Linick. No, that's actually not the case. I 18 actually wanted to have a chance to assess the report. 19 always wanted to be able to share some portion of that 20 report with the State Department to satisfy their desire for 21 certainty about it. 22 intention was to sit down in person with the Deputy 23 Secretary and let him read the report in camera. 24 I And that's when I told you that my And the bottom line is, the report was good for me and 189 for the office. There would've been no reason to hold that up. That's Mr. Jordan. But, again, that's what I'm asking. Mr. Linick. -- the key. That's the key. This report -- Mr. Jordan. No, I understand that. Mr. Linick. -- found that there wasn't a leak. I had told that to the Department, and there would've been no reason to hold it back. Mr. Jordan. Well, then, if there was no reason to hold it back, why'd you hold it back? Mr. Linick. As I said before, COVID came down; it wasn't on the top of my list; and I wanted to sit down with the Deputy Secretary in person all of our in?person meetings were canceled -- and go through it with him. But this report was very favorable to us, so I'm not sure why there would be any reason to hold it back. Honestly, they didn't ask about it. They were completely focused on COVID, and that had consumed pretty much everything we had been doing for the last couple of months. Mr. Castro. All right. We are about a minute over. So, HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you. I think we'd like to take a short break, and then we 190 1 2 can resume with the next round, if that's okay. Pete, what's a good time for you guys? 3 Do you want 10? 4 Mr. White. Do you want 5? We probably should take 10 minutes. He has 5 been here quite a long time at this point. 6 there should not be much more. 7 And we'd appreciate whatever remaining questions be in new 8 areas and exceptionally focused. 9 HFAC Dem Counsel. I expect that The witness is exhausted. I can promise you that, from our 10 side, that is in fact the plan, and we very much appreciate 11 your time. 12 Mr. White. All right. 13 HFAC Dem Counsel. 14 [Recess.] Let's take 10 minutes. All right. We'll see you at 2:45. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: 15 16 Q Mr. Linick, thank you again for your time. 17 Changing topics, you had stated that at the time that 18 you were fired your office was looking into potential misuse 19 of government resources by Secretary Pompeo and his wife. 20 Is that correct? 21 A Correct. 22 Q Can you describe for us how it is that your office 23 24 came to start looking into that topic? A No, I can't comment on that. 191 1 Q And why is that, sir? 2 A I mean, I just don't talk about, sort of, how that 3 information came about. 4 lots of issues. Q 5 That's fair. There's confidentiality issues, Can you tell us roughly when you 6 became aware of potential issues around the Pompeos' use of 7 government resources? 8 A It was last year. 9 Q Do you recall roughly when that was? 10 A I don't know exactly. 11 Q Was one of the issues related to funds being 12 expended for Mrs. Pompeo to accompany the Secretary on 13 official travel? 14 A No, I can't get into the specific allegations. 15 Q Okay. 16 Did your office request documents related to Mrs. Pompeo and her use of government resources? 17 A I can't get into specific requests. 18 Q That's rather vague, actually. It's a very broad 19 question, sir. 20 topic related to Mrs. Pompeo's use of government resources? A 21 Did you request documents at all on any I said that we were looking into allegations 22 regarding misuse of resources by Secretary Pompeo and his 23 wife and we requested documents. 24 you. That's the most I can tell 192 1 Q Okay. And at what point did you request documents? 2 A At some point -- I believe I testified earlier, at 3 some point later in 2019, there came a time when we made a 4 document request to the Department. 5 Q And just because, sir, we're not trying to probe 6 into the content of those, we're really trying to get a 7 sense of who might have been aware that you were looking at 8 a broad topic and how it might have contributed to the 9 Secretary's recommendation to fire you, can you tell us to 10 11 whom those document requests were directed? A I can't tell you that exactly, other than what I've 12 already told you, which is that we made document requests of 13 the Office of the Secretary, the Legal Adviser. 14 the two entities. 15 office and ask them for specifics, because I just don't have 16 the specifics for you and I want to be very comfortable that 17 I'm being accurate. 18 Q Okay. Those were You're going to have to go back to my And so there were documents requested from 19 the Office of the Secretary at about the end of 2019 related 20 to use of resources. 21 the -- 22 A Yes. 23 Q Okay. 24 Yes. I just want to make sure that I've got Yes. Did anyone say anything to you about the fact that you had started asking these questions, anybody who 193 1 worked on the Seventh Floor? 2 A No. 3 Q Who was aware, which individuals were aware, within 4 I mean -- no. the State Department -- 5 A I said -- 6 Q -- not within IG? 7 A Yeah. I said I had talked to Brian Bulatao. 8 maybe Deputy Secretary Sullivan, though I'm not sure. 9 told Deputy Secretary Steve Biegun. I said And I 10 Q Okay. 11 A I know my staff reached out to Lisa Kenna, and they 12 had conversations with "L." That's all I can tell you. 13 Q Okay. 14 And just to make sure -- I know it was a while ago that 15 we touched on this -- starting with Mr. Biegun, do you 16 recall the rough outlines of your conversation with him 17 about the fact that you were looking into the use of 18 resources by the Secretary and Mrs. Pompeo? 19 A Yeah, I told him that we were requesting documents. 20 I didn't want them to be surprised. And I told him the 21 nature of the documents that we would be requesting. 22 Q And what did he say to you? 23 A I don't recall what he said to me. 24 Q Do you recall if he responded? 194 1 A I really -- there was nothing particularly 2 noteworthy. 3 way or the other. 4 to mind about his response. I mean, he -- I don't recall any response one I just don't recall. 5 Q 6 How about Mr. Bulatao? But nothing comes Okay. Can you tell us when and how 7 you made him aware of the fact that there was an inquiry 8 into Secretary Pompeo and his wife regarding the use of 9 resources? 10 A Yeah. Again, it was in that late 2019 frame, and I 11 just don't recall exactly. 12 the specific date, but it would've been in late 2019. 13 Q Okay. I don't have a recollection of And when you say late 2019, the Brian Hook 14 report, which I promise you we're not going to ask you any 15 more questions on, but that was issued in November. 16 this have been before or after the issuance of that report? Would 17 A I'm not sure. 18 Q Okay. 19 When you made Mr. Bulatao aware of the fact that you 20 I'm not sure. were looking into this topic, how did he react? 21 A I don't recall how he reacted. 22 Q Do you recall whether you sent him an email, saw him 23 24 in person? A No, it was an in-person -- excuse me. It was 195 1 definitely an in-person meeting. 2 Q Okay. 3 that topic? 4 A No. Was it a meeting for purposes of discussing It was -- I had a number of meetings with him. 5 At some point when -- I had one or two meetings with him 6 before Deputy Secretary Sullivan had left his post. 7 There was a point in time when Deputy Secretary 8 Sullivan had been nominated but not confirmed, but he passed 9 all of his reporting to Brian Bulatao. So there was a 10 period in time between the time Deputy Secretary Sullivan 11 left and Deputy Secretary Steve Biegun came in when I had 12 met with Brian Bulatao. 13 And the purpose of those meetings was along the same 14 lines as my meetings with Deputy Sullivan, which was to let 15 him know about work that we were doing in the Department, 16 notable work, anything that's coming, that's going to be 17 issued soon, those kinds of things. 18 the context of a general meeting. 19 Q So it would've been in And, you know, Secretary Pompeo has stated in media 20 reports that Mr. Bulatao and Counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl are, 21 something to the effect of, his "best friends in the entire 22 world." 23 reported. 24 And this has been something that's been publicly Did you have any hesitation about informing 196 1 Undersecretary Bulatao that your office was going to be 2 looking into the potential misuse of government resources by 3 the Secretary and Mrs. Pompeo? 4 A No. He was the Undersecretary for Management. 5 Deputy Sullivan asked that I start reporting to him in the 6 interim. 7 about our document requests, so I wanted to make sure that 8 he understood why we were asking for documents. 9 Q And I knew that, you know, he was going to hear And was there ever any discussion prior to you doing 10 that within OIG about whether or not, given the subject 11 matter and his relationship to the Secretary, it might be 12 better to have that conversation with someone else? 13 A There wasn't. 14 Q Okay. 15 Did Undersecretary Bulatao ever say anything to you 16 that you can recall about the fact that you were looking 17 into this resource topic? 18 A I don't recall anything specific. 19 Q Okay. 20 What is Mrs. Pompeo's role at the State Department, to 21 the best of your knowledge? 