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Banned
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Republican clusterfuck? Are the FBI the "good guys" here....working in the best interests of the American people? Has the partisan "coup" become so complex in it's details and dimensions that most cannot be bothered to attempt to get the arms around it all and at least ask what the fuck is going on here?
Quote:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1210...ml?mod=WSJBlog
FBI Raids Special Counsel, Seizes Data
By JOHN R. WILKE
May 7, 2008; Page A4
WASHINGTON -- Federal agents raided the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency involved in several high-profile and politically sensitive investigations. The agents seized computer files and documents from its chief, Scott Bloch, and his staff.
Mr. Bloch, who was appointed by President Bush, has been under investigation since 2005 by the Office of Personnel Management for employee claims that he abused his agency's authority, retaliated against its staff and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination. Mr. Bloch couldn't be reached to comment.
The Justice Department joined the case as the inquiry was widened last year to include possible obstruction of justice, which is a criminal offense. The Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 28 that in the midst of the inquiry Mr. Bloch used an agency credit card to hire a commercial firm, Geeks on Call, to erase data from his computer and those of former staff.
In the Journal article, Mr. Bloch confirmed the Geeks on Call visit but said it was needed to eradicate a software virus. He said that none of the documents sought in the inquiry were affected and that the employee claims against him were unfounded and unfair.
The Justice Department had no comment about Tuesday's raid. A Special Counsel spokesman said, "we are cooperating with law enforcement. We do not yet know what this is about." He said the agency "is continuing to perform the independent mission of this office."
In the Tuesday raid, 20 agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an inspector general's office <h3>served grand jury subpoenas on Mr. Bloch and searched his office and home.</h3> At least 17 employees were asked to appear before the grand jury next week and answer questions about possible obstruction of justice and destruction of federal records during an investigation.
The Office of Special Counsel, created in the 1970s in the wake of the Watergate scandal, probes sensitive personnel and whistleblower claims by government workers. It also enforces the Hatch Act, which forbids the use of federal resources for partisan political purposes.
Among the office's recent inquiries was whether former White House political director Karl Rove and others improperly used U.S. agencies to help elect Republicans.
Mr. Bloch's investigation of the White House political operation began after a Rove deputy gave a series of political presentations to government agencies on Republican prospects in specific congressional races. Mr. Bloch's office wanted to know whether such presentations violated the Hatch Act. A task force interviewed officials at more than a dozen agencies and examined White House emails but found few clear violations, lawyers close to the case said. The investigations remain pending.
Mr. Bloch also thrust his agency into other investigations where the agency's authority was less clear. A document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal shows that the agency's Hatch Act task force found in January that many of the investigations under way were without merit or should be closed.
The subpoenas Tuesday also asked for files about the one Hatch Act case that has been completed, which found misconduct by the head of the General Services Administration, Lurita Doan. The White House last week ordered Ms. Doan to resign.
Mr. Bloch's investigative role made him a target for both political parties.
"This isn't an ordinary bureaucrat, this is Special Counsel, the guy who is supposed to police this kind of thing," said Rep. Tom Davis (R., Va.). The Geeks on Call incident "was a real red flag."
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/wa...in&oref=slogin
By DAVID STOUT
Published: May 7, 2008
..... Mr. Bloch was in the news a year ago when his office began to look into political briefings given to employees of several agencies by aides to Karl Rove, who was then President Bush’s chief political adviser. The White House insisted at the time that the briefings met the definitions of allowable activities.
Mr. Bloch’s critics quickly accused him of announcing an inquiry into the Rove-inspired briefings simply to draw attention away from his own shortcomings. At the time, he was the target of a complaint filed by a group of employees who accused him of trying to dismantle his own agency, of illegally barring employees from talking to journalists and of reducing a backlog of whistle-blower complaints by simply discarding old cases.....
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Quote:
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cf...s_most_popular
White House forces resignation of embattled GSA chief
By Dan Friedman and Robert Brodsky April 30, 2008
Lurita Doan, the embattled head of the General Services Administration, resigned at the request of the White House, sources said Tuesday.
According to people familiar with the matter, the controversial agency administrator was summoned to the White House for a late afternoon meeting Tuesday, during which she was asked to step down.
Doan's ouster comes nearly 11 months after the independent Office of Special Counsel concluded an investigation of Doan and called for President Bush to fire her for violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from using government resources for partisan politics.
