This is the fifth Washington Examiner op-ed documenting our team’s whistleblowing experience related to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hurricane Maria recovery debacle in Puerto Rico.

What does a failed watchdog look like? The Department of Homeland Security‘s Office of Inspector General offers the clearest example in modern federal oversight: a measurable, documented collapse, demonstrated in its reports to Congress. The office has become an oversight void — where credible whistleblower disclosures disappear, and accountability is systematically avoided.

We compiled these numbers from the Office of Inspector General semiannual reports to Congress during DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s tenure. We then compared those numbers to those of other agencies. From fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2025, the Office of Inspector General’s Whistleblower Protection Division reviewed 3,144 retaliation complaints. It confirmed just 11 — a validation rate of 0.35%.

Other federal watchdogs corroborate 3%–8% of retaliation cases. In the private sector, the rate is 20%–25%.

A PATH TO REFORM FEMA

That makes the Office of Inspector General between ten and 25 times less likely to confirm retaliation than comparable federal offices and 50 to 70 times less likely than the private industry. No statistical model explains a gap this extreme. It reflects institutional posture, not case quality.

The same pattern appears in waste, fraud, and abuse complaints. Even using the most generous reading of its semiannual reports, the Office of Inspector General acted on only 1,070 out of 140,344 complaints — a rate of 0.76%. Peer agencies average 2%–10%. The Office of Inspector General is not an outlier; it is the floor. This is not a rounding error, but rather an institutional fingerprint.

Inspectors general are supposed to function like umpires: impartial, with a bias toward protecting whistleblowers and an arm’s-length relationship with those they oversee. This is not the case at the DHS. Here, the cozy relationship between the Office of Inspector General and the departments it oversees enables and provides cover for misconduct.

Cuffari’s ineptitude is well known. Two GOP congressmen, multiple Capitol Hill staffers, and watchdog groups such as the Government Accountability Project and Project On Government Oversight all warned us: avoid Cuffari’s office! They have seen credible disclosures vanish into the Office of Inspector General black hole. At a whistleblower conference, a panel devolved into a two-hour discussion on the futility of using the Office of Inspector General.

Our cases comprised two of those rare 11. Our prime contractor, ATCS PLC, was found to have retaliated against me and a team member. They account for roughly one-fifth of confirmed retaliation cases, repeat offenders in a system designed to find none. Their misconduct was so blatant that even a 99.65% dismissal rate couldn’t hide it.

The WPD report completely ignored the retaliation and sabotage by colluding FEMA employees. When we asked for an appeal, WPD head Rohan Prashad ignored us and passed the buck to Office of General Counsel lawyer Rina Martinez. She was so dismissive when I spoke with her that I hung up. My lawyer finished the call. Case closed. Even though the report was 900 days late, slipshod, and failed to hold FEMA accountable, we were supposed to be grateful.

The strategy was........

© Washington Examiner