By Sara Kropf Hindsight is 20/20. In retrospect, we can often see what our OIG investigation clients could have done to prevent the investigation. The three ideas below won’t prevent every investigation, but they can help mitigate the most serious consequences to your...
By Sara Kropf If I had a dollar for every time a government employee told me, “this OIG investigation is political!”—well, I’d be retired by now. I get it. The Inspector General for many agencies is appointed by the President. There’s a natural instinct to view that...
By Sara Kropf As Andrea mentioned in her last post, the Small Business Administration’s Office of Inspector General (SBA-OIG) has seen a massive increase in fraud complaints to its hotline. These are related to the CARES Act or Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). When...
By Sara Kropf Many—perhaps most—of my clients who are targets of Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigations think the process is not fair. They are right. In an OIG investigation, the same entity is the investigator, the prosecutor, the judge, and the jury....
By Sara Kropf Many of the clients we represent in Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigations are facing allegations that they violated federal ethics regulations or internal agency ethics rules. Here’s how it usually plays out. An OIG agent knocks on the...
By Andrea L. Moseley If you applied for pandemic relief funds and your business is in Virginia, you should be aware that civil and criminal fraud investigations and prosecutions are going to intensify in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA). Shown above, this...
By: Andrea Moseley Your company applied for money under the terms of the CARES Act: Are you at risk of facing scrutiny from DoJ because of your application? To understand the answer to this question, you must be aware of DoJ's fleet-footed approach to snuffing out...
By Sara Kropf On May 15, 2020, President Trump fired the State Department Inspector General and replaced him with a new Inspector General who has close ties to Vice President Mike Pence. Steven Linick had been the head of the State Department’s Office of Inspector...
A personal note: We hope everyone is safe and healthy right now. We aren’t going to spam your email with what our plans are for these strange and scary times. (If you want to know, we’re working hard for our clients, writing blog posts, and hugging our kids even...
By: Sara Kropf The following excerpt is from our upcoming e-book, A Guide to OIG Investigations for Federal Employees and Contractors. It’s filled with all sorts of useful information on the OIG investigations. We chose this excerpt in light of recent news about the...