The OSC probe dealt with a January 2007 meeting between Doan, GSA political appointees and former White House political aide Scott Jennings. After Jennings showed a PowerPoint slide show detailing Republican electoral plans Doan asked, "How can we help our candidates?"
Doan has consistently said she does not remember making such a comment.
But the OSC, citing multiple witnesses, concluded the statement was tantamount to instructing subordinates to use their offices to assist Republican candidates. "Doan solicited the political activity of over 30 of her subordinate employees," Special Counsel Scott Bloch wrote in a June 8 summary of his office's investigation.
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the ranking member of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Wednesday, "It would be a shame if [Doan's resignation] had anything to do with the hyperbolic and unfounded allegations of Scott Bloch and others who were after her just to claim another administration scalp. There's no doubt personality conflicts played a role. Certainly, her management style was not everyone's cup of tea. But the administrator appears to have fallen victim to a bureaucratic culture that fears, rather than rewards, entrepreneurial spirit, innovation and bold leadership."
Doan faced heavy criticism last year from congressional Democrats. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., grilled Doan at two hearings over the Hatch Act violation and regarding allegations that she improperly intervened to assist a federal contactor, Sun Microsystems, in its negotiations with GSA and over charges that she unsuccessfully attempted to steer a small no-bid contract to a longtime friend.
Doan has battled with her agency's inspector general for nearly two years, drawing strong criticism from Senate Finance ranking member Charles Grassley.
In an e-mail message to GSA employees, Doan wrote: "The past twenty-two months have been filled with accomplishments: together, we have regained our clean audit opinion, restored fiscal discipline, re-tooled our ability to respond to emergencies, rekindled entrepreneurial energies, reduced bureaucratic barriers to small companies to get a GSA Schedule, ignited a building boom at our nation's ports of entries, boldly led the nation in an aggressive telework initiative, and improved employee morale so that we were selected as one of the best places to work in the federal government. I have great faith in the abilities of GSA's dedicated team."
It was not immediately clear what prompted the timing of Doan's ouster. Though a number of House and Senate members urged Doan's resignation last year, she appeared to have survived the storm. In recent months she has continued to clash publicly with GSA's inspector general, but she has generally avoided drawing fire from Capitol Hill this year.
Recently the IG, Brian Miller, was cleared of allegations of misconduct in a pair of wide-ranging complaints filed by four of the IG office's former attorneys.
The inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service found that Miller had not violated any statute, rule or regulation, according to a letter from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, to Doan.
A similar opinion was offered in January by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency's Integrity Committee, which is responsible for probing complaints against inspectors general.
The closure of the whistleblower case appeared inflame Doan, who has feuded with Miller virtually since the day she took office. Last week, she vowed to continue to advocate for employees who had filed complaints against Miller and his office.
In an e-mail to Government Executive early Wednesday morning after her resignation, Doan wrote, "this remains an enormously serious issue which I still believe ought to be addressed."
"I would rather get fired for something I believe in, and a cause I was willing to fight for, rather than to believe in nothing worth being fired for," Doan wrote in the message.
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Quote:
http://www.fcw.com/online/news/152435-1.html
Post-Doan GSA to focus on customers
By Matthew Weigelt
Published on May 5, 2008
Lurita Doan, former administrator of the General Services Administration, set out to restore GSA’s reputation for customer service. But some procurement experts say she pulled the agency off course in her nearly two years as chief and failed to achieve her goals.
Doan steered GSA away from its primary mission of buying for its customer agencies, said Bob Woods, former commissioner of GSA’s Federal Technology Service and now president of Topside Consulting. Wood said GSA is a service agency with a mandate to be the central procurement agency for the federal government, and customers should be the agency’s primary concern.....
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...071202088.html
Private E-Mail, Made Public, Trips Up Special Counsel at Hearing
By Stephen Barr , Washington Post
Friday, July 13, 2007; D01
Those darn e-mails will bite you every time.
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) yesterday surprised <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Scott+Bloch?tid=informline">Scott J. Bloch</a> Office of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Office+of+Special+Counsel?tid=informline">Special Counsel,</a> by reading aloud an e-mail Bloch sent to his friends. One of those friends forwarded it to Davis, probably because Bloch criticizes Davis in it., a presidential appointee who heads the
Before disclosing the e-mail at a House subcommittee hearing, Davis asked Bloch what he would do if he learned of an agency official sending out news clips and personal commentary about agency business during working hours, even if it was done through a private e-mail account.
