OPM director pressed about ‘toxic’ relationship with House Oversight

The acting director of the Office of Personnel Management was questioned Thursday about what one lawmaker described as a “toxic” relationship between her agency and the House Oversight Committee.

The oversight panel on Wednesday night issued a subpoena seeking documents related to last summer’s massive data breach at the OPM. The request came less than 24 hours before current agency head Beth Cobert was scheduled to face a grilling from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on her nomination to lead the agency.

{mosads}”Help us understand how that relationship is going to be good, but the relationship is really toxic on the House side right now,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Homeland committee.

“That’s typically a last resort to say ‘we’re going to subpoena this,’ ” Lankford said. “I’m trying to figure out why they had to say, ‘we’re not getting the documents at the speed or the type of documents we’re requesting,’ that it took a subpoena to say ‘let’s help push this.’ ”

Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) echoed Lankford’s concerns.

“We’re going to want to know more about that because it is troubling the House Oversight Committee had to resort to a subpoena,” he said later in the hearing. 

Cobert insisted that her agency is committed to a healthy dialogue with the Oversight Committee. But the relationship has become strained as the oversight committee probes the circumstances of the hack, which exposed the personal information of over 20 million current and former federal employees.

“We have produced hundreds, thousands of documents and we’re going to continue to be as cooperative as we can be,” Cobert told the Senate panel.

She insisted that “we have been working very actively to be responsive” to the committee’s requests for information, noting the OPM is a “small agency” and such requests require a “real commitment of resources.”

Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who has been spearheading the investigation into the hack, on Wednesday specifically called out Cobert.  

“OPM, under Ms. Cobert’s leadership, is not cooperating with the committee’s investigation,” Chaffetz said.

Cobert took over the post in June after former OPM Director Katherine Archuleta resigned amid the fallout from the digital intrusions. President Obama in November tapped Cobert to be the permanent director.

–Updated 2:34 p.m.