Lying to Congress
Lying to Congress — under oath, in sworn declarations, or in formal congressional testimony — is a federal crime and a direct breach of the oversight relationship. Concrete forms include false statements about material facts during testimony, doctored documents submitted as authentic, and false representations to congressional investigators acting in their official capacity. The publication tracks instances where the statement is documented and the falsity is established (by contemporaneous documents, by later testimony, or by judicial finding). Routine disagreement over legal interpretation is not lying; lying is the false representation of facts within the speaker's knowledge.
2026 Events (3)
Forest Service Chief Schultz falsely told Congress DOGE cuts had not harmed wildfire capacity; agency documents and officials contradicted the claim
On July 23, 2026, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz testified before the House Agriculture Committee that DOGE budget cuts had not impacted wildfire firefighting capacity in Minnesota, where dozens of wildfires were actively burning. A Washington Post investigation published July 25, 2026, drawing on accounts from at least two current Forest Service officials and an internal agency document, reported that DOGE paused or canceled nearly all USFS grant projects and funds in early 2025, setting back fire-fuel-reduction preparedness by approximately a year and a half — directly contradicting Schultz's congressional testimony.
Attorney General Bondi told the House Judiciary Committee under oath that Maxwell was not moved to a lower-security prison
On February 11, 2026, Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before the House Judiciary Committee and, asked by Rep. Deborah Ross whether Ghislaine Maxwell had received special treatment in prison, answered that she did not know Maxwell was being transferred and that Maxwell "was not transferred to a lower-level facility," later repeating twice that it was a "same level" prison. The Bureau of Prisons, which falls under Bondi's department, classifies FCI Tallahassee — where Maxwell had been held — as low security and FPC Bryan, where the Justice Department moved her in August 2025 after she met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, as a minimum-security prison camp.
TSA Acting Administrator McNeill falsely told Congress TSA does not send passenger data to ICE; FOIA-obtained agreement showed it does
On January 21, 2026, Acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security that TSA does not send passenger data to ICE, saying the agency only "helps ICE check against information." A Memorandum of Agreement between TSA and ICE, signed in May 2025 and disclosed by American Oversight through a FOIA lawsuit on July 28, 2026, states that TSA "intends to share specified data elements with ICE" and sets procedures for ICE to retain that information.
2025 Events (1)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Senate his 2019 Samoa trip was unrelated to vaccines; colleague emails described it as a vaccine mission
During his January 29, 2025 Senate confirmation hearings for HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified that his 2019 trip to Samoa "had nothing to do with vaccines." FOIA-released State Department emails, reported in June 2026, show that his then-colleague Dr. Michael Graven—chief information officer of Kennedy's anti-vaccine nonprofit Children's Health Defense—explicitly described the trip as a "mission" to study vaccine discontinuance outcomes and stated that Kennedy personally asked him to join. Two Democratic senators and a House member had previously stated that earlier documentary evidence showed Kennedy lied to the Senate.