22 A I couldn't tell you that. 23 Q Sitting here today, you have no idea about her role 24 at the Department? 197 1 2 A I really don't. And that would get into the pending review, so I don't really want to comment on that. 3 Q Okay. 4 Was there anybody else at the Department who ever said 5 anything to you about the fact that you were looking into 6 the use of resources by the Secretary and his wife? 7 A Not that I can recall. 8 Q Secretary Pompeo, as you may have noticed, gave some 9 remarks to a media outlet a couple days ago, saying one of 10 the reasons that they fired you was that you were going 11 after his wife for trying to make the Department a better 12 place. 13 A I don't know. 14 Q So you just informed people that -- you're like, Do you have any idea why he would say that? 15 hey, we've got these allegations, we're going to be looking 16 into them, and everybody said okay and moved on? 17 A I don't remember what they said. 18 imprecise about that. 19 nothing notable in those discussions. I don't want to be I don't recall what they said, but 20 Q Okay. 21 A There was nothing notable in those discussions that 22 I can recall. 23 Q Okay. 24 Who's Toni Porter? 198 1 A 2 forth. 3 Q I don't really want to get into who she is and so Again, I can't comment on that. I'm not asking you for commentary on particular 4 steps that may have been taken. 5 that person, sitting here today, within your personal 6 knowledge? 7 A 8 talk about. 9 Q I'm literally -- who is Again, that gets into matters that I really can't I'm sorry. Sir, I recognize that you're here voluntarily, but I 10 would expect that there's something that you can tell us 11 about your knowledge of her role. 12 lines of your investigation. 13 A I'm happy to respect the Again, I'm concerned about getting into matters 14 involving our investigation, and I don't really want to 15 comment on who she is or what she does or anything like 16 that. 17 Q Okay. But then, by the very nature of that 18 response, you've confirmed, then, that Ms. Porter is the 19 subject of an ongoing investigation. 20 A I haven't confirmed anything. 21 Q Respectfully, sir, if you're telling me you can't 22 talk about Ms. Porter because of ongoing investigations, 23 that's the only inference I can draw. 24 questions about a lot of other people. You've answered 199 1 2 Mr. White. times. Please move on. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: 3 4 That's been asked and answered several Q With respect to anything other than Mrs. Pompeo in 5 particular, just to make sure that I've got it, was there 6 anything to do with the Secretary's use of government 7 resources and the fact that you were looking into it -- did 8 anyone at the State Department ever talk to you about that 9 topic? 10 A 11 I think I've answered that question. I have no recollection of anyone talking to me about that topic. 12 Q Okay. I just wanted to be clear that that covers -- 13 A Yeah. I don't have any recollection of that. 14 Q Changing topics, on October 2, 2019, Congress was Yeah. 15 actively engaged in a fact-finding inquiry that ultimately 16 led to the impeachment of the President. 17 you came up to Capitol Hill to brief staffers on information 18 that you believed might be relevant to the impeachment 19 inquiry. And, on that day, Do you recall that? 20 A Yes. 21 Q Can you tell us about the materials that you brought 22 with you that day and why you felt it was important to 23 provide them to Congress? 24 A Yes. 200 1 So, in May of 2019, I received a packet from the Office 2 of the Legal Adviser, and it contained a variety of 3 documents and notes and so forth relating to allegations, 4 relating to issues associated with Ambassador Yovanovitch 5 and, I believe, Hunter Biden and so forth. 6 of documents which allegedly had been sent to the Office of 7 the Secretary and, in turn, the Office of the Secretary had 8 provided to the Legal Adviser and then provided it to us. 9 That was in May. 10 It was a package When the impeachment proceedings started and the issues 11 began concerning the whistleblower and so forth, I realized 12 I was sitting on documents that might be relevant to that, 13 and, in accordance with my obligations and to make sure that 14 the right folks had the documents, I provided them to the 15 Hill. 16 Q Okay. Are you aware, sir, sitting here today, that 17 your provision of those documents marked the only production 18 of any documents whatsoever from any part of the State 19 Department as part of the impeachment inquiry? 20 21 22 A I'm not aware of what the State Department provided or didn't provide. Q So we're happy to stipulate for the record that, you 23 know, yours were literally the only documents from any part 24 of the State Department that were provided, although the 201 1 2 rest had been subject to a congressional subpoena. Did anybody from the State Department talk to you about 3 the fact that you chose to bring those documents to Capitol 4 Hill? 5 6 A No. I informed the Department, through the Legal Adviser, that I was going to do that. 7 Q And did they say anything in response? 8 A They didn't object. 9 Q Did you speak to anyone else besides individuals in 10 the Office of the Legal Adviser either before or after you 11 provided those documents? 12 A I don't recall. I don't recall. I recall having 13 communications with the Office of Legal Adviser in advance 14 of my production of the documents. 15 Q Switching topics, sir, at the time that you were 16 fired, had the Office of the Inspector General received or 17 heard about any complaints from other subjects of your work? 18 In other words, was anybody that your office was looking 19 into complaining about the fact that you were looking into 20 them, to your knowledge? 21 A Not to my knowledge. 22 Q Did you have any work that was either open or 23 recently concluded regarding any politically appointed 24 Ambassadors? You're saying when I left? When you left, was there anything that was either open or had been completed, say, within the previous 6 months? A I wouldn't -- there was -- if it was completed well, let me say this. I can't talk about pending matters, and -- Okay. How about completed? A Yeah, complete -- I mean, I'm not aware of -- nothing comes to mind that was -- we always have work involving Ambassadors. We always have work. And nothing comes to mind, as I sit here now, on something that's completed. But I think it would be better for you to ask that question of the office. I think it would be better for you to ask that question. So, just to make sure I've got it, was there any politically appointed Ambassador who complained about your work that you were ever made aware of? A Nothing comes to mind. I don't have a recollection of an thin . But, again, you'd have to ask -- I would ask ?or I would ask the office. I don't have a recollection. Briefly, sir, again, we're just trying to get at 203 1 2 what it was that led to your firing. You had said at the beginning of the interview, but I 3 want to make sure that we've got it all, that Undersecretary 4 Bulatao had objected to the fact that you were responding to 5 a request from the Foreign Affairs Committee to look into 6 the implementation of their emergency declaration under the 7 Arms Export Control Act in order to provide about $8 billion 8 worth of arms to a variety of countries, one of which was 9 Saudi Arabia. 10 11 12 Can you just tell us, when was the first time that you interacted with Undersecretary Bulatao about that topic? A I'm sorry, I cannot recall the date. 13 been -- I'm not sure about the date. 14 COVID, possibly late 2019. It would have It's definitely before I'm just not sure. 15 Q Okay. 16 So the letter from the Foreign Affairs Committee was 17 dated June 19, 2019. 18 Can you tell us what steps you took after receiving that 19 letter? 20 21 22 A I think it probably came on the 20th. At a very high level. Well, I can just say generally what we do; how about that? What we do when we receive letters, we would obviously 23 look to see if there's -- this is a general principle. When 24 we get a request, we look to see whether there's criteria 204 1 that governs any particular request, whether they're 2 policies and procedures and things like that. 3 And, in general, you know, a conversation ensues as to 4 whether or not something should be reviewed. 5 don't -- we don't do everything that Congress asks us to do, 6 due to our independence. 7 something. 8 9 We obviously But that's typically how we do And then we'll often -- or we will then get sharp on the issues so we have a better understanding of them. 10 That's typically how we proceed in many matters before we 11 decide to continue a review. 12 Q And your former office has indicated that those 13 criteria seem to have been met here and that you did 14 undertake work in response to that letter from the Foreign 15 Affairs Committee on this topic. 16 17 A Is that right? Well, we obviously did undertake work, and we believed it was justified. 18 Q Was the fieldwork completed on that? 19 A I'm not entirely sure where that stands, and I don't 20 want to misstate the facts. 21 facts. 22 Q I don't want to misstate the Had anyone at the State Department been briefed on 23 preliminary findings, conclusions, recommendations in 24 connection with that report? 