Senate Panel Investigating Widespread Abuse, Corruption Subpoenas Federal Prisons Director

Michael Carvajal, the outgoing Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) director, has been subpoenaed to appear before a Senate committee investigating abuse, corruption, and misconduct in the federal prison system, including at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), who is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) and whose home is in Atlanta, announced the subpoena on Monday, adding that Carvajal had been asked to testify later this month.

Ossoff told CNN that Carvajal’s testimony is “vital to our ongoing congressional oversight and to this senate investigation,” adding that the PSI had taken the “extraordinary step” of issuing a subpoena to the former BOP director because the Biden administration has “refused to allow” Carvajal to testify.

The hearing is set for July 26.

In a press release, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations also said it has repeatedly requested testimony from Carvajal dating back to this spring, but that “the Department of Justice has refused to make him voluntarily available to testify.”

“To date, the Subcommittee has been provided no legal basis that would prevent Director Carvajal’s testimony before the Subcommittee, and the Department of Justice continues to refuse to make him available to testify,” the statement read.

Carvajal began his career with the bureau in 1992 and served as the assistant director for the Correctional Programs Division before being appointed as BOP director on Feb. 25, 2020, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Widespread Misconduct

He resigned from his job in January the year after, just months after an Associated Press report revealed widespread misconduct, abuse, and corruption within the correctional agency that appeared to have largely gone ignored.

The same report also found that over 100 workers at BOP had been arrested, convicted, or sentenced for crimes since 2019.

Cases included a warden indicted for sexual abuse, an associate warden charged with murder, guards accepting bribes in return for smuggling drugs, and rampant sexual assault at a women’s prison

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