The SEC Roots Out Golf on the Taxpayer Dime

Oh, Jason, you have no idea how deep golf addiction runs.

I mean, I didn't until I got a copy of this SEC investigative report. And you know, Matt, I'm glad I FOIA'd that.

And Jason, again, is patting himself on the back. Literally.

Tee it up! I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold. I spend most of my days getting documents from the government.

I'm attorney Matt Topic, and I fight them in court to open their files when they don't want to.

From Bloomberg and No Smiling, this is Disclosure. a podcast about pying loose government secrets, the Freedom of Information Act, and the unexpected places that takes us. Hey, Matt.

Hey, Jason.

Look at that shirt you're wearing. Is that a golf shirt?

It's a bright yellow fluorescent golf shirt my kids gave me many years ago for Father's Day. And I even have a hat on that says golf, in case you weren't sure. If I could just hang out with my family... play golf, and fight with the government, that would be a complete and full life for me.

Do you remember our golf story, our golf outing?

I do remember our golf outing.

I'm not a golfer, but you invited me on.

Yeah, that was clear when you showed up in vans and a leather jacket.

I didn't wear a leather jacket.

I think you maybe did.

You were driving the golf cart, and I stuck my hand out to try to get a golf ball while the cart was going and tweaked my shoulder.

It would have been hilarious if you fell out, but no, it messed you up for a little while.

When you usually play golf, what time of day is it?

I mean, whenever. I've played it one in the afternoon when it's 95 degrees out.

Do you play during work hours?

Well, see, that's a trick question, Jason, because I don't really have work hours.

Oh.

My work-life balance is really just a big old mush of all of it together. I don't ever I never bill clients for time that I spend on a golf course. Maybe that's the best way to answer your question.

You know who does love to golf during office hours, Matt?

Tell me.

SEC employees, according to an inspector general report I recently received.

Wait, SEC employees playing golf during work hours. Like you can't make this up, can you?

Back in March, while scrolling through the SEC's website, An announcement caught my eye. Here's what it said. SEC information technology supervisor resigned and two employees were suspended following investigation into whether they golfed during duty hours without taking leave. So I saw this and you know what I had to do, Matt. Gotta for you that. So what did you ask for in your request? Well, my summer reading list was looking a bit thin, Matt. So I just filed a request for the full copy of the Inspector General's investigation. It took about three months for them to send it to me, which, you know, these days, that's pretty quick. It's 11 pages. But Matt, this report does not disappoint. What's the cover page say?

It looks very official, and it has a seal with an eagle on it. Office of Inspector General, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, report of investigation, SEC employee misconduct redacted. I would not want to be the person who's subject to a report that looks like this. So I got to know, Jason, where does this investigation begin?

So back in August 2024, the SEC's Office of General Counsel received a complaint. Somebody overhears a conversation at a Maryland golf course. And then the next thing you know, this person sends an anonymous tip to the SEC's Office of General Counsel. The report contains all of the highlights. Matt, you want to read what it says?

In their email, the anonymous complainant reported that they overheard golfers believed to be SEC employees refer to, quote, SEC life and said, quote, golf is great on the taxpayer's dime.

Wait, this is fake.

There's no way that.

SEC employees are in a public golf course and they're just bragging about Golfing on the taxpayer's dime.

This is... I mean, as soon as I got this report and saw that line, I kind of went like this because I was like, that's why I FOIA.

Jason's patting himself on the back.

Yeah, that's why I FOIA'd for the full report. This is awesome. Who are these employees? Well, that's a good question. So the tipster's email identified one employee by his first name and suggested that this person worked in information technology or communications at the agency. And then using the SEC's directory, investigators figured out who it was. Ultimately, they determined that three SEC employees were involved. an information technology supervisor, his subordinate, and another employee who worked in the same department. But the SEC redacted their names from the report. No surprise there, right, Matt?

This is just such a great if you see something, say something moment. So kudos to you, Tipster, for reporting this.

Good for you.

Yeah.

