Mick Zais, the deputy secretary of education, asked the Inspector General's office to “reconsider any plan that it might have to review” the Trump administration’s move to reinstate the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. | Jeffrey Collins/AP Photo education Democrats contend DeVos deputy interfered with inspector general probe

Congressional Democrats said Tuesday they have uncovered evidence that the Trump administration tried to influence an internal watchdog's investigation of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Five top House and Senate Democrats said that the Trump administration sought to remove the Education Department’s acting inspector general last month after she pushed back on a request to “reconsider” her investigation into DeVos’ move to reinstate a controversial accreditor of for-profit colleges.


The Democrats, who sit on committees with oversight of the department, said that a January letter from a top DeVos deputy to Sandra Bruce, the acting inspector general, about the inquiry amounted to a “clear attempt to violate the statutory independence” of the agency’s inspector general.

POLITICO reported that President Donald Trump in late January abruptly appointed Phil Rosenfelt, the department’s deputy general counsel, to replace Bruce as the department’s acting IG. The White House backtracked on the decision several days later amid backlash from Democrats.

Democratic lawmakers cheered Trump’s reversal but also vowed to investigate how and why the decision was made in the first place. On Tuesday, the Democrats said they’ve become "increasingly concerned" that Bruce's removal was an attempt to interfere with the IG's independence.

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In the letter cited by Democrats, Mick Zais, the deputy secretary of education, asked the IG's office to “reconsider any plan that it might have to review” the Trump administration’s move to reinstate the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, known as ACICS.

Zais noted in his letter to Bruce that it was congressional Democrats who had called for the inspector general to open an inquiry of the ACICS decision. He wrote that it was “disturbing that your office appears to be responding to a Congressional request that is really a disagreement over policy and the merits of the Department’s decision.”

Zais also wrote that it was the Obama administration that should be investigated in connection with ACICS. A federal judge ruled last year that the Obama administration had illegally failed to consider tens of thousands of pages of evidence when it terminated the accreditor.

“Should you choose not to look into the previous Administration’s actions, I expect to receive a clear, written explanation with sound reasons why that will not be done,” Zais wrote in the letter, a copy of which the department provided to POLITICO. Zais delivered the letter to Bruce in person Jan. 4, according to Bruce’s response Jan. 7.

Bruce replied to Zais’ letter by telling him she planned to continue the review of the ACICS decision, according to a copy of her letter provided by the House education committee.

“At this time, we do not believe it is appropriate to engage further with the Department regarding our intended review of this matter,” Bruce wrote. “Independence (in appearance and fact) is key in the effective operation of an OIG.” Bruce also cited the federal law that prohibits agency leaders from preventing or prohibiting an inspector general from beginning or carrying out an investigation.

Several weeks later, Zais called Bruce to tell her that she was being removed from office. (He also later called to inform her that she was being reinstated.)

“Deputy Secretary Zais’ attempt to pressure Acting Inspector General Bruce into dropping the investigation into Secretary DeVos’s actions appears to be at odds with Congress’s clear intent that inspectors general should remain independent from agency leadership,” Democrats wrote in their letter on Tuesday.

Education Department spokesperson Liz Hill disputed Democrats’ assertion that the department had sought to pressure the inspector general into dropping an investigation.

“These claims are simply untrue and don’t match the actual sequence of events,” Hill said in an email. “The Department of Education, under Secretary DeVos’s leadership, would never seek to undermine the independence of the Inspector General. For anyone to insinuate otherwise is doing so with no basis in fact and purely for political gain.”

Hill said that the Trump administration’s appointment of Rosenfelt as acting inspector general “was made on the merits and intended to provide stable leadership.” She noted that Rosenfelt is a “highly-respected 48-year career civil servant.”

In addition, Hill said that discussions about replacing the acting inspector general predated Zais’ January letter to Bruce.

“These discussion began when the previous IG announced her retirement in October of 2018, long before [the] Department requested any investigation of ACICS include examining what led a court to overturn the prior administration’s decision of the ACICS matter,” she said.

The Democrats’ letter was signed by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the chairman of the House education committee; Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate education committee; Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the House oversight committee; Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee overseeing education.

The lawmakers asked DeVos to turn over more documents relating to the decision to install a new acting inspector general as well as communications between political appointees and the Office of the Inspector General during the Trump administration.

They asked the Education Department to provide the records and other information by March 5.

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