205 1 2 3 4 A I think there was some type of briefing, but you'll have to go back to my office. Q Okay. I mentioned that before. Do you recall roughly when that would've been? 5 A I don't. I don't. 6 Q Do you recall who would've been briefed? 7 A I don't. 8 Q Okay. 9 You had said -- so, if the letter comes in June, you 10 know, you're on a spectrum between June and your firing 11 about a year later in May. 12 did you have with Undersecretary Bulatao about that report? 13 14 A How many interactions, roughly, About that report? I don't recall. I don't recall. At -- 15 Q More than one? 16 A -- least one. 17 Q And was it close in time to your firing, or was it a 18 19 20 21 Yeah. I don't recall. while ago? A Yeah, it was, like I said, pre-COVID, maybe late 2019. Q Late 2019, pre-COVID. And if you could remind us, 22 you know, roughly what it is that you recall about what he 23 said to you. 24 A Well, he said that the AECA matter was -- that we 206 1 were undertaking a review of a policy matter and that we 2 shouldn't be doing that. 3 And I do recall that at the meeting was the Legal 4 Adviser himself, Marik String. I remember the two of them, 5 now that I think of it, were there. 6 about that issue and also the possibility there may be a 7 privilege issue. And we had a discussion 8 Q So Marik String was present in the meeting -- 9 A Yes. 10 Q -- where you discussed this with Undersecretary 11 Bulatao. 12 A Yes. 13 Q And the Undersecretary indicated that he wanted you 14 15 to stop your work on that topic. A Is that right? Well, he didn't say stop our work. I don't want to 16 misstate. He said that we shouldn't be doing the work 17 because it was a policy matter not within the IG's 18 jurisdiction. 19 Q Okay. And did Mr. String say anything on that 20 topic? 21 A I think both of them were of the same mind. 22 Q So Mr. String said that he didn't think you should 23 be looking into this, and Undersecretary Bulatao said he 24 didn't think you should be looking into this. Is that 207 1 correct? 2 A That's correct, yes. Yes. 3 Q And are you aware that one of the reasons that 4 Congress referred this matter to your office was precisely 5 because of concern about Mr. String's role in that emergency 6 declaration? 7 talked about in a public hearing. I believe that was in our letter, and it was 8 A I don't recall that, as I sit here. 9 Q In terms of privilege issues, Congress' concern 10 around Mr. String's involvement in this stemmed from the 11 time that he was a policy DAS in the PM Bureau. 12 one asserting that things were privileged and so you might 13 not be able to talk about them? 14 15 16 A Was he the During the conversation I had with him and Bulatao, that issue came up. Q And based on your legal training and your experience 17 as an IG, obviously, there are a lot of people with law 18 degrees at the State Department, but would you agree with me 19 that only in areas where someone is acting as a lawyer would 20 you expect to see a proper invocation of attorney-client 21 privilege? 22 degree, if there's two policy folks talking to each other -- Is that right? Just because somebody has a law 23 A Yeah, I'm -- 24 Q -- you don't usually invoke privilege? 208 1 A I don't want to comment on that. 2 Q And so they told you they didn't think it was 3 appropriate for you to look into this. 4 into the matter after that conversation? I'm just not sure. Did you stop looking 5 A Of course not. 6 Q And why is that? 7 A Because we were fulfilling our obligation to review 8 the implementation of the policy. We felt that our review 9 fell squarely within the confines of the Inspector General 10 Act. 11 bad, but we assess how a policy -- whether it's efficiently 12 and effectively implemented and whether rules are followed. 13 And we continued to do that. 14 You know, we don't assess whether a policy is good or Q Even if the Undersecretary had directly asked you, 15 "Mr. Linick, I want you to stop looking into this topic," 16 would you have stopped? 17 18 19 A Well, he didn't. He didn't say that. And I wouldn't. Q And you wouldn't. Even if the Secretary of State 20 called you and said, "Mr. Linick, I want you to stop looking 21 into this topic," would you have stopped? 22 A Never. 23 Q And that is because it is your role to be 24 independent, right? 209 1 A Yes. 2 Q And you said that you had actually had a number of 3 occasions to explain to at least Undersecretary Bulatao the 4 importance of and the independent nature of inspectors 5 general. Is that right? 6 A Yes. 7 Q Do you think that those explanations, as you gave 8 them, sunk in? Did there ever come a time when you felt 9 that Undersecretary Bulatao accepted that inspectors general 10 are necessarily independent from the agencies that they're 11 tasked with overseeing? 12 A I can't comment on whether it sunk in or not. 13 Q And everybody knew this about you, right? Even if 14 it wasn't a contentious conversation every time where you 15 had to say, "I'm independent, I'm independent," is it fair 16 to say, sir, that throughout your career you've had a 17 reputation as somebody who is fiercely independent? 18 19 20 A I have always tried to be fiercely independent, because I think that's critical to being an effective IG. Q And does that independence include the fact that, as 21 Inspector General, that was your only job? Is that an 22 important way of maintaining your independence? 23 A Can you repeat the question? 24 Q So, as the Inspector General at the State 210 1 Department, your only job was to be the Inspector General at 2 the State Department. 3 another role employed by the Department itself. 4 correct? Is that right? 5 A That's correct. 6 Q Okay. You didn't have Is that And I believe you said that you had, you 7 know, communicated that separation partially in the context 8 of when you talked about the ethos statement, right? 9 said, you know, we are separate, and that's important, 10 right? 11 A Yes. 12 Q And you had said you scrupulously observed a I mean, we are -- yes. You Yes. 13 firewall there where you wouldn't get involved in 14 policymaking because you had to keep your independence that 15 way. A 16 17 Well, no, I said I wouldn't get involved in programmatic matters. 18 Q Thank you. 19 A And we're not involved in policymaking, as well, as 20 21 IGs. That was the term. We don't do policymaking. But, yes, I said that I have always been fearful of 22 getting involved in programmatic work with the Department 23 because of the possibility of having to audit or oversee 24 that work. Then I would be conflicted out, and my 211 1 2 independence would be threatened. Q Sir, are you aware, sir, sitting here today, that 3 Ambassador Akard is serving as Acting Inspector General 4 while also continuing to serve as the Director for the 5 Office of Foreign Missions? 6 A I have read the news articles. 7 Q Okay. 8 9 10 11 Are news articles the only way that you've become aware of that? A Well, I mean, largely. I mean, staff has told me that. Q And I think we covered this, but I know it's been a 12 long day. Have you ever had a conversation with Ambassador 13 Akard? 14 A No. 15 Q Do you have knowledge from any source about when I don't recall ever meeting him. 16 Ambassador Akard was first approached about potentially 17 becoming the Acting Inspector General? 18 19 A Somebody told me that he learned in April, that he told staff that he learned in April. 20 Q So he told staff at OIG? Is that right? 21 A That's correct. 22 Q And just for the record, sir, when were you fired? 23 A May 15. 24 Q So, if I have the timeline right, Ambassador Akard 212 1 has told staff in the OIG's office that someone approached 2 him in mid-April -- 3 A I didn't say mid-April. I said April. 4 Q -- in April -- I apologize -- about becoming the 5 Acting Inspector General. Did anybody say anything to you 6 in April about possibly replacing you? 7 A I had no idea. 8 Q And I think you've testified you had no idea until 9 10 you got that call on that Friday night that you were being replaced. Is that right? 11 A That's correct. 12 Q Okay. 13 Do you have any concerns, as a general matter, about an 14 acting inspector general also retaining a policy job at the 15 agency and having a direct report to the agency head? 16 17 A I don't want to comment on the specifics of this particular situation in my role, but I will say -- 18 Q Just answer it as a general question. 19 A Yeah. I will say that the Inspector General Act 20 requires IGs to be independent from both the agency and 21 Congress. 22 obligation to not only be impartial but also free of 23 conflicts of interest, both in fact and appearance. 24 And independence is critical to the IG's And the State OIG, before I got there, was criticized 213 1 by the GAO and other entities for employing individuals as 2 acting IGs who may have jobs in the State Department. 3 since I've been there -- and there were other criticisms by 4 the GAO as well. 5 last 7 years, we worked hard during my tenure to make sure 6 that, you know, the office addressed those independence 7 issues. 8 9 Q And And since I've been at the office for the Do you worry that people would be less willing to provide information to your office, whistleblowers and the 10 like, if they knew that the head of your office also 11 reported to the agency head as a member of the Department 12 and not just a member of OIG? 13 A Uh-huh. I mean, I think that's a reasonable 14 conclusion, that individuals might feel afraid to report. 