What happens next, though, is kind of amazing. And the email sets in motion almost immediately an investigation to find out if these employees really are golfing during work hours. So these investigators invested a lot of time and effort probing the employees' golf outings. just under a year and a half, from August 2024 to December the following year.

They reviewed employees' time card records, inspected documentation from a company that handles tea time reservations, and they even conducted surveillance at the golf course.

Surveillance? Surveillance, Matt. Surveillance, that's awesome. You know what I'm picturing is in, I think it's the second Caddyshack movie, Dan Aykroyd has a character who's got like, he's in the woods and he's got like the tree, like, you know, branches and leaves stuck to.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

So let me set the scene. It was six weeks after the anonymous tip, September 20th, 2024. It was a Friday, just a regular workday. And investigators took a field trip to a public 18-hole golf course in Maryland. with camera in hand. So I'm picturing like an old Chevy Caprice or Chevy Impala, these like wide collars, collared shirts that these guys are wearing, real bushy mustaches. And I don't know, like those Ray-Ban cop glasses.

That's good.

So they go to this golf course and they're ready to catch a glimpse of these office ditching SEC employees. And at around 1.15 p.m., It's showtime. I'm reading from the report here and an SEC employee, we don't know his name. So just to keep track, let's give him a fake name. Let's call him Shooter McGavin, like from Happy Gilmore. Shooter. And so he arrives at the golf course at that time. And Shooter is an information technology supervisor.

But Shooter wasn't alone. He was with two other SEC employees. And one was Shooter's subordinate. What should we call these other two employees, Matt? Give them names.

I think we should go with Hotshot and Ace.

Oh, I like it. Hotshot and Ace, yeah. So they unloaded their clubs, practiced their putting on the green, and hit the links around 1.45 p.m. Is this what it says in the report?

Like, it's at that level of detail? We've watched them unload their clubs and practice putting and hit the links?

Yeah, it didn't say hit the links. That was me.

I got it.

I'm just giving you a hard time. You know, I'm going to start wearing a, you know, a glove. But one sighting wasn't enough for these investigators.

Why was one sighting not enough? Like, oh, they just did it once.

You know, they had to prove their case.

I get it. I really respect the diligence that they're doing here.

They're working it. You know, they're working their case. So about a month later, investigators spent another Friday staking out the club. And guess what? They see Shooter again. Do you want to read this one from the report, Matt? But when you read it, you've got to do it in a Batman voice. And by the way, it's okay if you want to do Lego Batman, too. Batman.

I'll do my best. November 1, 2024. Redacted, who we're calling Shooter, and a non-SEC federal government worker arrived at approximately 11.57 a.m., practiced on the driving range, and started golfing at 12.31 p.m. They return their golf cart at approximately 5 o'clock p.m.

That was good.

Can I just add some commentary here? I will say, so that's a round of four hours and 29 minutes. It's a little slow. It's within kind of the zone of reasonableness. This is a Friday afternoon. Yeah, probably it's a little bit crowded. Probably a bunch of other people blowing off work on Friday afternoon, drinking a few beers.

So yeah, I'm not going to ding them for a four and a half hour round. The goal is really sub four hours, but.

Keep in mind, golf is great on the taxpayer's dime. They're not trying to rush through their game, man. But I just want to take a step back for a moment here, okay? So you said it, four and a half hours. But during those four and a half hours, the SEC investigators spent their entire day, for the most part, or at least their entire afternoon, watching these guys.

There's food wrappers and empty coffee cups strewn about the inside of the car.

Yeah, this is a big deal. So a week later, again, I'm looking at the report, on November 8th, the SEC authorized a two-hour early dismissal for employees who want to cut out for the afternoon for Veterans Day, federal holiday. By then, though, Shooter hotshot an ace and had already been at the golf club for hours. Investigators observed them arriving around 10.45 a.m., and they didn't return their golf cart until 4 p.m. Unbelievable.

So no early dismissal. for the investigators. They had to keep going.

No, they're on the clock. Everybody's golfing on the weekdays. Everybody wants a.

Everybody wants to save their personal days because that's what these guys could have done if they wanted to golf on a Friday is just use their personal time.

