As the investigation into the massive data breach that rocked the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) rolls on, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee issued a subpoena for additional documentation relating to last year’s cybersecurity disaster.
In a statement released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday (Feb. 3), Chairman Jason Chaffetz said: “OPM, under Ms. Cobert’s leadership, is not cooperating with the committee’s investigation. We made a commitment to the American people to ensure a hack of this nature never happens again. The documents we’ve repeatedly requested be provided to this committee are essential to fulfilling that promise. Despite assurances of cooperation, I’m disappointed Ms. Cobert is not working in good faith with the committee. I will use all available remedies to obtain the information needed to conduct a thorough and meaningful investigation.”
Unfortunately, for those trying to get to the bottom of the OPM hack, which compromised the personal information of more than 21.5 million current and former federal workers and contractors, as well as nearly 5.6 million fingerprint files, this is not the first time OPM officials have been seen as uncooperative.
Last year, officials from OPM, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget were accused of purposely failing to attend a congressional briefing on Nov. 17 to examine how the agency handled the massive data breach.
“They refused to come,” Mac Thornberry, the committee’s Republican chairman, told reporters at the time. “I’ve never had anybody complain about it before.”
“If they are unwilling to come and answer questions about the biggest national security data breach we’ve ever had, then that does not inspire greater confidence,” Thornberry added.
As reported by The Hill earlier this week, members of Congress have sent more than 170 letters related to the cybersecurity breach to OPM, and the office itself has conducted 13 briefings, both classified and unclassified, with Congress members in reference to the data breach.
While OPM claims to have produced tens of thousands of documents as a result of congressional requests, Chairman Chaffetz made it clear that the office has not sufficiently supplied the House Oversight Committee with the information it needs to continue its investigation properly.