15 As it is, it's difficult for whistleblowers to come forward 16 and to feel comfortable that the Department is not going to 17 retaliate against them. 18 Q So you mention retaliation. What opportunities 19 might -- I mean, you guys receive a lot of sensitive 20 information as a part of that work. 21 "retaliation," what are the risks that an inspector general 22 might be subject to in terms of retaliation? 23 they do? 24 A When you say What might Well, I can speak -- there's always a concern by 214 1 whistleblowers that the agency is going to retaliate against 2 them for blowing the whistle. 3 prohibitions against retaliation, which the IG investigates, 4 as well as Office of Special Counsel. 5 6 7 Q And there are obviously And it's important to maintain anonymity in order to minimize the chances of retaliation, right? A Well, it's important that the IG protect the 8 identity of the individuals if they wish that to be the 9 case, you know, to make sure that people feel comfortable 10 coming forward to the IG. So we make great efforts to 11 ensure that we preserve their confidentiality. 12 fact, under the Inspector General Act, we're required to 13 preserve the confidentiality of complainants, with limited 14 exceptions. 15 Q And, in And is one of the ways that, in your experience as 16 an inspector general, one is able to make whistleblowers and 17 other people comfortable that their identity will be 18 protected that they know that, when they're talking to the 19 Office of the Inspector General, they're talking only to the 20 Office of the Inspector General and not to the Department 21 itself? 22 experience? 23 A 24 Is that part of what provides them comfort, in your Yes. Yes, that would be important for them to understand, that what is disclosed to OIG stays in OIG. 215 1 Q Sir, do you have any concerns, given the 2 circumstances of your own firing, that people within the 3 Office of the Inspector General who worked with you might, 4 themselves, be subject to retaliation in some way? 5 A I'm not really in a position to comment on that. 6 Q I believe you testified earlier that -- and we very 7 much don't want to get into where or whom -- but that 8 individuals had actually expressed to you that they were 9 concerned about their jobs. Is that correct? 10 A Oh, in the IG community. 11 Q Yes. 12 A In the IG community, not -- yes. 13 Q Okay. 14 HFAC Dem Counsel. Anecdotally, yes. Sorry I ran a little long. I'd like 15 to open it up to our Members, if there are any Democratic 16 Members who have questions. 17 Mr. Castro. All right. This is Vice Chair Castro. 18 I'm going to turn the gavel over to Representative 19 Malinowski, if he's got questions or if he wants to call on 20 Members. 21 Mr. Malinowski. 22 Can you hear me? 23 Mr. Linick. 24 Mr. Malinowski. [Presiding.] Thank you. Yes. Great. I just have one question to 216 1 begin with. 2 you for going through all of this. 3 And, first of all, it's good to see you. Thank I will just share as an anecdote that, when I was the 4 Assistant Secretary, I was told on day one that you might be 5 doing an audit of my bureau at some point. 6 nervous about it in a very constructive way, and it kept us 7 honest throughout my time there. 8 experience that attests to the value of independent IGs. 9 And we were And so that is a personal I have really just one question, and that is, a number 10 of times you've referred to, we've referred to ongoing 11 investigations obviously into subjects that are of great 12 interest to the committee, including the Saudi arms sale and 13 potential misuse of State Department personnel. 14 15 16 My question is, how do you know these are ongoing? You're not the IG. Mr. Linick. Well, they were ongoing -- they were 17 ongoing when I left. 18 Mr. Malinowski. 19 20 Right. So you actually don't know that they are ongoing investigations. Mr. Linick. But I also -- I did confirm with the 21 office that the existence of these were disclosed to the 22 committee before I testified today. 23 24 Mr. Malinowski. Right. But you don't know how actively they're being pursued one way or another. You have 217 1 no way of knowing that. 2 Mr. Linick. 3 one way or the other. 4 5 6 7 After May 15, I would have no indication Mr. Malinowski. Okay. Well, I think that's a significant question for us, obviously. Okay. So, with that, let me see. other -- I see Mr. Lieu is, I think, next. 8 Ted, do you want to ask a question? 9 Mr. Lieu. 10 Are there any Yeah. Thank you, Representative Malinowski. Mr. Linick, I have a few questions about your office's 11 review of the allegations that Secretary Pompeo and his wife 12 may have used resources inappropriately. 13 You stated earlier this hour that you had told a number 14 of people, including Undersecretary Bulatao, Deputy 15 Secretary Biegun, and Pompeo's Executive Secretary, that you 16 were conducting this review. 17 to tell Secretary Pompeo that your office was doing this 18 review? 19 Mr. Linick. 20 Mr. Lieu. Did you tell any of them not No. In fact, the reason you told them was 21 exactly the opposite, right? 22 heads-up so that when Secretary Pompeo got the request he 23 wouldn't be surprised. 24 Mr. Linick. You wanted to give them a Isn't that right? I wanted to make sure everybody was aware 218 1 2 so that they wouldn't be surprised. Mr. Lieu. The document request was, for example, was 3 not related to Undersecretary Bulatao, but it was related to 4 Secretary Pompeo and his wife, correct? 5 Mr. Linick. All I can say, it was related to the 6 review of allegations relating to misuse of government 7 resources by both of them. 8 9 10 11 Mr. Lieu. But not misuse of resources by Undersecretary Bulatao, correct? Mr. Linick. I'm just going to go with what I said at this point. 12 Mr. Lieu. Okay. 13 So the reason you would have gone to Undersecretary 14 Bulatao, who is one of Pompeo's best friends since they were 15 classmates at West Point, were co-founders of Thayer 16 Aerospace, worked together for 8 years, he then was 17 appointed by Pompeo in the CIA as Chief of Operations, and 18 the reason you would do that is because you expected 19 Secretary Bulatao to convey to Mike Pompeo that your office 20 was doing this review, right? 21 have gone to Undersecretary Bulatao. 22 Mr. Linick. That's the reason you would Isn't that right? I wanted to make sure that 23 everybody -- that the folks who would be receiving those 24 document requests knew what we were doing. And I didn't 219 1 tell them not to tell anybody, including Secretary Pompeo, 2 about them. 3 wanted to make sure that folks on the Seventh Floor knew 4 what we were doing before they just got a document request. 5 There was no -- from my point of view, I just Mr. Lieu. And in -- I mean, we're all adults 6 here -- just your general understanding of human nature, you 7 would expect all these people, or at least one of them, to 8 inform Mike Pompeo that they were going to get document 9 requests related to the review of Pompeo and his wife 10 11 allegedly not using resources appropriately, right? Mr. Linick. 12 expect or not. 13 And -- 14 15 I don't want to speculate on what to Mr. Lieu. I mean, I'm just telling you what I did. Right. But the whole point of what you did -- 16 Mr. Linick. 17 Mr. Lieu. -- I'll let you draw that conclusion. The whole point of what you did is to not 18 surprise Mike Pompeo when he gets a document request. 19 that right? 20 Mr. Linick. Isn't The whole point was not to surprise the 21 Seventh Floor writ large, because they were going to get 22 these document requests. 23 24 Mr. Lieu. So -- And maybe I'm confused. The document request is not about Undersecretary Bulatao's inappropriate 220 1 use of resources; it's about Mike Pompeo and his wife. 2 Isn't that right? 3 Mr. Linick. 4 Mr. Lieu. 5 Right. So the person you're trying to not surprise is Mike Pompeo, not Undersecretary Bulatao, right? 6 Mr. Linick. 7 Mr. Lieu. 8 9 Again, it was the entire Seventh Floor. Okay. Thank you. The entire Seventh Floor. And where does Secretary Pompeo work? Mr. Linick. Seventh Floor. 10 Mr. Lieu. Okay. Thank you. 11 So I assume you have read The Washington Post story 12 published last month where they interviewed Secretary Pompeo 13 and the headline was that he was not aware you were 14 investigating him. 15 Mr. Linick. 16 Mr. Lieu. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Did you read that article? I did. All right. Were you surprised by Pompeo's statements? Mr. Linick. I'm not going to offer an opinion on whether I was surprised or not. Mr. Lieu. How about this: Secretary Pompeo was just lying, wasn't he? Mr. Linick. I am not going to offer an opinion on that. Mr. Lieu. Okay. Thank you. 221 Mr. Linick. I just think that it would be inappropriate for me to offer that kind of opinion. I really want to be very accurate, and I want to act in accordance with my responsibilities as Inspector General. Mr. Lieu. Thank you for your public service. I yield back. Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Mr. Lieu. Are there any other Democratic Members who would like to be recognized? If not, do you have any further questions in this round? HFAC Dem Counsel. I do. Just one last topic on this. