Was the 2012 Jobs Report Rigged? Investigating a Whistleblower's Shocking Claim

Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and I appeared on Fox with Sean Hannity to talk about a whistleblowers disturbing allegations that Census employees fabricated data used for determining the unemployment rate...right before the 2012 Presidential Election. Coincidence? Were investigating to find out. Click here to watch our Sean Hannity segment, where we discussed the alleged false jobs report and our plans of future investigations to get answers.

The New York Post broke a news story that featured a whistleblower’s shocking allegations: According to a former U.S. Census Bureau employee, employment data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2012 was fraudulent. Even more disturbing: the whistleblower is claiming the Labor Department used this same fabricated data to determine the unemployment rate in 2012 jobs reports, a report the Labor Department releases each month to provide Americans with an outlook on the state of our economy.

These allegations are extremely serious. Any fabrication or manipulation of Census data - for any reason, political or otherwise - is a serious offense and has major consequences. Census data influences decisions made from Main Street to Wall Street, in Congress and with the Federal Reserve. Not to mention, the American people who look to - and trust - the data the government releases on our nations unemployment and the state of our economy. These allegations do nothing but give more weight to other recent scandals involving this Administration - like the IRS targeting of conservative groups, the Administration’s lies in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, the Administration authorizing the NSA to collect private citizens’ phone and Internet records as a means to investigate terrorism - and most recently (until now) the Presidents failed promise that "if you like your health insurance you can keep it."

The day after the New York Post story broke on the whistleblowers allegations of the Census "fixed" jobs report, I, along with Oversight Committee Chairman Issa and Joint Economic Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady sent a letter to the Director of the Census Bureau demanding more information and documents related to the potentially fabricated jobs data. Click here to read the letter we sent and what information were seeking.

As Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Census Bureau, I can assure you that the subcommittee, as well as the full Oversight Committee, will be thoroughly investigating these claims. We will talk to Census Bureau and Administration officials, under oath, to question the agency and Administration on the validity of these allegations. In the mean time, my fellow leaders on the House Oversight Committee and I are not going to wait to until hearings are scheduled to begin our investigation into these serious allegations. We are demanding answers now. After learning of the whistleblowers shocking claims in the New York Post, Committee Chairman Issa, Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady and I sent a letter to the Director of the Census seeking more information related to the alleged fabricated jobs data. Here are just some of the documents were requesting from the Census Bureau by December 3rd (find the full list on Pages 2 and 3 of our letter here): all communications related to the Current Population Survey; all e-mails to and from the former Census employee who is accusing the Census Bureau of the disturbing allegations, Julius Buckmon; all Buckmon-related documentation from the inspector general’s office; all communications on data collection between the Philadelphia office in which Buckmon was employed and Census Bureau headquarters; and a list of CPS supervisors at the time.

Was the 2012 jobs report rigged by the Census Bureau? I intend to find out. This story is far from over. Stay tuned.