“Broken Trust: How the Biden-Harris DOL Leaked Confidential Information”
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House Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsMark Takano
This is common sense and long overdue. Protecting workers in our nation's fields, warehouses, and factories from excessive heat is something that we all should support. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Yesterday, committee Republicans advanced a bill that would kill the rule and ban OSHA from ever using a similar one to protect workers from extreme heat. Mr. Chairman, this is our last subcommittee hearing before Congress heads out for the August recess.
For those keeping track, it is the second one that committee Republicans convened this Congress touching on a rarely used Department of Labor practice. Rarely used, yet we're devoting all this time to this obsession.
Meanwhile, they've had zero hearings on the many urgent issues that working people in my district and across the district care about. There's not one single hearing focused on raising the minimum wage, not one single hearing focused on combating wage theft, not one hearing focused on strengthening our child labor laws. Finally, at the start of his second term, President Trump abruptly fired inspectors generals at many cabinet agencies, including the Department of Labor. This was just one of the many unprecedented actions he's taken. This is the first time that the Inspector General for the Labor Department has appeared before our committee since his confirmation.
We have several issues of interest, including the status of the investigation into former Labor Secretary for alleged misconduct and the department's unlawful elimination of the ERISA Advisory Council. I anticipate these and other topics will be raised this morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Kevin Kiley
Pursuant to Committee Rule 8C, all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5:00 PM, 14 days after this hearing. And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous materials noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. With that, we're going to turn to an introduction of our witness today. He is the Honorable Anthony P. DiSilvestro, Inspector General of the US Department of Labor. We want to thank you for being here today and we look forward to your testimony.
Pursuant to committee rules, I ask that you limit your oral testimony to a three-minute summary of the written testimony which you have provided. The clock will count down from three minutes as committee members may have many questions for you. However, pursuant to Committee Rule 8D and committee practice, we will not cut off your testimony until you reach the five-minute mark. I would also like to remind you that you have a responsibility to provide accurate information to the subcommittee. And with that, Inspector DiSilvestro, you are recognized for your testimony.
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well, thank you very much and good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, Chairman McKenzie, the entire committee, thanks for having me back on the Hill. As Inspector General for the United States Department of Labor, my responsibility is to conduct independent oversight through audits and investigations that protect taxpayer dollars, combat fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption, safeguard American workers, and strengthen the public trust. I am honored to serve as the department's ninth Inspector General. My office initiated this audit after Congress and Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling raised concerns about the department's use of common interest agreements. Common interest agreements are intended to allow parties with a shared interest, I repeat, with a shared interest, to exchange certain confidential information under limited circumstances.
They were never intended to become a tool for the federal government to align itself with private plaintiff attorneys. Yet under the previous administration, the use of these agreements left them with the potential to be weaponized, deployed without meaningful oversight, without adequate safeguards, and in a manner that blurred the line between the public interest and private litigation. Here is what my office found. The Biden-Harris Department of Labor had no department-wide controls governing any of these common interest agreements. There were no written policies, no consistent approval processes, no centralized tracking.
Some agreements were in writing, others amounted to little more than a verbal handshake. In one case, an individual executed a common interest agreement without the authority to even do so. The department failed to adequately safeguard sensitive and confidential information. The Office of the Solicitor entered into agreements without notifying investigators in the Wage and Hour Division or the Employee Benefits Security Administration, leaving them completely unaware that privileged information connected to their own work had been shared.
When our auditors requested a complete inventory of these agreements, none existed. Agreements were scattered across emails, shared drives, and case files. Officials initially identified 45 agreements. Manual searches uncovered even more. That is not oversight.
That is a system without accountability. Training and conflict of interest safeguards also fell short. Employees responsible for approving these agreements received little or no training on the associated risks, and the department was not consistently monitoring potential conflicts involving officials connected to outside organizations. Let me be very clear: government attorneys represent the United States of America, not private plaintiffs' law firms. And under this administration, Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling agrees.
The Department of Labor exists to protect workers and enforce federal law. It should never create the appearance that government resources, privileged information, or taxpayer-funded personnel are being used to benefit private attorneys or increase their legal fees. This hearing is not about politics. It's about public trust. It's about protecting American workers.