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: Mr. Linick, in connection with your review of the Saudi arms sales issue, did you seek an interview with Secretary Pompeo? A Yes. Can you tell us about your efforts to get that interview and how it went? A Yes. We requested that our team be permitted to interview the Secretary in 2019, late 2019. I had told Undersecretary Bulatao and Deputy Secretary Biegun and the Legal Adviser about this request, and, in assessing my request, they asked 222 1 for, sort of, the topic areas for the interview, just the 2 broad-brush topics, which we provided. 3 And then, ultimately, as he acknowledged in the press, 4 he sent written responses to that question and, at that 5 time, did not agree to the interview. 6 7 8 9 Q Did you have any kind of negotiation about whether and how he would sit for an interview? A Initially, there was discussion about interviewing only with me, as opposed to the team, and -- 10 Q Was that your idea? 11 A No. 12 Q Okay. 13 A Which I agreed to, as long as I had somebody from That was their idea. 14 the team with me, because I felt that that would 15 fulfill -- you know, that that would be fulfilling the 16 request to be interviewed. 17 18 Q So you wanted one other person with you, just to be clear, as a witness, right? 19 A That's correct. 20 Q Okay. 21 22 Ultimately, that didn't happen. And did you tell the Secretary's office that you just wanted somebody there as a witness? A I didn't tell the Secretary's office. It was in 23 communications with the Legal Adviser. I remember a 24 conversation with the Legal Adviser about that, about the 223 1 request to have somebody with me. 2 that discussion with Bulatao or Biegun -- in other words, 3 actually having someone present with me as a witness. 4 5 Q Okay. But I don't recall having When you say the Legal Adviser, just to be precise, do you mean someone in that office or the Acting -- 6 A Marik. Marik String. 7 Q Okay. 8 A His reaction was he'd get back to me. 9 Q And did he ever get back to you? 10 A I did have discussions with him. And what was his reaction to that? I ultimately -- I 11 don't really recall exactly the nature of the conversations 12 after my discussion with him but before I received the 13 written responses from the Secretary. 14 Q If I've got this right, you asked for an interview, 15 it looked like they would do an interview if it was just you 16 and the Secretary, and then you asked for a witness, and 17 then all of a sudden the interview didn't happen. 18 A That's correct. 19 Q Okay. 20 How many written documents did Secretary Pompeo submit 21 in connection with your request to conduct this interview? 22 A I don't know. 23 Q He has said that he gave written answers. 24 accurate? I don't know, as I sit here. Is that did provide written answers. That's all I can tell you. Did he provide a written justification for why he didn't want to actually sit for an interview? A That I cannot comment on. HFAC REP COUNSEL. I'm just checking on time. HFAC Dem Counsel. Sorry. With everyone's indulgence and in the hopes of being able to wrap this up early for the witness, we've probably got about 2 more minutes and then wouldn't anticipate a further round, if that's okay? And happy to add time for our colleagues that is equal to what we've gone over. Okay with HFAC REP COUNSEL. Yeah, that's fine. HFAC Dem Counsel. Okay. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: Were there any other reports that were submitted to the Department in the month prior to your firing? A I don't recall. I don't recall. Going back to the arms sales thing for a moment, do you recall when the written answers to those questions were provided? A It was sometime in early 2020. Sometime in early 2020. you recall, sir, that on May 7 of 2020 the House Foreign Affairs Committee had reached out to the 016 just to inquire as to the status of your work on the Arms Export Control Act issue? A Yes, I do. Okay. And you were fired a week and a day after that. Is that correct? A Yes. Okay. HFAC Dem Counsel. I think that's all I got. Mr. Malinowski. All right. Thank you, - Look, since I think we want to wrap it up pretty much on our side, I'll just make -- whoops. Can you hear me? Mr. Linick. Yes, sir. Mr. Malinowski. Yeah, okay. Look, I just want to offer a final thought, and that is that the central question here for me is, why were you fired? And the central fact that you have presented is that you have no idea, that you were not told. And, in my State Department experience, it's very hard for me to imagine somebody being dismissed in this way, at any level, whether it's a junior Foreign Service officer or a senior manager, without being given an explanation. 226 1 2 Certainly not in my experience has that ever happened. And the only reason I can think of, why somebody might 3 do that, is that they don't want to have to publicly justify 4 the actual reason. 5 the ethos statement or use of personal email. 6 that, literally every State Department employee would 7 probably be fired. 8 doesn't want to have to justify. 9 And it's obviously not silly things like If it were It's something else that somebody else And I guess the other advantage of not stating a reason 10 publicly is that it invites others to speculate that there 11 might be some mysterious, troubling wrongdoing that must be 12 the real reason, that it invites people to wildly speculate 13 about terrible things that you might have done, which they 14 don't have to accuse you of, because they're simply not 15 stating the reason in public. 16 real reason would actually be subject to public scrutiny in 17 ways that those who made this decision would find very 18 uncomfortable. 19 And if they did, then that So, I mean, absent other evidence, that's the only 20 conclusion I can draw from this. Certainly, we hope that we 21 learn considerably more as the investigation continues. 22 With that, I'm happy to shift over to the minority. 23 Thank you. HFAC Dem Counsel. Just before we start, Mr. Linick, Mr. White, would you like a short break before that? Mr. white. Yes. Ten minutes should be helpful. Thank you. HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you. So 10 minutes. We'll call it 3:47, 3:48. [Recess.] HFAC REP COUNSEL. I'm going turn it over to- for some questions. COR Rep Counsel. Thanks,-. BY COR REP COUNSEL: Thank you, Mr. Linick. I want to go back to your office's review on the Saudi arms sale. Did your office interview Clarke Cooper as part of that review? A Yeah, I'm not going to talk about what we did or what we didn't do. All right. Did your office interview Marik String as part of that review? A As I said, no comment. So I guess the issue I have is, I asked you two very basic questions as to who you reviewed, and you're refusing answer them. They don't reveal the substance of the investigation in any way. Yet when just asked you about whether or not your office interviewed the Secretary, you had no problem spending 5 minutes laying out in detail your office's attempts to interview Mr. Pompeo, which is -- A He actually made that -- go ahead. Yeah. And, you know, you can draw a delineation between what the Secretary said publicly, you know, versus what you're saying here privately, but you're basically confirming that public reports are true. And it's just two very simple questions: Did you interview Mr. Cooper? Did you interview Mr. String? And it really gives off the appearance that you're willing to answer the questions of the Democrat counsel but not the Republican counsel. A The Secretary publicly stated that he provided written responses in response to our request. So you're confirming the public statement basically confirming that -- A In terms -- -- as opposed to just saying I'm not going to comment on it. The Secretary's comments stand for themselves. A I'm confirmin what he said. COR Rep Counsel. - go ahead. 229 BY HFAC REP COUNSEL: 1 2 Q Mr. Linick, when you do reviews, do you ever employ 3 the methodology of reviewing individual cell phones in terms 4 of text messages, et cetera, or are you always restricted to 5 interviews and email text? 6 A Totally depends. In criminal cases, you know, 7 that's something that we would typically do in a criminal 8 matter, if necessary. 9 10 11 Q Have you ever done that in a -- when the context is not criminal? A Oh, I don't know offhand. You know, anytime we 12 do -- anytime we choose to employ a particular method of 13 investigating we always sort of weigh the resources, you 14 know, what's reasonable and what makes sense. 15 every investigation, you could investigate it to death, and, 16 you know, it just depends on the facts and circumstances. 17 18 19 Q I mean, in But you have the ability to make that ask, if you thought it was appropriate in a given circumstance? A Well, there are certain things you have to do to get 20 text messages and so forth. 21 certain -- you can't just ask. 22 search warrant in some instances -- in most instances to get 23 text messages, I believe. 24 Q I mean, there are You would need either a Well, you could ask for someone's phone and look at 230 1 their text messages, but that's not -- I really -- and I 2 don't have anything specific in mind here. 3 just wondering if that was something -- a tool that you 4 employed in your work at any given time. 5 about a specific circumstance. 