Compass Rose Legal Group’s Founding and Managing Attorney Andrew Bakaj is quoted extensively in a ThinkProgress article about the migrant children matter. Andrew’s comments concern Members of Congress requesting the Office of Inspectors General for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct an inquiry on the matter.
Below is an except of the article. The full article can be accessed by clicking here.
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Inspectors General are meant to be entirely independent from both institutional culture and political influence, said Andrew Bakaj, a former official in the Pentagon and CIA OIGs who now runs the Compass Rose Legal Group in Washington, D.C. That independence mostly relies on the individual leaders of the offices, he said, noting that DHS currently has only an acting Inspector General.
“It has to do with the personality of the IG, if they have a strong enough constitution to be able to not be swayed and to do what they’re obligated to do,” said Bakaj. “They need to let the facts lead the way and not let opinion drive how the analysis is conducted. That’s why Inspectors General are unpopular — it’s not about what you want, it’s about what you uncover.”
The Dems’ decision to ask for OIG investigations via letter rather than to badger their Republican colleagues to use Congress’ own investigative purview here is also likely to deliver better, clearer information, Bakaj said — albeit much more slowly.
“When Congress asks people to testify and come to the Hill, they have to be honest and candid but they’re going to tell Congress what is given to them by the agency,” he said. “The IG has access to the agency, period. They can walk in and demand interviews, demand documents [and] employees are obligated to cooperate.”
The resulting process can take months and be frustratingly opaque to the public. The slower and quieter the investigation, Bakaj said, the more likely it is that it’s being conducted thoroughly and responsibly.
Lawmakers asked the OIGs in their letter this week to pursue five specific questions: How exactly are the departments keeping records on the separated families, how quickly would they be able to reunite families on average, what exactly does that process look like, how does it differ for families where the parent has already been deported while the children remain in U.S. custody, and are any children missing from the departments’ records such that they could not be reunited at all?
The text of the letter further clarifies exactly what information the lawmakers are seeking. Upon hearing the specific text of the questions, Bakaj said they were well crafted to deliver the fastest possible response from investigators — especially given the sheer number of people making the request.
“The internal review will be conducted a lot more expeditiously when you have so many members of congress,” he said. “And the good thing about these questions is they are narrow and specific. It’ll be easy enough to scope out what they have to do. Hopefully it means they’ll be able to get an answer in a more timely manner.”