It's about ensuring that the Department of Labor works for the American people, not outside interest. That is why we issued eight recommendations to strengthen oversight, improve coordination, establish centralized tracking, enhance conflict of interest monitoring, and require formal procedures and training. Under this administration, the department agreed with every single recommendation. Implementation is underway and my office will continue to monitor its progress and work with department leadership to ensure that this never happens again. These findings underscore why independent oversight matters.
Weak controls erode the confidence in government, jeopardize confidential information, and ultimately fail the American worker. Our work to protect Americans continues along Vice President J.D. Vance's fraud task force as we tackle fraud in every corner, including H-1B visas that have led to wage theft, been exploited, encouraged human trafficking, fund criminal enterprises, and take American jobs away from American workers. Finally, I want to recognize the dedicated professionals of the Office of the Inspector General whose integrity and relentless work made these findings possible. They understand this is not a political discussion, it's about doing the the right thing for the American people, the American taxpayers, and of course the integrity of the Department of Labor. Thank you for your opportunity to testify and I look forward to answering all of your questions.
Kevin Kiley
Under Committee Rule 9, we will now ask questions of the witness under the five-minute rule, and I will recognize myself first. Thank you, Inspector General D'Esposito, for that testimony and for the work that you're doing on behalf of the American people and taxpayers to make sure that all of our resources that are supposed to be going to workers and individuals are actually being protected and not diverted to law firms or special interest groups or somebody else along the way. And we heard the downplaying of the number of cases in relation to the overall number of cases that are looked into. That somehow, if there are only 12 cases, that's somehow acceptable, which is an outlandish, outlandish statement because what we see is that when you have these cases that people become aware of, it shakes confidence in the entire system.
And it makes it less likely that people are going to cooperate with the government and go after the bad actors who are supposed to be the targets of these kind of investigations. So I would like to hear from you, how the work that the committee has done in contacting your office, how has that benefited or changed the way that common interest agreements are going to be handled by EBSA? What is the your office doing when looking into Wage and Hour Division and should they be audited? So tell us how it's starting to change the culture of these cases and how they're being handled within the department.
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chairman. And like I mentioned, the fact is is that the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General after this audit thanks to the notification from this committee and at the time Chairwoman Fox, made it very clear that there was a problem with common interest agreements. And the issue is whether it's one common interest agreement or one million common interest agreements, the fact is is that there was a potential for critical information to be leaked to plaintiffs' attorneys. And the fact is is like I mentioned in my opening statement, the people that work at the Department of Labor, they shouldn't be doing the work of plaintiffs' attorneys who are then billing their clients. The information should be gathered in the correct manner.
And I know that the argument is going to be well under ERISA there is the it's the legal opportunity of the Solicitor's Office. But the fact is is that there was no safeguards in place. And my office has issued eight recommendations, all of which have been agreed to by the Department of Labor and are currently being implemented by Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling. I know that one of the agencies are actually have their common interest agreements on pause until all eight are implemented. So I think that the work that this committee did to sound the alarm with the potential of this information being utilized against the American worker and used for plaintiffs' attorneys will lead to change not only currently but in the future for the American people and for the Department of Labor.
Kevin Kiley
Well that's important and we appreciate the eight recommendations you've offered and that they have been accepted by the Trump administration. I think that's critically important to tighten up the controls that were abused in the last administration, taking confidential information, sharing it with outside stakeholders who should not have been in receipt of that kind of confidential information. It seems like an ethical breach, pretty serious one that again should not be downplayed by anybody. Your report also found that there was a Wage and Hour staff member who entered into an agreement on behalf of that division but lacked the authority to do so. Can you provide additional details about that finding?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Sure. A Wage and Hour Division staff member who was assigned as an investigator executed an agreement that they did not have the authority to sign. This happened because of no guardrails, the fact that nobody was watching, the fact that the common interest agreements with the potential clients seemed much more important to the last administration than the actual ethical use of them. That's exactly why we recommended establishing clearly defined roles and responsibilities for those who are going to sign or enter into these common interest agreements. Courts will often only find that the common interest protection applies to communications when counsel is either present, involved in, or directing such communications.
And by not involving the Solicitor in any attempt to share information under a common interest agreement, the Department of Labor risks waiving privilege protecting information shared, if it even applies in the first place.
