Investigative Report of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge Manager

We investigated a complaint from Congressman Walter B. Jones, Jr. alleging that a FWS employee, the employee’s supervisor, and other FWS employees engaged in activities that violated anti-lobbying restrictions during Congress’ consideration of a bill introduced in 2012, but never enacted, entitled the “Corolla Wild Horses Protection Act.” Representative Jones, who sponsored the bill, also provided us the response he received from FWS after previously expressing his concerns to FWS.

 

During our investigation, the FWS employee and his supervisor acknowledged communicating with Ducks Unlimited (DU) about the bill. Both said that DU initiated the communication but that they knew that DU intended to write a letter to the Senate opposing the legislation using the information provided by the FWS employees. Our investigation also determined that FWS local and regional officials knew about these communications on or around the times that the employee and his supervisor made them.

 

We found that a member of FWS’ External Affairs staff drafted a majority of FWS’ response to Representative Jones, with legal guidance and input from a former special assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks who consulted with GAO and determined that the email communications violated the anti-lobbying provisions contained in the 2012 Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

 

We presented this case to the Public Integrity Section within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which is designated in the United States Attorney’s Manual as responsible for prosecution of violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1913. We also presented this case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Eastern District of North Carolina. DOJ and the USAO expressed no interest in pursuing the matter.