Jennifer Safavian

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Jennifer McLaughlin Safavian, is one of twelve counsels for oversight and investigations on the United States Congress House Government Reform Committee, which is responsible for overseeing government procurement, and helped lead that committee's investigation into the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

Jennifer is the wife of David Safavian, a convicted former officer of the Bush administration closely tied to the Abramoff-Reed Indian Gambling Scandal.

Jennifer married David Safavian in 1995, and they have a daughter, Kathleen. David and Jennifer are both alumni of the Michigan State University College of Law.

Jennifer Safavian, a graduated from Saint Louis University. In law school she served as a Managing Editor of the Law Review. From July 1997 until March 2000, she worked for the House Government Reform Committee where, in March 1998, she was named Chief Counsel and later named Deputy Staff Director for the Subcommittee on the Census. During her tenure at the Subcommittee on the Census, Ms. Safavian conducted oversight of the Department of Commerce's census operations and participated in negotiations with the Administration to resolve the dispute surrounding the use of statistical sampling in the 2000 census. Prior to government service, Ms. Safavian was in private law practice at Plunkett & Cooney in Detroit, Michigan and Dombroff & Gilmore in Washington, D.C. [1]

In March 2000, she joined the Office of the Independent Counsel as Associate Independent Counsel under Robert W. Ray (the successor to Kenneth Starr). Later she returned to Congress, as counsel for the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and currently as one of about 12 counsels on the staff of the House Government Reform Committee for oversight and investigations.