I mean, really what it comes down to is this is all pretty basic. When there's no guardrails in place, these are the kind of things that happen. And this individual did not have any authority to enter into a common interest agreement with any parties, and he should have or she should have never signed the agreement in the first place.
Kevin Kiley
Well, thank you again for raising this issue and the recommendations that we can take to actually crack down on this kind of bad behavior. My time has expired, but I look forward to continuing this conversation not only throughout this hearing, but also as we move forward, not only with the safeguards that are going to be put in place, but those individuals and those actors that were party to these agreements, figuring out if they need to be investigated further, because fixing the system is the most important thing, but also going after the individual bad actors that were beneficiaries of this is critically important as well. Next, I will turn to the ranking member for his questions.
Mark Takano
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. D'Esposito, for being here. Mr. D'Esposito, unlike a cabinet secretary, the Inspector General of a government agency is required by law to be nonpartisan, apolitical, and independent. Why is it important that an Inspector General be nonpolitical and independent?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well, first of all, I'm aware of the rules and regulations of the Inspector General's Act, and I think that the independence in that act not only outlines that the independence is clear when it comes to investigations that are within the department. I think that if you rewind back to the beginning of the year and my confirmation hearing, I made it very clear I served an entire career in the NYPD. Never once did I respond to a 911 call or a complainant and ask them if they were a Democrat or a Republican. Conducting audits and proper investigations can be done while still having your constitutional rights to believe and to live your democracy.
Mark Takano
So, I'll note, Mr. D'Esposito, your credibility with me is somewhat enhanced by the fact that you did investigate the actions of the previous Secretary of Labor, who was appointed by a Republican president. And that you carry that very sort of investigative police mindset that's apolitical. But also, you are aware at the beginning of the Trump administration, 17 Inspectors General, including the Inspector General at Labor, were fired.
I'm well aware.
Mark Takano
You are aware of that. And the role of the Inspector General is to be outside of politics. To firing of IGs en masse is an unprecedented politicization of their role. And while the Trump administration claims that they're combating waste, fraud, and abuse, I and my colleagues have a deep concern about the firing, the firing of the very officials responsible for preventing fraud and inefficiency. I will point out you are a former Republican member of Congress, is that correct?
How many terms did you serve?
Sure, one term.
Mark Takano
One term. Okay. I just want your commitment. Now, I will note you did say in your opening comments, you made some comments about the Vice President. I've been a member of Congress and I've been a chairman a couple of terms of a committee.
I've had IGs appear before me. I've never really heard an IG ever use language praising the efforts of the Vice President administration. There's kind of more neutral tone. I just want to point that out to you.
Anthony DiSilvestro
I think that recognizing the fact that the President has signed an executive order to root out fraud in the United States of America, where we're literally combing back billions of dollars into the Treasury and putting people behind bars for violating the public's trust.
Speaker 14
That's all very well and fine. I'm reclaiming my time, sir. It's all very well and fine. We don't have to be so defensive. There's no need to be so defensive.
Anthony DiSilvestro
I'm not being defensive. I'm just stating the facts. There's never been a time in American history where an administration has focused on draining away fraud.
Mark Takano
Well, let me reclaim my time. Let me, sir, let me reclaim my time. Mr. Chairman, I, he took up 20 seconds of my time here. I reclaimed my time 20 seconds ago. Now, can you commit to fulfilling the OIG's role as an independent office that prevents waste, fraud, and abuse while improving how the Department of Labor serves the American people as a fully, fully independent of the goals of the President?
Anthony DiSilvestro
I took the oath to serve as the Inspector General and I live that oath every day.
Mark Takano
Thank you. That's a simple yes. You know, one office within the Department of Labor has particularly been beneficial is EBSA. It's a watchdog for the American people. It helps people receive their hard-earned benefits.
Now, what role does EBSA play in protecting workers' essential benefits like healthcare?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well, the role of EBSA is to, as was stated in my opening statement, to coordinate and investigate and to work on agreements litigating for the workers of the American people.
Mark Takano
In fact, in fact, those people, those employees that are covered by these health plans under EBSA, they can get help from EBSA if they have a dispute with an insurance company, right, over a claim, right?
Absolutely.
