Report: Former Social Security Commissioner Gail Ennis abused her authority

The report is the result of an investigation by the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), which was launched after a 2022 Washington Post report showed how the anti-fraud program imposed escalating penalties that reached hundreds of thousands of dollars. This practice existed even before Ennis, a Trump administration appointee who took office in January 2019. but continued during her term in office.

“Ennis abused her authority and behaved in a manner that undermined the integrity expected of an inspector general,” said the 54-page investigative report led by Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The report, which was obtained by The Washington Post, has not been made public.

Ennis’ office initially cooperated with the investigation into the administration of the anti-fraud program that began in May 2022, the report said. But earlier this year, she began obstructing the investigation by instructing her staff to stop responding to investigators’ requests for documents and interviews, investigators found. By failing to recuse herself from an investigation that involved “her own alleged misconduct,” Ennis violated federal ethics requirements, according to the report.

The body of federal supervisory authorities recommended that Ennis face disciplinary action “up to and including termination.” But in late May, she announced her resignation. Saturday was her last day as inspector general, a position that oversees the agency that pays pensions to 69 million Americans and monthly disability checks to about 15 million others.

The report summarizes five tumultuous years in which Ennis’ office was rocked by declining morale, falling productivity and allegations of retaliation against whistleblowers.

Ennis could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for the Office of the Inspector General declined to comment. The report includes a letter Ennis wrote to a In May, she accused her colleagues at CIGIE of serious flaws in the investigation, including political bias “under the influence of IG Horowitz and his handpicked CIGIE leadership, who abused their investigative authority to consolidate power and influence within the community.” A spokeswoman for Horowitz declined to comment.

Ennis told investigators that her office stopped cooperating this year while she waited for opinions she had requested from the Government Accountability Office and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel on some of Horowitz’s conclusions. But Ennis did not resume cooperation even after a response from those offices, which “did not provide any substantive decisions” on her complaints, the report said.

In her letter, Ennis specifically disputed Horowitz’s claim that she had refused to be interviewed, saying his office had rejected a later date she had suggested. “Had the DOJ OIG acted reasonably, I would have responded in detail to each of the issues examined and answered their questions. Yet the DOJ OIG has refused to do so,” she wrote.

The report noted that the CIGIE panel overseeing the investigation “carefully examined Ennis’ response and found, in particular, that her arguments were completely without merit.”

In a letter sent Saturday to the House and Senate Social Security committees, Ennis said she had built a “more flexible organization,” was trying to stop scammers trying to steal money and personal information from retirees, and had increased resources to combat disability benefit fraud.

The CIGIE report said that a complete The investigation into the role of other top officials in the Office of the Inspector General in managing the anti-fraud program will be the subject of an upcoming report. The program, which was temporarily suspended after the Post article, is still being investigated by the Social Security Administration, the office of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and the Office of Special Counsel.

The CIGIE report found that Ennis’ active resistance The investigation also included her pressuring the group’s chairwoman in letters and phone calls to drop the investigation. Her actions starting this spring “posed a continuing challenge to full disclosure of the facts,” it concluded.

After Horowitz investigators concluded in March that the anti-fraud program had denied due process to plaintiffs accused of fraud, Ennis falsely claimed that the Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General used similar practices, according to the report. When it was pointed out to Ennis that her claim was inaccurate, she refused to correct it.

Ennis “made incomplete, misleading and inaccurate statements to various government agencies about another individual (the Inspector General), failed to retract or otherwise change those statements when informed that they were untrue, and then wrongfully obstructed investigations into her and other senior officials in her office,” the report said.

Ennis’ office has struggled with mounting performance problems in recent years. The number of audits completed has declined. Dozens of lead auditors, investigators and other staffers have quit or retired, many out of frustration with what they described to The Washington Post and congressional investigators as her erratic leadership and lack of focus on the office’s mission. Ennis’ office at the time characterized the departures as a normal increase in turnover under the new leadership and said she had made improving staff morale a priority.

Several police officers resigned or retired after Ennis told staff that her coworkers were monitoring employees’ computers during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure the largely work-from-home workforce was productive. Ennis took disciplinary action against several police officers she accused of poor performance – an allegation the officers and their union, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, denied. The group issued a “vote of no confidence” in Ennis’ leadership in 2021.

Michelle Anderson, deputy comptroller and one of Ennis’s top deputies, will serve as acting inspector general until the White House nominates a permanent successor, a selection that is unlikely before the November election.