House Oversight Committee investigates how Metro treats inspectors general

You may hear the train coming, but this isn’t Folsom Prison blues – the House Oversight and Accountability Committee is launching a full-scale investigation into how Metro treats its inspectors general.

Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced the investigation on Friday.

Comer’s letter to WMATA Chairman Paul Smedberg alleged that “the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has not properly cooperated with its Office of Inspector General (OIG). The investigation was initiated after WMATA recently had to leave its second Inspector General in two years.”

In the letter, Comer said the OIG must be “granted the autonomy it is entitled to under federal law. The committee requests briefing, documents and information to ensure that WMATA management does not impede the important work of the OIG.”

The IG acts as an internal watchdog tasked with investigating and exposing “waste, fraud and abuse,” Comer wrote.

This came after the “forced resignation” of IG Rene Febles in November last year.

He resigned after an OIG audit found that WMATA failed to “exercise its procurement and personnel independence under the (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act).” The February audit also found that there was “abnormal” activity within the transit system’s network that allowed noncitizens, particularly from Russia, to access WMATA’s records and systems.

“In other words, Febles found that WMATA management had failed to grant the OIG the statutory autonomy granted to it by a law that provides WMATA with over $1 billion in federal funds, in addition to the $2.4 billion in pandemic relief funds recently awarded to it by Congress,” Comer said in the statement.

Febles resigned a day later after learning that the transport company’s board of directors was planning to replace him.

“We are concerned that WMATA is not sufficiently prepared to accept rigorous oversight by its OIG. WMATA’s actions since Febles’ departure further underscore the need for our investigation.

Following IG Febles’ retirement in November, WMATA appointed an attorney from a firm to which WMATA had reportedly paid over $2 million in consulting fees as acting IG.

This is despite public comments that WMATA’s board of directors ‘fully supports’ the role of the Office of the Inspector General and ‘has ensured that the office has the independence necessary to carry out its duties and responsibilities without interference or undue influence,'” Comer said.

Comer also said that the lack of independence and autonomy within the Office of the Inspector General is due to the Inspector General “not receiving sufficient cooperation and support from WMATA, resulting in a serious lack of accountability and transparency.”

The full letter to Smedberg is available online.

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