Mark Takano
So, you know, employer-sponsored plans covered by EBSA are required to report data on claims, payment, and policies and practices. But in 2016, the OIG reported that EBSA lacks the ability to protect plan participants from claims denials because it does not have the necessary information to do so. And this, because of this, health plans are able to deny claims without explaining why. Currently, the agency collects this information on just 3% of the claims. Are you familiar with the OIG 2016 report on improving claims data reporting?
I have not read the report from 2016.
Mark Takano
Okay, so this harm is not imaginary. EBSA administrators have gotten insurance claims approved for mothers who are facing cancer. They have helped families who fear losing a loved one because their insurance will not pay for their life-saving care. Do you agree with your predecessor's assessment that the Department of Labor should revise the 1975 loophole that allows insurers not to disclose claim information?
Mark Takano
Okay, I would look forward to hearing that. Meanwhile, before I yield back, I just want to tell everybody out there who's covered by an EBSA plan, if you have a healthcare claim that's been denied or you get your insurance through your employer, you can call 1-866-444-EBSA, E-B-S-A, or 3272, or go online to askebsa.dol.gov for help. It's imperative that public servants at EBSA have all the information that they need to fight on your behalf. And that's what I asked the Secretary today. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. And I applaud the seersucker.
Kevin Kiley
Thank you. Next we'll go to the Chairman of the full committee, Mr. Walberg.
Tim Walberg
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it's good to see you back, Inspector General Esposito.
Thank you, Chairman.
Tim Walberg
In its review of the Biden DOL, the OIG identified roughly 48 common interest agreements. However, your report found that, and I quote, "SOL did not track or maintain a centralized system or database for common interest agreements or shared information." And continuing the quote, "Neither EBSA nor WHD tracked or monitored common interest agreements." Given the report's identification of these, I call it deficiencies, could there be additional common interest agreements which you were not able to identify, and how confident are you that there were not additional agreements?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And absolutely, there could be additional agreements that we were not aware of because, as you mentioned, the Department of Labor under the last administration simply wasn't tracking them. And that's really the problem.
There was no protocols or policies in place to track these common interest agreements. It's a significant risk of not having internal controls. If information was shared outside of the common interest agreement framework entirely we wouldn't know because the case files don't exist or they were taken with someone when they when they left the office. And again the absence of these robust controls and formal guardrails creates an environment where improper or even nefarious sharing could absolutely occur.
Tim Walberg
Oops no harm or foul. Your report includes an example of an individual from a non-governmental entity that entered into a common interest agreement with DOL in April of 2023. This person interestingly enough served as a senior counsel to then acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su for about eight months before returning to the same non-governmental entity. Can you provide the committee with more information about that person and the non-governmental entity you cited in your example?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Absolutely Mr. Chairman and quite frankly that agreement is the epitome of what it is that we're discussing and why we put or made those eight recommendations to the Secretary of Labor. It's the exact kind of blind spot that we're flagging thanks to the work of this committee and why we have recommended that staff participate in these agreements be required to sign an affidavit affirming that they will abide by post-employment restrictions. The individual that was involved in this agreement goes by the name of Munir Ahmad. And as you mentioned Mr. Chairman he served at the time as senior counselor to then acting Secretary Julie Su. The non-governmental entity that he was sharing the information with was the Yale Law School Worker and Immigrant Rights.
Now shockingly or not shockingly depending on how you look at it Mr. Munir Ahmad is now as of this morning on their website is a professor at Yale Law with his focus and oversees the Yale Law School Worker and Immigrant Rights division.
Tim Walberg
Interesting outcome. Appreciate your work on that. It's also my understanding that many of the cases in which information was provided outside parties remain open enforcement actions. If DOL shares non-public information about a company with a law or advocacy group like this gentleman and these cases without following a unified procedure could you discuss whether DOL should alert the company that it has shared this information?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well thank you Chairman I think that that's less of a call by the Inspector General and more of a policy decision by the Secretary of Labor. But what I will say is that I think it's important for the eight recommendations to be implemented so that there are disclosures in place that we can refer back to. The concern that we have of notifying of notifying anyone of any of these law firms or any of the entities is that if there is not information that's being shared incorrectly as part of the agreement it could tip off a potential investigation.
