To date, LSC Inspector General (IG) Kirt West has refused to disclose the focus of the investigation. Indeed, in a telephone interview with the Brennan Center seeking comment for this E-lert, West declined to confirm that his office is investigating CRLA at all. However, on December 14, 2005, the IG notified CRLA that it would conduct two days of on-site employee interviews at CRLA’s Modesto office the following week. CRLA employees, most of whom were accompanied by personal or union counsel, responded to questions from the IG about a small number of cases and timekeeping matters. On January 24, 2006, the IG notified CRLA that it would conduct follow-up telephone interviews with CRLA employees. CRLA asked the IG for advance notice of the interviews to enable CRLA employees to consult with their attorneys, but the IG refused, asserting that CRLA employees had no right to counsel because the investigation focuses on CRLA, not on the possibility of criminal conduct by its employees. Then, in a March 20, 2006 letter, the IG requested client identities from over 30,000 files opened over the past three years, and hundreds of documents, including: (1) memoranda describing CRLA’s timekeeping and client intake procedures; (2) agendas, transcripts, and minutes of CRLA’s board meetings for the past three years; (3) the client names, facts, retainer agreements, co-counsel agreements, time keeping records, and funding sources associated with 12 cases; (4) documents relating to CRLA’s participating in administrative rulemaking proceedings and testimony in legislative settings; and (5) documents pertaining to CRLA’s collaboration over the past six years with certain non-LSC-funded organizations, including the 2000 census and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council. CRLA objects to several aspects of the investigation. In a January 24, 2006 letter, CRLA advised the IG that that his office’s failure to reveal the subject of the investigation “is inconsistent with long-established practices in CRLA’s cooperation with LSC and IG inquiries” and “unprecedented in any investigation of any LSC funding recipient.” In the same letter, CRLA urged the IG to honor its employees’ right to counsel and the confidentiality of its clients. CRLA also advised the IG that complying with the document request would force it to reveal confidential client information in violation of California statutory law. In an April 2006 document entitled “Continuing Dairy Industry Interference with CRLA, Inc.,” CRLA charges that the current investigation is politically motivated. Over the past 15 months, CRLA has obtained $1 million in settlements for several hundred dairy workers who labored in dangerous and even deadly conditions, often without receiving the minimum wage, overtime pay, and required rest and meal breaks. In the 2006 election cycle, the dairy industry contributed $94,750 to Congressman Nunes, more than it gave to any other American politician, according to the website www.opensecrets.org, which tracks campaign donations. The dairy industry donated another $150,442 to Congressman Nunes during the 2004 election cycle, second only to the amount it gave to George W. Bush in his presidential re-election bid. As previously noted, this is the fifth time since December 2000 that either LSC or the IG has investigated CRLA. In 2004, the IG found that CRLA had allowed some LSC funds to subsidize restricted activities by failing to charge a subtenant interest on late rent payments. At a March 2004 oversight hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Representative William Delahunt (D-MA) noted that, even if the IG's findings were true, the amount of disputed funds was only $511. Congressman Delahunt then asked CRLA Executive Director José Padilla how much it cost him to fly to Washington D.C. for the hearing. Padilla responded, “$1,211 . . . and some change.” After this investigation, Nunes requested in writing that LSC de-fund CRLA, and the Western United Dairymen formally wrote then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to request federal criminal prosecution of CRLA. Based on original reporting by Brennan Center staff.