6 A I was really I'm not thinking I mean, we have requested search warrants for 7 various types of transmissions and so forth. 8 depends on the matter. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Q that. A It just But you always use a warrant to do something like You don't ever just do a voluntary request? Oh, no. It just depends. I mean, certainly you could ask somebody for text messages. Q Is that something you've ever done in your work as an IG, whether it was here or in your previous position? A You know, I don't know. I mean, typically my head 16 of investigations runs those types of investigations. 17 mean, have we -- I'm pretty sure we've done search warrants 18 and subpoenas for things like that, but I just can't speak 19 to exactly what we've done outside of that context. 20 anybody could ask for anything, I suppose. 21 Q Okay. I do have some additional questions. I But I think 22 they're new or clarifying questions, but they are on the 23 topic of your decision not to transfer the report, and I 24 understand you don't want to answer any more questions on 231 1 that topic. 2 respectful of that. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A And you're here voluntarily, and I want to be Is that correct? I'm here voluntarily, and I am pretty tired right now, yes. Q I need to be clear though. You don't want to answer any more questions on that topic? A If I've already answered them, then I don't see a reason to answer them again and again and again. Q So I don't -- I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers 10 here. 11 don't want to answer them, you just let me know, and I will 12 stop. 13 A I do have some questions I'd like to ask, but if you Well, again, if I'm answering the same question over 14 again then I feel like I've provided my testimony to you. 15 Now we're at the 3:57 mark. 16 morning, and I would really like to move forward. 17 Q I've been here since 9:30 this So you mentioned that one of the things that you 18 were concerned about was information that was in the report 19 pertaining to individuals in your office. 20 wondered if you could articulate for us, once you actually 21 got that report and had a chance to review it, if you could 22 identify for us the things that were in there that gave you 23 pause. 24 A And I just I never even got a chance to do that because when I 232 1 talked to Bulatao and to Biegun, I didn't have the March 17 2 report. 3 assess it and analyze what was going to be in that March 17 4 report before I could just agree to turn it over or share 5 it. 6 My assertion was that I was -- that I would have to That is what I said. Q Understood. And once you did receive it and you had 7 a chance to look at it, were there any concerns in there 8 that you could identify for us? 9 A I'm not going to talk to you about concerns. I told 10 you that I was -- I had planned to sit down with the deputy 11 and let him read the report in camera, and that's what I 12 felt comfortable with. 13 HFAC REP COUNSEL. 14 15 Okay. I will stop there. I know Mr. Zeldin from our side may have some questions. Mr. Zeldin. Thank you. And just picking up on a 16 comment that one of my colleagues made a short time ago as 17 far as the central questions to your one point that was left 18 out is that the inspector general can be removed by the 19 President without cause. 20 important point that was left out. 21 Cause is not required. That is an Mr. Linick, a little earlier we very briefly spoke, and 22 just to be clear, because I was asking about your time at 23 DOJ as well as Mr. Fine's time at DOJ, and it sounded like 24 you don't remember him from your time at DOJ. Is that 233 1 2 correct? Mr. Linick. I didn't know him. When he was -- I'm not 3 talking about him being at the Department of Justice IG. 4 did know him then. 5 of Justice working as an AUSA, and that's what I understood 6 your question to mean. 7 I believe he was also at the Department When he was at the Department of Justice OIG, I did 8 know him when I was in the fraud section. 9 when I was in the fraud section. 10 11 I I had met him I had actually met a lot of the IGs. So, to clarify that question, yes, when he was at DOJ 12 OIG and when I was in the fraud section of the Department of 13 Justice, two totally different offices, I had met him and 14 many other IGs at the time because I was actually leading 15 the National Procurement Fraud Task Force out of the fraud 16 section. 17 18 19 Mr. Zeldin. Did you develop a professional or social relationship from that interaction? Mr. Linick. Oh, it was professional in the sense that 20 I was working with all the IGs on this task force. 21 know, I certainly knew him. 22 know, I hadn't socialized with him or anything? 23 24 Mr. Zeldin. So, you At that time, I didn't -- you I wanted to give you an opportunity to clear up one thing from the beginning of the transcribed 234 1 interview. Congressman Sherman made a very detailed, 2 multifaceted allegation against Secretary Pompeo, and you 3 responded that you won't comment on any ongoing 4 investigations as everything is currently under review. 5 I just want to give you an opportunity to clarify. 6 Your answer wasn't intending on -- and I also don't want to 7 put words in your mouth, so this is your opportunity. 8 weren't saying that every word and allegation Congressman 9 Sherman said and charged is actually under review, correct? 10 11 12 Mr. Linick. No. No. You I was just not commenting on -- I was not affirming anything that he said. Mr. Zeldin. Yeah. No, I wanted to give you that 13 opportunity because the way this works around Washington and 14 the media, they will take an answer and interpret it 15 differently. 16 So thank you for clarifying. Is it accurate that you said you don't know who from 17 the Obama administration asked for you to come on as the 18 State Department inspector general? 19 20 21 Mr. Linick. that time. I don't remember how all that developed at I don't remember the specific individual. Mr. Zeldin. And you had a -- is it accurate that you 22 had a conversation with the incoming Trump administration 23 during the transition period, but you don't remember who you 24 spoke with? 235 1 Mr. Linick. Yes, that's true. I did speak with a 2 couple of folks who were on the transition team. 3 gathering information about our office. 4 Mr. Zeldin. They were And you don't know who at DOD IG told you 5 that the leak report was going to clear the IG's Office, and 6 you don't remember whether it was told to you verbally or in 7 writing? 8 9 Mr. Linick. It would've been -- no, I don't. would've been Glenn Fine, or it would've been his 10 investigator who was sort of leading the report. 11 would've been one of those two. 12 13 14 15 16 Well, it Mr. Zeldin. It But you don't recall whether or not they told you that verbally or in writing? Mr. Linick. I don't. I don't recall if I had a draft or anything like that at the time. Mr. Zeldin. When you applied for a judgeship early in 17 the Trump administration, is it accurate that you don't know 18 who you were speaking to in the Trump administration for 19 that position you were seeking? 20 Mr. Linick. It was folks in the White House, and I 21 don't remember who they were. 22 interview, but I don't remember their names. 23 while ago. 24 Mr. Zeldin. I had come in for an It was quite a Do you know why you didn't get the 236 1 judgeship? 2 Mr. Linick. No, I have no idea. 3 Mr. Zeldin. Are you aware of concerns that were 4 expressed from within the State Department from George Kent 5 and others with regards to a conflict of interest of Hunter 6 Biden serving on the board of Burisma during the last 7 administration? 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Mr. Linick. that. I'm really -- I'm not going to comment on I'm not aware of -- I'm just not going to comment on that issue. Mr. Zeldin. But there aren't any cases with regards to that? Mr. Linick. I'm not going to comment on whether there are or are not cases on that. Mr. Zeldin. Were there ever any cases with regards 16 to -- or any reviews or investigations with regards to the 17 January 17, 2016, cash payment of $1.7 billion that was made 18 to Iran? 19 20 21 Mr. Linick. Again, I'm not going to be commenting on that, and I'm not sure what that has to do with my removal. Mr. Zeldin. Well, you said that you were in search of 22 a reason, and you're willing to speak about several 23 investigations. 24 Democrats' questioning. You've done that in response to the House You're willing to speak about 237 1 investigating Secretary Pompeo and his wife personally, 2 willing to speak about investigation into Brian Hook. 3 You're willing to talk all about the Saudi arms sale. 4 I'm asking about some of these other topics. 5 So For example, it's public from the DOJ inspector 6 general's report, the Horowitz report, that Inspector 7 General Horowitz contacted you about Kathleen Kavalec's 8 contacts with Christopher Steele. 9 contact? 10 Mr. Linick. I actually don't. Do you remember that I don't recall that. 11 But I'm just not prepared to talk about other investigations 12 or information regarding other investigations. 