But I think that with the eight recommendations put in place by the Secretary of Labor, I believe that we have a real opportunity to change the way that these agreements are handled in the future and so that they could actually do the work of protecting American workers and that not lining the pockets of plaintiffs' attorneys.
Thank you. My time is expired. I wish you well.
Chairman, great to see you.
Glenn Grothman
Could you just give us, give me in general the motives behind these agreements? Legitimate and otherwise, I'll put it that way.
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well, I mean, the motives have always been that or as stated is that it's when the Department of Labor and attorneys' offices could be beneficial to sharing information that one or the other has and makes it more expedient than perhaps going through subpoenas or using the FOIA mechanism.
Glenn Grothman
Okay. Do you notice any patterns between the ones that we're talking about today, the eight common interest agreements that I guess kind of brings this topic to our attention?
Anthony DiSilvestro
I think that the patterns are the fact that they were entered into with law firms or non-government entities that eventually had seen relationships between the individuals who were signing them and the entities on the other side of it, much like I mentioned to the chairman when you have an individual signing a common interest agreement for Yale Law School Worker and Immigration Rights and then later becomes the professor overseeing the Yale Law School Social Worker and Immigration Rights.
Speaker 7
So you think it's something that you kind of, one hand washes the other and you set yourself up perhaps for something in the future.
Glenn Grothman
I think it's interesting and I think that's why this committee made the notification to the Inspector General's office to conduct the audit.
Anthony DiSilvestro
Okay. Is it possible the Biden-Harris Department of Labor's assistance to the plaintiffs' attorneys extended beyond secret sharing agreements to assisting with briefs or practicing for oral arguments in court?
So the Department of Labor told us directly that it doesn't provide that kind of assistance in matters where it isn't a party, though we had no way to independently verify that since, again, none of these resources were tracked by the administration. Really the value, the value for the plaintiffs' attorneys lies in information that they probably otherwise couldn't access. We found no evidence that the DOL attorneys were assisting with briefs or practicing arguments, but there is no question that some of the agreements were executed to avoid FOIA and discovery.
Glenn Grothman
Okay. Is each secretary responsible for establishing guidelines for common interest agreements and can you further discuss whether there was evidence that there was non-public information shared at the direction of the leadership?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Department of Labor, either the assistant secretaries in charge of those divisions or the Solicitor of Labor to work in coordination with the Secretary of Labor to come up with those policies and implement them. But I think that the real issue, and I just want to quickly refer to one of our investigative files, is that there was no guardrails in place and that the people who were executing these common interest agreements weren't even sure as to what a common interest agreement was. This was a question that was asked to someone who was interviewed, if common agreements were always in writing. And again, the answer was, that's an interesting question of what is a common interest agreement. It doesn't create rights, it reasserts commonality of interest.
I suppose some people in certain situations might say that because the commonality is clear, we do not need to recite it, we can just go ahead and talk without entering into one. But there might be agreements as part of that oral agreements not to, um, not to use information for certain purposes, try to, but sometimes they're verbal. That just shows you that there was no policies or procedures in place and the individuals who are actually executing and signing these common interest agreements didn't seem to understand them either.
Glenn Grothman
Okay. And it means that there were people maybe entering into common interest agreements, but there's no evidence in writing of that, right?
Right, because we don't have any of the files.
Anthony DiSilvestro
Right. Um, just in general, what's the propriety of a government agency to decide to go along with providing an outside party information like this?
So I think the Department of Labor has the legal authority to share this information and it doesn't matter who asks first. A common interest still has to exist. Being asked really isn't the problem. The problem is that the Department of Labor had no criteria for deciding when to say yes, when to say no, and there was no real oversight in place. And without that, the risk of improper sharing remained high throughout the administration and that's why the current secretary is implementing the eight recommendations.
Thank you, next we'll go to Mr. Messmer.
Steffen Messmer
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Esposito, for being here today. The June OIG report says the Biden-Harris administration clearly used questionable practices related to common interest agreements. Your office has confirmed serious failures of accountability at the Biden-Harris Department of Labor, which led to the distinct possibility that enforcement information was used to advantage plaintiffs' attorneys in litigation. Clearly these tactics must never be repeated in the future. That is why today I will be introducing the Ethical Investigations and Integrity Act, which would establish protocols before the DOL may share any confidential information with outside attorneys as part of a potential civil action related to any law enforced by the Wage and Hour Division.
