DOJ Drops Civil Suit Against POGO

For Immediate Release

Statement of Danielle Brian, Executive Director, Project On Government Oversight:

After two trials—the most recent of which ended in a mistrial—and two appeals, the Justice Department today dropped its civil suit against the Project On Government Oversight. Throughout this 15-year saga, we’ve stood by our principles, and we’re thankful to finally put this ordeal behind us.

Our involvement in this matter has always been motivated by the public interest. Because of POGO’s work exposing corruption in the Department of Interior’s oil and gas royalty collections program, we were able to sue 15 of the largest oil and gas companies under the False Claims Act for defrauding the government. The resulting settlement with the companies returned nearly a half billion dollars to taxpayers.

While the civil suit has been a terrible distraction, it never kept POGO from our mission of rooting out fraud, waste and abuse. We look forward to continuing our work.