Warren, Krishnamoorthi Call on Inspector General to Investigate Failures of Education Department Ethics Program under Secretary DeVos
Counselor to Secretary May Have Misled Congress on his Compliance with Ethics Law
Letter to Inspector General (PDF)
Washington, DC - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) today asked the
Department of Education's Inspector General (IG) Kathleen Tighe to investigate
the Department's ethics program. They brought to attention recent reporting
that found Robert Eitel, Senior Counselor to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos,
played a more central role than previously indicated in the Department's
decision to delay the enforcement of the borrower defense and gainful
employment rules.
Federal ethics law requires federal employees to be "recused" from
any "particular matter" in which the individual has a financial
interest. Mr. Eitel may have violated the law by working on either borrower
defense or gainful employment while he was simultaneously employed by
Bridgepoint Education and the Department between February 13, 2017 and April 5,
2017. The gainful employment and borrower defense rules are of direct financial
interest to Bridgepoint.
"We are deeply troubled that Mr. Eitel's questionable compliance with
federal ethics rules, including his apparently misleading testimony to
Congress, signal a critical breakdown in federal ethics at the Department of
Education, which requires urgent attention and remedy," wrote
Warren and Krishnamoorthi.
The Department and Mr. Eitel misled Congress about his role in the gainful
employment rule. In an October
2017 letter to Senator Warren, Secretary DeVos stated that Mr. Eitel had
"voluntarily recused" himself from the matter and the Department's
Office of the General Counsel also reported
this voluntary recusal in a February 2018 clarification letter to Senator
Warren. In response to questions
for the record from Representative Krishnamoorthi, Mr. Eitel himself stated
he had recused himself from gainful employment regulations. But despite this
recusal, Mr. Eitel may have been involved in conversations, meetings, and
events pertaining to the gainful employment regulation and the decision to
delay it.
Senator Warren and Representative Krishnamoorthi have asked the Department
repeatedly to clarify Mr. Eitel's involvement in decisions around borrower defense
but the Department has never explicitly confirmed or denied whether Mr. Eitel
worked on the borrower defense rule while he was concurrently employed by
Bridgepoint.
The members of Congress asked the Department IG to examine the entire federal
ethics program at the Department to prevent other instances of staff with
conflicts of interest influencing policy that impacts millions of students and
borrowers - and to also inspect closely Mr. Eitel's involvement in the gainful
employment and borrower defense rules given the new evidence.
Senator Warren's oversight effort, DeVos
Watch, has been tracking the series of steps taken by Secretary DeVos and
the Department that violate conflicts of interest and undermine protections for
students and taxpayers.
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