MS NOW: While some of the most “contentious partisan exchanges get the most attention,” Ossoff argued, the “investigation into corruption and civil rights abuses in our prison system,” the “mistreatment of military families by defense contractors” and the “abuse and trafficking of foster children in Georgia” are “equally important.”
Washington, D.C. — MS NOW is highlighting U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff’s record of Congressional investigations that have uncovered corruption, abuse, and misconduct, and his legislative work to then solve corruption that his investigations uncovered.
For example, in 2022, while investigating reports of corruption and abuse within Atlanta’s Federal prison as Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), Sen. Ossoff issued a Subpoena for the Biden Administration’s Bureau of Prisons Director, only securing his testimony after issuing the subpoena.
Later in 2022, Sen. Ossoff unveiled the results of another 8-month bipartisan investigation, which uncovered that BOP employees sexually abused female prisoners in at least two-thirds (19 of 29 facilities) of Federal prisons that have held women over the past decade. Survivors of sexual abuse testified that BOP employees assaulted them in areas where they knew there was no camera coverage.
After conducting the numerous investigations into the Federal prison system, Sen. Ossoff then used the evidence he uncovered to pass two bipartisan bills into law to strengthen oversight and accountability.
In December 2022, Sen. Ossoff passed into law his bipartisan Prison Camera Reform Act with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), which required the Federal Bureau of Prisons to upgrade outdated and broken security camera systems, ensuring all facilities have the coverage necessary to protect the safety of incarcerated people and staff.
In 2024, Sen. Ossoff then passed into law his bipartisan Federal Prison Oversight Act to overhaul independent oversight of the Bureau of Prisons by mandating routine inspections of all facilities by the DOJ Inspector General and establishing a new Ombudsman to investigate the health, safety, welfare, and rights of incarcerated people and staff.
In addition, after Sen. Ossoff’s investigation into Georgia’s foster care system uncovered the likely sex trafficking of foster kids, Sen. Ossoff then introduced and passed into law a bipartisan bill to help protect children from sex trafficking.
See key excepts below from MS NOW:
8/13: Inside Jon Ossoff’s congressional superpower: Making oversight go viral
MS NOW // Kevin Fry
- In recent years, Ossoff has pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about inconsistencies in the White House’s narrative about the Iran war. He’s pushed Tulsi Gabbard, the former head of national intelligence, to explain why she was present for an FBI search of a Georgia elections office. And he has peppered Louis DeJoy, the former U.S. postmaster general, about widespread mail delays in Georgia, asking him if he had received a letter he sent him.
- “As I conduct oversight,” he said, “I am trying to faithfully execute my solemn obligations under the Constitution as a United States senator to conduct vigorous oversight of the most out-of-control presidential administration in American history.”
- While some of the most “contentious partisan exchanges get the most attention,” Ossoff argued, the “investigation into corruption and civil rights abuses in our prison system,” the “mistreatment of military families by defense contractors” and the “abuse and trafficking of foster children in Georgia” are “equally important.”
- For instance, when Democrats held the Senate majority in 2022, Ossoff led an investigation of corruption and misconduct in the federal prison system — including at a facility in Atlanta.
- The effort included subpoenaing the outgoing head of the Bureau of Prisons to appear before his subcommittee — notable, given that Democrats controlled both the Senate and the White House at the time. At the hearing,Ossoff pressed the prison director to acknowledge that he was responsible for everything that occurs in the prison system.
- Ossoff credited the investigations with laying the groundwork for passage of bipartisan prison reform legislation.
- As chair of a Senate subcommittee on investigations, Ossoff also spearheaded a review of a private military housing company. He released a report finding that the company “failed to properly respond to both repairs and environmental hazards such as mold in homes on two military bases,” including one in Georgia.
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