The Justice
Department filed a civil complaint Wednesday against the company that handled
the background checks of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and
Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis for allegedly submitting thousands of unfinished
investigations as complete, and then attempting to conceal their actions after
government officials caught wind of what they were doing.
At least
665,000 investigations – or 40 percent of cases submitted to the government
over a four-year period – were affected by U.S. Investigations Services’ (USIS)
actions, the Justice Department said. The alleged fraud continued through at
least September 2012.
The
complaint said that USIS engaged in a practice known inside the company as
"dumping" or "flushing." It involved releasing incomplete
background checks to the government but claiming they were complete in order to
increase revenue and profit. The company did so knowing that there could
potentially be quality issues associated with those reports, the government
alleged.
USIS was
involved in a background investigation of Snowden in 2011, but his particular
job doesn't factor into the lawsuit. The government has contracted USIS since
1996 to vet individuals seeking employment with federal agencies.
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The Falls
Church, Va.-based company conducts hundreds of thousands of background checks
for government employees and has more than 100 contracts with federal agencies.
In response
to the complaint, USIS officials said that integrity and excellence are core
values at USIS, which has 6,000 employees.
The
government paid the company $11.7 million in performance awards for the years
2008, 2009 and 2010, according to the Justice Department court filing.
USIS senior
management "was fully aware of and, in fact, directed the dumping
practices," the government complaint said. Beginning in March 2008, USIS'
president and CEO established revenue goals for the company. USIS's chief
financial officer determined how many cases needed to be reviewed or dumped to
meet those goals, the complaint added, and conveyed those numbers to other
company leaders.
According to
one internal company document, a USIS employee said, "They will dump cases
when word comes from above,” such as from the president of the investigative
service division and the president and CEO.
The
background investigations that were dumped spanned most government agencies –
including the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the
Defense Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Health
and Human Services, the Transportation Department and the Treasury Department.
In one
example, the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in April 2011 had
raised concerns with USIS after tests showed that a large number of
investigation reports were identified as complete when computer metadata
revealed that the reports had never been opened by a reviewer. In a response to
OPM, USIS falsely attributed the problems to a variety of software issues, said
the Justice Department filing.
In addition,
USIS ensured that all dumping practices stopped when OPM was on site conducting
audits – and then resumed after OPM's auditors were gone, the government
alleged.
"Most
of the September miss should `flush' in October," an email from USIS's
chief financial officer said to the vice president of the investigative service
division.
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