This legislation applies many of the same reforms that were included in HR 2958, the Balance the Scales Act, for practices under ERISA and applies them to laws enforced by the Wage and Hour Division. Can you discuss whether the tactics outlined in your report, including information sharing with outside counsel by WHD, should be restricted?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well, thank you, sir, for the question and first and foremost with regards to the legislation, our office would be happy to provide any technical assistance that you need with that. The report's findings do not indicate a definitive need to restrict the use of common interest agreements. Rather, the report highlights the importance for establishing the appropriate guardrails, the oversight, and the internal controls to help ensure that these agreements are used consistently, appropriately, and in accordance with departmental policies and legal requirements.
Steffen Messmer
Thank you. The OIG's report found the Office of the Solicitor's regional offices had different approaches in utilizing common interest agreements, including the use of written versus oral agreements, and regional offices have varying opinions regarding who signed common interest agreements. Can you provide more information about which regions were particularly lax in their approach and the extent of information that was shared with outside entities?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Sure. So what I can tell you is that the pattern was real. For example, the solicitor in our San Francisco office allowed oral common interest agreements and did not document anything related to the agreements that were being entered.
Others used written agreements exclusively and the signatory practices varied from region to region throughout the United States of America. That inconsistency, as reflected in our report, reflects a mismanagement and it also reflects a failure of the management that was in place and it underscores the need for stronger controls. And with regards to your question about the regions, I just want to read, there was a question asked to one of someone being investigated and asked if he knows what what other offices in Labor use common interest agreements. And this is the response, I quote. Uh, I can say that the two offices I have worked in, the Plans Benefit Security Division and the New York Regional Solicitor's offices use them.
I also know as a matter of public record that the San Francisco Regional Solicitor's office has used them fairly extensively, and other offices I know as a result of responses to FOIA has used them.
Speaker 11
Okay. Thank you. And appreciate your your testimony today and and my office will be glad to reach out to you for in help on the bill.
Randy Fine
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it's good to see you today. Congratulations on the role and thank you for for doing what you're doing. Um, I'm curious, what you described, the conduct you described is very troubling. And I want to get into motives in your estimation in a few minutes. But my my first question is, are former Labor Department officials associated with the Biden-Harris administration or frankly Democratic members of Congress, have any of them stated that they share your concern about what was clearly inappropriate conduct, or is this a situation where only one group of people is troubled and the other group seems to turn their head?
Anthony DiSilvestro
The only concerns that I've heard is the fact that from from the committee and and others on your side of the aisle that there was a problem, a systemic problem within the common interest agreements and that is why the audit was conducted and why there have been recommendations given to the department. I don't agree with the premise that just because it was only a few that there should that it should be...
Randy Fine
That you've been able to uncover. Right. That you've been able to uncover. I mean, right, you know, whether there's one, there's probably more. But it's not a broad, it's not generally accepted by everyone this is a problem.
So my next question gets to motives. Why do you think this was done? Is it incomp- I can come up with a few alternatives. Is it sort of incompetence, self-dealing, or sort of helping sort of criminal kind of kickbacks to your buddies? Like why this is conduct that never should have happened.
So why did it happen? What what's your estimation on the motives?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well, I would say that based on the audit and the investigation and the individuals that were part of the investigation, I'll go back to utilizing the example that I gave to the chairman with Mr. Munir Ahmad, who was special counsel to Julie Su and signed off on a common interest agreement with the Yale School Yale Law School Worker and Immigration Rights and then within six months was working to over...
Randy Fine
So Mr. Ahmad, so we understand this, Mr. Ahmad, um, cuts a deal with a future employer and then six months later is working for that employer. Is would that be illegal or is that is that just unethical, sleazebag behavior? I mean, what what is this just something we uncover or can we hold people like Mr. Ahmad accountable for that?
Anthony DiSilvestro
I think that there should be accountability, but what comes first is making sure that these departments and the work that you guys are doing in this in this committee, that those recommendations are implemented immediately and that this doesn't happen again. But to Chairman McKenzie's point, I think that there is an opportunity to go back and conduct further investigations into these common interest agreements to see if there was some sort of quid pro quo.
