Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) is demanding to know why the Drug Enforcement Agency spent $850,000 to bribe an Amtrak employee to provide confidential information on train passengers that the DEA could have gotten for free.
In a letter released Tuesday, Grassley pressed the DEA for answers on why the money was wasted, and how many similar mistakes have occurred.
"Has the DEA identified the weaknesses with their internal controls that allowed this improper and unnecessary use of taxpayer dollars to continue for nearly 20 years?" Grassley wrote.
A Monday report by the Amtrak Inspector General revealed that DEA agents paid an Amtrak "informant" to provide them passenger lists for trains, even though that information is available at no cost to the agency through a database.
From the report:
Secretary Provides Confidential Passenger Name Reservation (PNR) Information for Payment - A secretary to a Train and Engine crew regularly provided confidential PNR information to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents without seeking approval from Amtrak management or the Amtrak Police Department (APD). The employee received $854,460 in payment from DEA for this information from 1995 to the present. APD and DEA participate in a joint drug enforcement task force. The drug task force members can obtain Amtrak PNR information from APD task force members at no cost. The actions of the secretary prevented APD from jointly working with DEA in narcotics trafficking on Amtrak property, thus depriving APD from receiving $854,460 in asset forfeiture funds. The secretary was removed from service, and company charges were filed. The secretary chose to retire. We suggested policy changes and other measures to address control weaknesses that Amtrak management is considering.
Since the Amtrak employee retired, he or she is entitled to a full federal pension on top of the $850,000 in taxpayer money received from the DEA.
The report does not state what, if any, actions the DEA took in response to the incident.