Maxine Waters Rips Report About Misconduct At The FDIC Over ‘Lack Of Specificity’

3 months ago

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing earlier this month, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) questioned witnesses about a report regarding allegations of misconduct at the FDIC.

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Transcript

00:00Mr. Kim, the Clery report addresses some serious issues that confront the FDIC, yet the report

00:11does not provide any key information that is important to understanding the workplace

00:17culture at the FDIC and how to best correct the problems the report identified.

00:24For example, the report does not indicate how many of the 510 allegations are unique

00:33or even when these events occurred, other than that they occurred sometime between 1980s

00:42and this year.

00:43In fact, when discussing the allegations received through the hotline, the report states that,

00:50quote, because various individuals reported different types of misconduct that were sometimes

00:57overlapping or difficult to characterize, the numbers are estimates, end quote.

01:05Nor does the report indicate how many of the allegations were firsthand or secondhand.

01:12Given this lack of specificity, it is difficult to understand what types of misconduct may

01:18be increasing or declining over time and what types of misconduct are most prevalent

01:26today.

01:29Can you respond to that?

01:30Yes.

01:31Thank you.

01:33Our report reflects that 510 individuals reported into our hotline, and we provide at page 115

01:42of our report a breakdown of the different categories of reports that came in by subject

01:49matter.

01:50Many of those reports came in anonymously or confidentially, where the person reporting

01:55specifically requested that their information be kept confidential.

01:59How many of those reports were anonymous?

02:01Pardon me?

02:02How many came in anonymously?

02:08I can take that.

02:10We received 200 reports through the website that allowed for anonymous reporting.

02:16That said, even some of those reports contained contact information for the individuals.

02:21So 200 would be the high estimate.

02:25We did include in the appendix to the report, it's approximately 50 pages, of 46 representative

02:33examples of reports that came in to our hotline.

02:38That provides quite a bit of detail, both dates.

02:41Okay, let me be clear.

02:43What's the total number of reports?

02:47How many reports?

02:48What was the number of reports?

02:51510 through the hotline.

02:53And how many of those were anonymous?

02:57Approximately 200.

02:58About 200 of those, okay, all right.

03:02Just to complete the thought, we did provide in the report representative examples of the

03:09types of allegations we received, with detail, dates, and to the extent we did not include

03:14specificity, that was for the reason of protecting the confidentiality.

03:19So how many do you consider you were able to validate?

03:25The ways in which the ones that are identified in the appendix are corroborated or validated

03:31is set forth in the description in the appendix.

03:35It includes some reports that were consistent with other reports that others had made.

03:42Many of them, we do note in the report, many of the 510 are mere allegations.

03:48They are allegations that came into the report.

03:51We note that limitation in our report, but we also find in the report that the sheer

03:57volume and the nature of 510 reports coming in within a relatively short time of a hotline

04:06being opened with these types of allegations is in itself a finding.

04:10So how many of these most often occurred at the headquarters, the regional offices, or

04:15the field offices?

04:16Is that information identified in the report?

04:20I didn't remember seeing how many were actually headquartered field office or regional offices.

04:27What we said in the report on page 115, which is the page that Mr. Kim had pointed to, is

04:33that many allegations came from regional or field offices.

04:37We received reports from all six regional offices.

04:41We received reports from over 30 of the field offices, and we also received reports from

04:47the FDIC's headquarters.

04:49One limitation in the information that was available to us goes to the recordkeeping

04:55challenges that we had identified through our review.

04:59And so one of our recommendations is that the FDIC ensure more systematic recordkeeping.

05:04Thank you.

05:05We will now recognize the Vice Chair, Mr. Hill.

Maxine Waters Rips Report About Misconduct At The FDIC Over ‘Lack Of Specificity’

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