Oh, I like it.

So the investigators have seen three employees golfing three times in less than two months. How often are they taking these little... golf outings during office hours.

Okay, this is great. And this is what we know from the report. So investigators reviewed about three years of time and attendance records from January 2022 through December of 2024. And this part is just hilarious. Matt, do you know what Golf Now is?

I do know what Golf Now is. It is an app that you can use to find in book tee times. And it has a commercial with a gopher that is a pretty obvious play on the gopher from Caddyshack. It's very widely used for booking tea times.

Full circle. But here's the part that's great. The SEC investigators obtained tee time records from Shooter's Golf Now account and from the golf course. Matt, just so you know, this is a real investigation. This is not like, ah, you know, we got a couple of employees on the golf course. I mean, this is serious. This is no joke. Yeah.

You got a FOIA for the subpoena to Golf Now. I would love to see that.

I mean, I assume that that's how they would have obtained it. It doesn't explain it in the report.

Oh, Golf Now, I'm sure, fully respects golfer golf app confidentiality. And in the absence of a subpoena, I would hope they wouldn't just turn over my very personal golfing records.

Well, I reached out to Golf Now, and a spokesperson declined to comment. So the investigators compared Shooter's tee times with his employee time and attendance records and actually made this pretty cool little chart here. Take a look. And can you describe what you're looking at? All right.

So I'm looking at a table and it's titled Summary of Redacted Work Schedule Golf Reservations and Tests. Known golf activity. I love that. KGA. Known golf activity.

Known golf activity. Yeah.

That's great. All right. One column is date. And then going down the column, there's, I don't know, maybe 20 rows or so. It's got the dates starting in March 2022, going through November 2024.

The next is day.

The days are almost all F for Friday, although there was one Monday. Incredible. Golf Now reservation time. These are all late morning and into the afternoon. Golf Now reservation location. They have redacted the.

Oh, come on.

They've redacted the location of the golf courses. I can't make it out. What's the basis on that?

I mean, of course, it's probably a privacy exception, right? What are they saying? You're telling us that... If we figured all this out, what the location is of the golf course, it will ultimately allow us to figure out who the employee is, whose identity was redacted.

I'm calling BS on redacting the golf course names. I guess the theory is if you knew who played on April 15, 2022 at 11.50 a.m. at some particular golf course, you'd know who these people are.

I want to know where they're playing. Right, exactly. I want to know.

So in this last column, the times I got from the golf course, there's a bunch of times that are mostly in the afternoons, like as early as like 11.30 a.m. and as late as 3 o'clock p.m.

What you're looking at is 23 separate times when Shooter alone made reservations and or played golf on company time. Or I'm sorry, should I say the taxpayer is done? So basically between these three employees, they played golf or made a golf reservation at least a combined 26 times between March 2022 and November 2024 while on the clock.

So if we do some math here, I mean, I'm just looking at the dates and they've got As early in the year as March and as late in the year as November. So let's call it nine months of golf weather a year. That's almost once a month for three seasons straight. Do we know how much these employees are getting paid?

They're making salaries from at least $ 100, 000 to more than $ 200, 000 a year.

Wow. Plus they get the perk of playing golf on the taxpayer dime on a regular basis.

On the taxpayer's dime. At all hours. You know, all seasons. You know, guess what? November? I kind of assume November is pretty cold in D.C., but it doesn't matter. You know, it doesn't matter if, you know, the ground is hard as a rock, because when it's on the taxpayer's dime, it is great.

All right, so what happens next?

All right, so now it's time to talk to these employees. In March 2025... the investigators called Shooter McGavin in for an interview. It didn't last long. After they explained, quote, the allegation of golfing during work hours, Shooter said he wanted a lawyer and the interview immediately ended. And I have to say- Lawyer's up! Yeah, I have to say respect, right?

Respect to Shooter because he wasn't saying anything. He's clearly well aware about self-incrimination. So a couple of months later, Shooter comes back with a lawyer for an interview. And this is just amazing. So he told investigators that he was on teams inside of the SEC, these work teams, that he thought allowed him to, quote, flex his time.

