Presenters:
- Zachary Schram, Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs. Previously, Mr. Schram served as staff director and chief counsel for Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) on the Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management. Prior to that he served as the Senior Advisor and Investigations Counsel at the Department of State where he represented the Department in congressional investigations. He also served for nearly 9 years as counsel on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations under Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). During his tenure there, he played a key role in many of the Senate's most significant bipartisan investigations of the last decade, covering issues as varied as credit derivatives trading, counterterrorism intelligence shortcomings, the financial crisis, money laundering, United Nations program mismanagement, and abusive lending practices.
- Justin Rood, Investigative Correspondent, Insider. Mr. Rood previously directed the Project On Government Oversight's Congressional Oversight Initiative, which aims to improve and enhance Congress's ability to do effective oversight by providing information, advice and other assistance. From 2012 to 2014, Rood served under U.S. Sen. Tom A. Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) as director of investigations on homeland security matters on the Minority Staff of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. From 2009 to 2012, he worked under Coburn as senior investigator on the Minority Staff of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. There he led an investigation into domestic intelligence fusion centers, finding them "pools of ineptitude, waste and civil liberties intrusions," in the words of The Washington Post's front-page coverage. Rood also has been a non-resident fellow with Yale Law School's Information Society Project, and an award-winning investigative producer and reporter with ABC News and other outlets. He is a graduate of Pitzer College in California.
The session was also moderated by Justin Rood, former Director of POGO's Congressional Oversight Initiative.
Training Resources:
- POGO Handbook: The Art of Congressional Oversight, A congressional oversight handbook to help improve the quality of oversight activities on the Hill.
