The director of investigations for the Palm Beach County, Florida’s inspector general’s office, the top watchdog for the U.S. Capitol Police and his investigations chief made Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s list of potential nominees to become Rhode Island’s first inspector general.
Over the course of three hours Thursday, the Inspector General Independent Advisory Commission interviewed the five finalists for Rhode Island’s newest statewide position.
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After another 20 minutes behind closed doors in a Statehouse hearing room, the five-member panel selected David Harper, James Kirdar and Stuart Robinson as the top candidates to lead the new 12-person office, which will be tasked with rooting out fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement by government agencies. Commissioners had through Sept. 28 to submit three names to McKee under the deadline set by the General Assembly when creating the position.
All three names are sent to the governor with a caveat: No final selection should be made until the candidates have undergone background checks by the Rhode Island State Police, a process Attorney General Peter F. Neronha, who is on the panel, said could take six to eight weeks.
“I understand the need for speed,” he said. “And I understand the need to try to meet a deadline set by the General Assembly – how well thought through, I don’t know.”
Watchdog groups and lawmakers from across the political spectrum spent more than two decades pushing for an inspector general, but failed to gain traction in the General Assembly until this year when new House Speaker Christopher Blazejewski, a Providence Democrat, made it his top legislative priority when crafting the state’s fiscal 2027 budget.
Legislation gave the nationwide search to a panel consisting of Neronha, General Treasurer James Diossa, Secretary of State Gregg Amore, Rhode Island Ethics Commission Executive Director Jason Gramitt and Will Fletcher, president of the Association of Inspectors General, who traveled from New York to attend each of the commission’s five meetings.
The job posting crafted by the commission following its July 29 meeting allowed interviews to be held in person or via video conference.
Three candidates made the trip to Providence: Harper, Robinson and Steven Krueger, the first assistant inspector general for the city of New Orleans. Kirdar joined virtually, as did Thomas Whetstone, an analyst with the Louisville, Ky., Office of Inspector General.
The panel was initially scheduled to interview a sixth candidate: Mark Priebe, who has served as the acting inspector general for the U.S. Department of Education since December 2025. But Priebe withdrew his application Monday, confirmed Rhode Island Secretary of State office spokesperson Faith Chybowski.
Chybowski did not say why he withdrew, and Priebe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Harper has been inspector general for the U.S. Capitol Police since February 2024. His resume notes that he expanded the office from 12 to 17 employees and oversaw tracking of 765 recommendations issued since the office’s inception – 694 of which had been implemented or closed as of March 31.
He told the panel he applied for the Rhode Island job because of a strong personal affinity for the region. Harper said he and his wife were married at Point Judith, his stepson and wife live across Rhode Island’s eastern border in Fall River, Mass.. His wife is a full-time caregiver in New Hampshire, and he previously worked as a federal agent in Massachusetts
“I love New England,” he said.
Robinson has been director of investigations for the Palm Beach County Office of Inspector General since November 2017. According to his resume, he has led more than 50 completed and publicly reported investigations involving a county with a $9.6 billion budget and 39 municipalities, including cases involving multimillion-dollar vendor overcharges and more than 36 grant and assistance fraud matters.
He also spent 25 years as an FBI agent and supervisor investigating public corruption, government fraud and financial crimes.
Robinson too has professional and personal roots in the region. He began his FBI career on the public corruption and fraud squads in Boston in 1990, and later served as a white-collar crimes and public corruption supervisor in Bridgeport, Conn.
Kirdar has been assistant inspector general for investigations for the U.S. Capitol Police since April 2025. Before that, he spent more than 16 years with the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, where his resume states he directed a team of 24 field officers across eight locations and oversaw more than 625 criminal and administrative public-corruption investigations.
“Throughout my career, I’ve been guided by a fundamental belief: Public service is a responsibility, not a privilege to be taken for granted,” he told commissioners.
Kirdar also has a Rhode Island connection: He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal science from Roger Williams University in Bristol.
The three candidates offered different approaches when commissioners asked how they would use the office’s subpoena power, which Neronha described as a “blank canvas” because state law alludes to subpoena power without making clear whether it applies only to records or also to witness testimony.
Harper said he would use subpoena power to obtain records from contractors and other outside entities and would also use it to compel witness testimony if permitted under Rhode Island law. He said he would favor giving the inspector general explicit authority to question witnesses under oath.
Robinson said his office in Palm Beach County rarely needs subpoenas because people generally cooperate with investigators. He said more than 75% of the subpoenas his office in Florida issued were to obtain bank records. If a government official refuses to cooperate, he would document that refusal in a public report.
“It paints the real picture when people walk out of interviews,” Robinson said.
Kirdar described subpoenas as an important tool for gathering documents from private entities but said he would be more cautious about using them to compel testimony from members of the public, coordinating with prosecutors before doing so.
The three finalists also differed on their definitions of success for the office.
Kirdar focused on building the office’s infrastructure and relationships during its first months while completing investigations within a 180-day target. Harper said the timeline should depend on the investigation, noting that major corporate or criminal fraud cases can take two to three years or more, while investigations into state agency mismanagement should take about a year. Robinson declined to commit to a timeline, saying inspectors general must prioritize accuracy above all else.
On transparency, Kirdar said he would generally publish shorter executive summaries rather than full investigative reports, while protecting names and other identifying information except when judicial or criminal action makes disclosure appropriate.
Harper and Robinson both said the office’s investigative findings should generally be made public, with exceptions for legal requirements, ongoing criminal cases and other sensitive information.
“We shine sunlight on the government,” Robinson said.
McKee now has 90 days to select his nominee, who will then go before the Rhode Island Senate for advice and consent.
The inspector general may serve for five years and be eligible for reappointment for one term of the same duration. The annual salary range for the position is between $175,000 and $225,000.
Christopher Shea is a staff writer for the Rhode Island Current.