And he explained that he was, quote, always on call while at the golf course. And so that got me thinking, Matt, when you're on the golf course, are you always on call? Like, could I call you and talk about my FOIA cases?

You can always call me anytime, day or night, Monday through Sunday, and I'm happy to talk to you. Now, as a matter of etiquette, I'm maybe not going to take your call on the golf course. Etiquette to the other golfers. I mean, like, there's nothing more annoying than you're playing behind some group and it's taken forever because somebody's like on the phone on the golf course, you know?

And Shooter believes that he's a surgeon, you know, and it's like, guys, if you need me, you know where to find me. I'll be on the golf course. He's Dr.

Beeper.

From Caddyshack.

He's Dr.

Beeper.

Oh, just snake a tube down her throat and I'll be there in four or five hours.

Unreal. But these quotes are great. So I want to read from the report. I'm going to play the SEC's OIG investigator, and you be shooter. So, okay, here we go. You think that being responsive, you're golfing, and then you can just answer your phone on the course? And that means you're working?

Well, yeah, dot, dot, dot. It's my personal time in my mind.

Matt, can you read that again, but do it in the voice of, what's his name, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High?

Oh, God.

Sean Penn's character?

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

It's my personal time in my mind. Exactly. If I'm here and you're here, doesn't that make it our time?

So getting back to it, I'm the OIG investigator. During core hours, employees are expected to be at their desks working.

I disagree with that.

Let's just stop for a second.

During....

During core hours, employees are expected to be at their desk working. So not really controversial, right, Matt? Like, you know, you got a job. You're supposed to be working when you, you know, during the time that you're at work. And he's saying, wait, he's saying, I disagree with that. Yeah. But Shooter explained that while he wasn't required to be at his computer desk, to do his job or give his team direction. His subordinates had to be. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.

He's like, listen, it's totally fine for me to be on a golf course. And I'm an awesome supervisor because the people who work for me, they're at their desks. They gotta be at their desks.

That's right.

He thinks he's like an investment banker or like a partner at a huge law firm or something.

Why should I be at my desk when I got these guys taking care of everything over there? So next, the investigators interviewed Shooter's boss, right? And they were shown surveillance photos of his employee golfing during work hours. And so Shooter's boss said he never authorized it and was, quote, shocked and thought the conduct was, quote, blatant.

Well yeah can i ask a clarifying question here yeah it before you go to the next part so is shooter he's saying he's working from home these days right like or does the supervisor just miss that like shooters like not in the office like a lot of friday afternoons.

It's a good question. I mean, just from looking at this report, it does mention some kind of remote work. At that time, many government employees had some kind of remote work schedule.

Yeah, there's no world in which being on a golf course counts as being at work. Even if you're taking calls, even if you're keeping on top of your emails.

Come on. I love how he rationalizes it. So another manager- who spoke to the SEC investigator, said, this is great. He said that his– I'm just laughing thinking about it. So he said his employee, quote, joked about golfing on the job, but they didn't take it seriously. Or the employee maybe felt guilty. He's like, ha-ha, I'm golfing right now.

He just couldn't keep it secret but made it come across as a joke.

Or was he setting himself up later to be like, no, no, no. My supervisor knew. I told everyone I was golfing on the job. There's no secrets here. Yeah.

I mean, I imagine that's what must have happened. That would be the only reason why he joked about golfing on the job.

I'm picturing just some surly, crusty bureaucrat who's just like, Like the person at the DMV who's just letting the lines sit there forever. Like Patty and Selma smoking cigarettes at the DMV in The Simpsons.

Oh, my God. So as for the guys we're calling Hotshot and Ace, and to be clear, those are fake names. Hotshot said he thought he, quote, took leave when he golfed during work hours. He also said he believed his flexible schedule allowed him to golf during work hours because he was on call. So there seems to be kind of like a little bit of a coordination of stories here. Maybe, you know, you know, he too was on call. He's another surgeon, an SEC, you know, surgeon.