Randy Fine
Has anybody who did any of this, so we've got the example of Mr. Ahmad who did something sleazy and then ended up with a job with the group he did the sleaziness for, okay. Um, are there people who did this sort of behavior which you've now found is not appropriate who still work for the Department of Labor?
And if so, have they been held accountable for what they did?
Anthony DiSilvestro
I do not know of anyone who was mentioned in this investigation that still currently works at the Department of Labor.
Randy Fine
And so I understand that the people who did this, were they political appointees or were they generally career—political appointees you'd expect to generally leave, right? We've got President Trump coming in, the Biden people would leave. But the staff people you wouldn't think leave. So were the people who did this staff or political appointees?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well, I know that Mr. Ahmad was without a doubt a political appointee serving as counselor to Acting Secretary Julie Su. And obviously the—or not obviously, I shouldn't say that, but the assistant secretaries in charge of the agencies that were affected by this, those assistant secretaries would be appointed or nominated by the president and probably went through Senate confirmation hearing.
Randy Fine
So these law firms that got this information that they frankly never should have happened—remember, let's understand the Biden-Harris administration is giving information to lawyers so they can go make money. Let's understand what happened here. Do we believe these information sharing which never should have happened, was it sanctioned by Biden-Harris political leadership?
Anthony DiSilvestro
That wasn't uncovered in the audit. The audit was specific to the past and present—I put it in quotes—leadership of the Department of Labor.
Randy Fine
So look, I'd conclude by saying this: weaponization of government is real. Sometimes it gets a lot of attention, sometimes it doesn't. But this is one of these examples where we can see nefarious actors who are looking out for an agenda, not for the American people, doing things that they never should have done. So I applaud you for uncovering this, and I hope you stay at it, because where there's one rotten egg, there usually are many, many more. So keep up the good work, and I yield back.
Good to see you.
Thank you. Next we'll go to Mr. Scott, ranking member of the full committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Esposito, good to see you again.
Yes sir, Mr. Ranking Member.
Robert Scott
You have talked about the importance of independence. Can we count on you to respond to questions posed to you by myself as the ranking member of the committee or subcommittee members?
Absolutely.
Robert Scott
Thank you. We've asked a question about the ERISA Advisory Committee. It's not functioning. Is the Office of Inspector General aware of this, and if so, what have you done?
Anthony DiSilvestro
Well, we are in receipt of your letter. I have made a notification to the Acting Secretary of Labor. Obviously, as you know, he just went through his confirmation process, and from what I was told, he is working on putting policy and procedures in place for ERISA.
Robert Scott
Thank you. Another question we asked—it was asked to the Secretary that wasn't an Inspector General when we asked the question—and that is, according to public reports, companies owned by Elon Musk are being investigated at the time by OSHA and NLRB. When DOGE was going through the Department of Labor, did they have access to the investigatory files of these investigations of his companies?
Anthony DiSilvestro
I was not the Inspector General at the time when DOGE was present in the Department of Labor.
Robert Scott
Okay. And in investigations of the former Secretary, our interest is going forward, and have you put in place safeguards to make sure that such abuses don't take place in the future?
Anthony DiSilvestro
So, Mr. Ranking Member, there are some recommendations that have preliminarily been made to the department. But when the final report is issued, there will certainly be a number of recommendations that our office will make to the Department of Labor to make sure that any of the allegations or accusations that were made against the former Secretary, that we could avoid that happening again.
Speaker 19
Thank you. You've talked about the common interest agreements can be valuable. According to your report, you have paused them, you haven't stopped them, is that right?
Anthony DiSilvestro
I have not paused them. I've spoken to some of the assistant secretaries within the agencies that this has been a part of, who have said that they are putting a pause on them until the eight recommendations made by the Inspector General's office are implemented in full.
Speaker 15
But that suggests that they will continue after that report. Now you have gone into great detail about the problems that there were no procedures or controls under the Biden administration. Can we find the procedures and controls in previous administrations in writing?
Anthony DiSilvestro
The audit that was conducted by the Department of Labor Inspector General focused on a time frame within the Biden-Harris administration, as it was requested by at the time Chairwoman Fox. So the audit that was conducted and the investigation that was conducted would only provide information into that time frame.