13 14 15 16 17 Mr. Zeldin. Was there an investigation at all with regards to that issue? Mr. Linick. As I said, I'm not prepared to talk about any other investigations. Mr. Zeldin. Okay. So here's one of the issues is that 18 the Department of Justice inspector general has within his 19 scope the ability to look into a number of effects and 20 allegations involving Christopher Steele, and one part of 21 that is within the jurisdiction of the State Department, and 22 that's public information. 23 public information as well. 24 to look into that, you do. The IG Horowitz' report is But he doesn't have the ability 238 And, again, this is another investigation that -- I can't speak for your intent. I'll let you speak for your intent as far as being perceived as apolitical publicly, and I note you released the opening statement that you gave to this committee today. But there are other investigations that you haven't been willing to speak to this afternoon that it would be good if we were able to have a discussion especially if these aren't open investigations. Mr. Linick. As I said, I'm not prepared to talk about -- confirm or deny the existence of other investigations. Mr. Zeldin. - COR Rep Counsel. Yeah. I would just say, sir, you know, the Saudi arms sale, the investigation of prohibited personnel practices, those investigations both started after Democratic members of the committee sent a letter to the OIG asking the 016 to start those investigations. Mr. Linick. And we've started many investigations at the prompting of Republicans as well throughout my career, including the email issues involving the Secretaries of State. Mr. Zeldin. I'm just trying to understand the rules here. So you're willing to talk about the Clinton email investigation but not -- 239 1 Mr. Linick. Well, that's a completed -- that's 2 completed. 3 political retaliation is completed. 4 They weren't investigations. 5 weren't criminal investigations. 6 evaluation. 7 it's important to define terminology here. 8 9 10 11 We're willing to talk about completed -- the We issued two reports. They were reviews. The Clinton matter was an It wasn't a criminal investigation. Mr. Zeldin. Okay. They So I think So going off of your terminology, there was an investigation into the meeting between Kathleen Kavalec, Jonathan Winer, and Christopher Steele, correct? Mr. White. With all due respect, Congressman Zeldin, 12 unless this has something to do with the circumstances of 13 his removal, unless you can link that up some way, that's 14 what he's prepared to talk about today. 15 to review anything in connection with other issues. 16 really unfair to ask him questions that go back into other 17 investigations, whether they're open or closed, and he's not 18 going to be answering those. 19 Mr. Zeldin. Okay. He's not been able So it's So, clearly, so that I understand, 20 the burden on the House Republicans here at today's 21 transcribed interview is to prove a connection between the 22 question and the inspector general's termination, but that 23 rule does not apply for the House Democrats. 24 Mr. White. No, that's incorrect. 240 1 COR Rep Counsel. I would also just say, Pete, that 2 Mr. Linick has said on multiple occasions he's been given no 3 explanation for why he has been removed, yet he's talking at 4 length about investigations that the Democrats are asking 5 about, yet investigations that Mr. Zeldin is asking about 6 he's refusing to address. 7 standard to meet for only one side. 8 Mr. Zeldin. 9 Mr. White. Yeah. So your burden is an impossible And just for -- Look, it is only fair to the witness that 10 he can testify to what he is going to be asked about. 11 doesn't have access to his records. 12 think any of this was going to come up. 13 him to testify to things from 3 years ago that have nothing 14 to do with why he's here. 15 questions. 16 Mr. Zeldin. He There was no reason to It is unfair to ask He won't be answering those I don't know how you can state 17 conclusively exactly what the reason is and just refute that 18 it can't have anything to do with any questions that we're 19 asking. 20 Just for the record, the questions that I wanted to ask 21 with regards to that investigation was whether the IG's 22 Office had interviewed Ms. Kavalec and Mr. Winer when 23 conducting the investigation. 24 Ms. Kavalec told at State about the Steele conversation, I would like to know who 241 1 whether Ms. Kavalec told anyone at State she knew Steele had 2 questionable credibility when he mentioned the nonexistent 3 Russian consulate in Miami. 4 For example, there are a number of issues, but some of 5 it directly connected with public reporting where IG 6 Horowitz, on page 118, it says that according to the 7 Horowitz report an FBI liaison told the State inspector 8 general that Kavalec had met with Steele. 9 notes of their meeting. 10 She had taken The liaison could obtain information from Kavalec about the meeting and so on. 11 One of the comments that you made, Mr. Linick, you were 12 talking about people expressing fear, and you used the words 13 "anecdotally" as far as the source of that. 14 more information as to where you anecdotally heard that? 15 16 Mr. Linick. Can you provide Just over the course of the last couple of weeks, just people who have reached out to me. 17 Mr. Zeldin. And who is that? 18 Mr. Linick. I'm not prepared to tell you who's reached 19 out to me. 20 individual. 21 like that. 22 23 24 I mean, I can't identify any particular I can just tell you that I've heard comments Mr. Zeldin. Okay. But you're not prepared to tell us who is -Mr. Linick. I couldn't even identify who said what. 242 1 2 That's why I said anecdotally I've heard that. Mr. Zeldin. Okay. One of the questions about the leak 3 that wasn't asked, have you identified any name of anyone at 4 all inside the Inspector General's Office or outside of the 5 Inspector General's Office who was involved in the leak to 6 The Daily Beast in any way, shape, or form? 7 Mr. Linick. I can only talk to you about inside the 8 Inspector General's Office, and the report that the DOD IG 9 issued found that there was no leak. As far as individuals 10 outside of the OIG, which we've investigated -- been 11 investigating, that's a pending matter, and I can't disclose 12 the findings. 13 You'll have to go back to the office. They haven't published anything at this point, and I 14 think that investigation was being worked with the Bureau of 15 Diplomatic Security. 16 about any particular finding in that matter. 17 Mr. Zeldin. So I'm just not at liberty to talk Okay. So, just so that I understand 18 clearly, the reason why you can't speak towards any of the 19 leaked sources outside of the Inspector General's Office is 20 due to a pending investigation? 21 Mr. Linick. Yeah. As I said, we were investigating 22 that matter jointly with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, 23 and I don't think that the findings of that have become 24 public. 243 Mr. Zeldin. Okay. And your belief with regards to an inspector general's investigation of an Inspector General's Office, if you're in charge of an Inspector General's Office that is going to be investigated, do you believe that you should be involved in the process of getting another inspector general to investigate your office? Mr. Linick. I'm not sure I understand the question. I can tell you I did everything I was supposed to do. I went to CIGIE. The CIGIE told me they would not investigate an office. Then I was told to either do it internally or find another 16, and that's what I did. I'm not sure there would've been any other avenue to have someone else peer review our office. Mr. Zeldin. And you testified earlier that somebody wanted to manage the scope and direction of the leak investigation. Remind me, who was that? Mr. Linick. Brian Bulatao. Mr. Zeldin. Well, I guess I'll spare you the question as far as what should happen in the future as far as finding another Inspector General's Office to do an investigation. I'll turn it back over to or HFAC REP COUNSEL. No questions here from me. I don't think has any as well. Are there any other members from our side who have any 244 1 questions? 2 Okay. 3 4 Seeing none, I think we will yield time back over to the majority. HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you. Mr. Linick, first just a 5 technical matter that had been raised. 6 transcriptionists having any difficulty hearing anything? 7 8 9 10 11 12 Mr. White, I think they might not have gotten some of your comments. Or are we okay? The Reporter. Mr. White's audio cut out at one point. HFAC Dem Counsel. Is there anything that we can do to help you on that now? Mr. White. We'll review it. BY HFAC DEM COUNSEL: 13 14 Are the Q Okay. So just a couple of very quick things and 15 then I'll turn it over to Mr. Malinowski to close for our 16 side. 17 interactions with White House officials Brian Miller and 18 Uttam Dhillon. 19 A Sir, early in the day, you said that you had had What was the nature of those interactions? Well, Brian, I've known so that -- I've known him 20 for a while, mostly just personal interactions over the 21 years. 22 Attorney's Office in L.A., and I had met with him a couple 23 of times, and there was a point where we discussed the 24 judgeship issue. Uttam I had known from my work at the U.S. 245 1 Q And just for the sake of the record, I think you 2 clarified how you had known each of these people. 3 with Mr. Miller, once he became a White House official, what 4 was the nature of those conversations? 