And well, I mean, there is a world where I know some IT people are like, they're not They're not expected to be working, but they're on call in case something arises. But I don't– it seems like they're starting to hint at that, but that's not actually what's happening here. So what about Ace? What did Ace have to say?

Okay. So Ace said the same thing during his interview and added– again, the same thing. But he added that he worked extra hours to make up for any time. He missed when he was supposed to be working.

Which I'm guessing SEC employment policies do not allow you to do that.

Yeah. And it's like, oh, man, I just spent 12 hours on the golf course. So I'll just work, you know, 12 extra hours or whatever he did. This is like amazing. You know, and it's just incredible that. One, that they were golfing for as long as they were, that the SEC found out about this through an anonymous tip, and it kind of just unraveled until we get to the point in the interviews where they're admitting that they were doing it, more or less, but they were rationalizing.

And amazing to me is if they just kept their mouth shut, not mouthed off about it in a public golf course, they would still be getting away with this, apparently.

Right? Yeah.

We only know this because they went to a golf course and said, it's SEC life. It's great playing golf on the taxpayer's dime. And then somebody rats them out.

Somebody heard it. But let's be clear. If I heard or if you heard Well, I'm a reporter, so I would be investigating it and writing a story.

You'd be the one staking them out with a long scope camera.

Yeah, in my Chevy Impala. But, you know, if you're a government employee and you're saying golf is great on the taxpayer's dime and somebody overhears it, yeah, you know, they're trying to, I mean, they're figuring out, you know, God, this is not cool. This is not okay. Hubris.

All right. So how did the inspector general in the SEC handle these findings, Jason?

Well, they submitted this report and their findings to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington last year. Yeah.

Wow.

Wow. Okay. Prosecutors declined to pursue charges. And the IG then referred its findings to the SEC. And that brings us back to the announcement, you know, I saw on the SEC's website earlier this year. And it said that the supervisor, who again, we're calling shooter, agreed to resign after the investigation. And the other two employees received three-day work suspensions. Three-day work. work suspension.

Do you think they spent those days on a golf course? They're laughing, right?

I'm just wondering if it was like this golf course in Maryland, or if they just like went, you know, to a private, you know, golf course. I will say, you don't typically see a whole lot of government.

Employees with private golf club memberships.

Yeah. But this is great. So, you know, as I mentioned, there was another federal government employee, you know, that the SEC report said was, who was photographed at the golf course. And the IG report says that that it informed that agency's IG about this, you know, government employee. Oh, have you chased that down yet? I have not started, but obviously I'm going to have to FOIA more agencies for, more IG offices for agency reports about golf.

Did they have to pay back the time that they essentially stole the It doesn't seem like it, right?

It doesn't say that they did.

So it sounds like they kind of came out ahead.

That's it.

And some employers, like your unused personal and vacation time, which is what they should have been using if they wanted to play golf on a Friday afternoon. And hey, if their schedule allows them to do it, like just use your time. But some employers, they'll get paid that time when they leave. So I get some unanswered questions here.

Like I said, this report did not disappoint. Any final thoughts?

It's all in the hips, Jason. It's all in the hips.

From Bloomberg and No Smiling, this is Disclosure. The show is hosted by Matt Topic and me, Jason Leopold. It's produced by Heather Schroering and Sean Cannon for No Smiling with additional support from Callum Foote. Our editor for Bloomberg is Jeff Grokot. Our executive producers for Bloomberg are Nicole Beamster-Bohr Cheryl Brumley, and me, Jason Leopold. And our executive producers for No Smiling are Sean Cannon, Heather Schroering, and Matt Toppin. The Disclosure theme song is by Nick, with additional music by Nick and Epidemic Sound. Sound design and mixing is by Sean Cannon. Video production is by Drew Brown.

Fact-checking is by Mick Swasko. For more transparency news and important document dumps, you can subscribe to my weekly FOIA Files newsletter at bloomberg.com slash FOIA Files. That's F-O-I-A Files. We'll see you next week. SEC Information Technology Supervate. SEC Information Technology Supervate.

The SEC Roots Out Golf on the Taxpayer Dime

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