Speaker 18
Are you aware of any procedures or controls in previous administrations when they were using the common interest agreements?
Anthony DiSilvestro
I am not aware, but I will say that from reviewing the audit and the investigation, there were not complaints in previous information of critical information being shared by the department with plaintiffs' attorneys.
Anthony DiSilvestro
I only started at the Department of Labor in January 2026, and I can only give you the proper answer to what we found while conducting this audit and investigation.
Robert Scott
Now you've had a back and forth over an employee who was at the Department of Labor and then got a job at a place that was involved in a common interest agreement. What safeguards are there to prevent employees at the Department of Labor from getting jobs at any entity that they may have had oversight responsibilities on?
Currently?
Right.
Anthony DiSilvestro
I believe that I'm pretty confident that any political appointee, or at least those confirmed by the Senate, fall into some restrictions of employment following their service.
Permanent?
Anthony DiSilvestro
I don't believe it's permanent. I think it's similar to members of Congress when you're leaving the Hill.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Kevin Kiley
Thank you. Well, thank you, Inspector General D'Esposito, for joining us here today. We appreciate your testimony on this important topic. We're now going to move to closing remarks, and I will start by recognizing the ranking member for his closing statement.
Mark Takano
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And once again, thank you to the witness for joining us today. This subcommittee is charged with important responsibilities, including ensuring that workers can come home at the end of the day healthy, whole, and fairly paid. Amidst the cost of living crisis in this country, Congress needs to step up and make life easier for working Americans. Unfortunately, today's hearing marked yet another missed opportunity to offer solutions to real problems affecting workers and their families.
This was the second hearing this Congress on a legal yet rarely used Labor Department practice of using common interest agreements. The IG report made process-focused recommendations, and I repeat, process-focused recommendations, and the Labor Department is currently implementing them. This is rather straightforward stuff. We've heard a lot of talk about the Biden administration this morning, but they haven't been in power for at least 18 months. Perhaps committee Republicans are focusing too much on the former administration because they don't have a good story to tell as we prepare to head home for the August recess work period.
Our constituents have been telling us that the economy isn't working for them. Yet Republicans have responded by making things even harder by enacting legislation that caused over 8 million folks to lose their healthcare coverage in the past year and caused over 4 million people to lose access to food assistance. That's certainly not a record that I'd want to talk about either. I hope that we can return from the August district work period with a renewed focus and address urgent issues such as raising the minimum wage, improving workers' rights, and strengthening child labor laws. That focus will actually help the American people.
Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Kevin Kiley
Thank you. This is by my count the 15th hearing that this subcommittee has held during this Congress, and we have discussed important issues such as wage laws, FECA, which is the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, and how we can protect our injured federal workers and get them safely and healthily back to a state where they can return to work. We have held two hearings on OSHA, one hearing on MSHA, a hearing focusing on innovative approaches to expanding paid leave. Other hearings have also included ways that we can provide increased access to healthcare providers across this country. This subcommittee and all of our members in a bipartisan fashion have done a great job of discussing important issues for the American worker, and this hearing is no different.
Common interest agreements, whether it was 12 or 48 or some unknown number because we didn't have a proper tracking system in place in the last administration, shake the confidence that people, the American people, have in their Department of Labor to go out and do the work on their behalf to make sure that they are in safe, healthy work environments and to a point where they can have a safe and secure retirement as well. So making sure that we have the proper safeguards in place is critically important at the department, and then also, as we talked about, holding those bad actors accountable is another critically important step. And so I would like to thank the Inspector General again for being here today to participate in this important hearing. And as this hearing has shown, during the previous administration, DOL failed to protect confidential investigative information, it did not screen for conflicts of interest by DOL personnel, and shared sensitive information with outside lawyers before lawsuits even began. That's not how government should operate, and Americans deserve to have full confidence that their Department of Labor and their government will safeguard their sensitive information.
So I would again like to thank the OIG, all of the employees there, and the Inspector General himself for their report and their recommendations on how we can better improve the operations of the Department of Labor and make much-needed reforms as we move forward. With that, I'd like to thank everybody again, and this meeting stands adjourned.