5 A Mostly just personal in nature. First, I mean, we had been 6 assistant U.S. attorneys in the Eastern District of Virginia 7 together. 8 yeah. 9 Q Mostly just -- it's personal matters and such, And I don't mean to belabor it. I know it's been a 10 long day. 11 it mostly personal, or was it entirely personal? 12 A But just so that we don't have to come back, was Well, I wouldn't talk business with him about the 13 White House and so forth ever. 14 conversations. 15 16 17 Q Okay. So it was personal And you don't recall anything that was not in the nature of personal conversation with him? A No. I might have mentioned the judgeship issue with 18 him, but apart from that, that was the only thing. 19 never discussed anything involving State OIG or anything 20 like that. 21 22 Q Okay. I've And then just same set of clarifications for Mr. Dhillon, who I think you -- 23 A Oh, yeah. 24 Q -- had also known. 246 1 A Same thing. Nothing about State OIG or anything 2 involving my work. 3 was personal in nature or about the judgeship at that time. 4 Q Okay. Like I said, most of the conversation One thing I would just like to clarify for 5 the sake of the record, given that there were some 6 allegations made about -- or efforts, I think, to impugn 7 whether you were truly independent, especially in regard to 8 your questions you answered here today, you, sir, were the 9 inspector general at the State Department who was 10 responsible for the review of former Secretary Clinton's 11 emails, right? 12 A Yes, I was. 13 Q And are you aware that former Secretary Clinton then 14 ran for the Presidency of the United States? 15 A Yes. 16 Q And as the candidate for which party? 17 A Democratic. 18 Q Thank you. 19 At the time that you were fired, going back briefly to 20 your efforts to speak to Secretary Pompeo in regards to the 21 Saudi arms sales matter, as of the day that you were fired, 22 did you still feel that it was important for that 23 investigation to actually speak to Secretary Pompeo, or was 24 the written answer enough for you? response to that question, we were assessing that point before I left in connection whether to report it in our semiannual report, and we decided that it wasn't ripe because we had our work on it had been delayed. So I had a conversation with Marik String and _about the possibility of interviewing the Secretary after the COVID crisis abates, when we were able to have staff come in and do that. And what was the outcome of that conversation? A I didn't get a response one way or the other. Did they give you any indications as to whether they were receptive to the idea? A I didn't get a response one way or the other. Okay. And then just my last question for the day, and thank you again for your time and for your service, you mentioned that you had heard -- and we're not going to -- you know, we want to protect people's, you know, ability to continue doing their jobs -- that Ambassador Akard had told OIG officials after he took over as acting inspector general, he apparently told folks that he had been approached about becoming the acting inspector general in April. Have you heard, sir, who approached him? A No, I didn't get any of that information. HFAC Dem Counsel. All right. That's all I've got. 248 1 I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Malinowski. 2 Mr. Malinowski. Thank you. 3 So Mr. Zeldin pointed out that I had mentioned that the 4 President does not have a legal obligation to say why he 5 fired you. 6 or for no reason. 7 simply that it's unheard of to give no reason, especially 8 under the circumstances that we find ourselves in with IGs 9 being fired right and left. 10 He can fire an inspector general for any reason It's absolutely true. COR Rep Counsel. My point was Sir, actually, President Obama did 11 the same thing using the exact same language back in 2009, 12 just a point of clarification. 13 Mr. Malinowski. That's all. Understood. But it was also widely 14 reported that there were issues involving that inspector 15 general in a particular investigation that he had 16 undertaken. 17 good reasons or for -- whether it was right or wrong, it was 18 understood why people had concerns with that inspector 19 general. 20 It was understood publicly why -- whether, for So, again, I just -- my point was simply that it's 21 unusual, and it raises questions. And, you know, certainly, 22 if the Secretary was concerned about this particular 23 inspector general not having investigated the Bidens during 24 the Obama administration or had something to do with 249 Christopher Steele, he could absolutely tell us that. And we could then evaluate whether this was a responsible, defensible act or not. Obviously, the President has a right to do it even for indefensible reasons. But we are living in a democratic republic in which our leaders are accountable for their actions and should explain them, and that's what we're trying to look into here today. The absence of an explanation naturally leads to speculation that this had something to do with investigations that were troubling to the Secretary, and that is something that we are going to continue to, obviously, look into. And I'd be happy to learn that it was something else, you know. I'd be happy to learn that there was some good, objective reason for this, but that hasn't been provided. So we're going to carry on. I don't think there's anyone else on our side. is that correct? HFAC Dem Counsel. I have no further questions, and I don't believe I'm aware of any other Democratic members who would like to ask questions. Mr. Malinowski. Excellent. Is there anyone on the minority side who has any final questions? If not, I'm happy to close. 250 1 HFAC REP COUNSEL. 2 Mr. Malinowski. 3 COR Rep Counsel. I don't believe so, Mr. Malinowski. Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to say to 4 Mr. Linick, obviously these are very long days. 5 came in voluntarily. 6 mean to speak for everybody here, but I think we all feel 7 the same way. 8 9 We know you We very much appreciate that. I don't So thank you. Mr. Malinowski. Absolutely. We all agree on that. Thank you so much for taking the time to allow us to go 10 through these questions thoroughly. 11 of all people, the importance of doing that. 12 we're very grateful to you and your counsel and hope -- and 13 wish you all the best despite the very difficult thing that 14 you've had to undergo. 15 Mr. White. Thank you. I know you understand, And, you know, On behalf of Mr. Linick, he 16 appreciates the patience and cooperation of the members on 17 both sides of the aisle and their staff. 18 HFAC Dem Counsel. Thank you, everyone. I guess, just 19 one last thing. Aside from the substance, just wanted to 20 thank everyone for their patience and their flexibility with 21 doing this remotely during these challenging times to be in 22 a position to help Congress get the information that it 23 needs to conduct its constitutionally mandated oversight 24 while nonetheless still being cognizant of the public health 251 1 emergency and making sure we're keeping everybody safe. 2 So, with that, we are adjourned. 3 [Whereupon, at 4:25 p.m., the interview was concluded.] Schulte RothaZabel LLP 901 Fifteenth Street. NW, Suite 800 Washington. DC 20005 202.729.7470 202.730.4520 fax Peter H. White Writer's E-mail Address 202.729.7476 Pete.White@srz.com June 9, 2020 BY E-MAIL United States House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee 2170 Rayburn House Of?ce Building Washington, DC. 20515 Re: Transcript of June 3, 2020 Interview with Inspector General Steve A. Linick We appreciate the opportunity to review the transcript of Inspector General Linick?s June 3, 2020 interview and the Committee's willingness to address the transcription errors we identi?ed. However, we did notice that some of our proposed clari?cations have not been incorporated into the latest version of the transcript. In recognition of Mr. Linick's voluntary appearance without the benefit of access to his notes, emails, or other workplace materials, we would ask that the following additional clari?cations be made to the transcript prior to its public release: 0 Page 28, line 16: After ?program?, insert ?This involved establishing criteria for reopening local and overseas facilities.? Page 106, line 13: After ?in his of?ce?, insert Page 150, line 13: Delete ?correct? and insert ?1 don?t recall any such instruction.? Pages 160?61: As to the emails that Mr. Linick testi?ed about sending to himself, eight of those related to the report and were sent during his August 2019 vacation. Mr. Linick does not recall whether the entire report was included each of the eight times. 0 Page 187, line 16-17: Delete ?1 don?t recall what mean, nothing?I don?t recall that. I?m not sure? and insert ?1 did not email that report to myself." June 9, 2020 Page 2 Mr. Linick thanks the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for their cooperation in scheduling this interview and conducting it in a bipartisan manner. We hope the answers Mr. Linick provided are useful to the Committees in conducting their important work. If for any reason the above clari?cations cannot be made, we would appreciate the opportunity to raise our concerns directly with the Chairman and Ranking Member.