The e-mail alludes to testimony by a Bush appointee, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Lurita+Doan?tid=informline">Lurita Alexis Doan</a> who heads the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+General+Services+Administration?tid=informline">General Services Administration</a>. Bloch's office has sent a report to the White House alleging that Doan violated the Hatch Act when she asked other political appointees at a campaign briefing how the GSA team could help "our candidates" in the next election., who heads the
In the e-mail, Bloch referred his friends to a news account of Doan's testimony at a House hearing. He wrote:
"It is Congressman Tom Davis, who has been acting like Doan's defense counsel, saying reckless things about OSC's report and calling for my resignation. Weird Kabuki theatre, all of this. I am going up for my Reauthorization hearing on July 12, and Davis will either show up as ranking member of the larger committee, or have Cong. Mica do his dirty work of raking me over the coals."
Bloch's forecast was correct -- Davis and Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.) showed up.
Davis told Bloch that he wanted all e-mails Bloch has sent on his AOL account since Jan. 26 that mentioned the Hatch Act, Doan, Davis, Mica or any other government official or member of Congress.
"It is not going to happen," Bloch responded. "Let's move on to something real."
But Davis did not budge, asking questions suggesting that he thinks Bloch has shown poor judgment and a lack of professionalism in the Doan case.
Bloch protested that his privacy was being invaded and that the matter was inappropriate for a congressional hearing. At one point, he said, "If you want to exchange personal attacks, perhaps we should go outside." That comment elicited nervous laughter from the audience, leading Bloch to quickly clarify that he wasn't making a threat.
Bloch heads an independent agency whose mission is to protect federal employee rights, but he has been under investigation for the past two years because of allegations that he has run roughshod over his staff and allowed politics to play a role in some of his decisions.
The investigation is in the hands of the inspector general at the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Office+of+Personnel+Management?tid=informline">Office of Personnel Management</a>, and Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), who chaired yesterday's hearing by the House federal workforce subcommittee, asked Bloch if he was cooperating.
Bloch said he has turned over documents that have been requested. He called the allegations against him "reckless and false and scandalous."
Questions by Davis and others amounted to an attempt to suppress and taint the investigation of Doan, Bloch said. "I will not be intimidated," he said. Davis shot back that the facts will speak for themselves.
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We cannot know yet if Scott Bloch is a victim of a political witch hunt, but we do have evidence of a pattern of Bush appointees attacking the checks and balances on their authority to manage their agencies....from my last post in this thread:
Quote:
....The new chief of the U.S. General Services Administration is trying to limit the ability of the agency's inspector general to audit contracts for fraud or waste and has said oversight efforts are intimidating the workforce, according to government documents and interviews.
GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a Bush political appointee and former government contractor, has proposed cutting $5 million in spending on audits and shifting some responsibility for contract reviews to small, private audit contractors.
Doan also has chided Inspector General Brian D. Miller for not going along with her attempts to streamline the agency's contracting efforts. In a private staff meeting Aug. 18, Doan said Miller's effort to examine contracts had "gone too far and is eroding the health of the organization," according to notes of the meeting written by an unidentified participant from the Office of Inspector General (OIG).
The GSA is responsible for managing about $56 billion worth of contracts each year for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security and other agencies.
Doan compared Miller and his staff to terrorists, according to a copy of the notes obtained by The Washington Post.
"There are two kinds of terrorism in the US: the external kind; and, internally, the IGs have terrorized the Regional Administrators," Doan said, according to the notes.
Through a spokesman, Doan said she respects the inspector general's role and is not doing anything to undercut his independence. She also denied that she had referred to Miller, a former terrorism prosecutor, or his staff as terrorists.
"She's trying to reduce wasteful spending," said GSA spokesman David Bethel. "Just like any other office within GSA, she has asked the OIG to live within his budget, and she's hopeful that the IG is going to embrace that concept. She is not singling him out for this attention. She's not challenging the IG's independence. This is about fiscal discipline and reducing wasteful spending and creating a business environment that can be embraced by everyone.
"By law, she can't reduce the IG's independence, and she's aware of that."
Doan, who was confirmed as administrator May 26, has publicly criticized Miller on other occasions. In her Nov. 10 annual report, Doan stated there was only one GSA manager unwilling to "confront programs and policies that had outlived their usefulness and were wasting taxpayer money." She later told Miller that she was referring to him, according to officials familiar with Doan's statement who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.
Doan also complained in the annual report that Miller was being "unsupportive of recent changes" and said vendors and government contracting officials had reported that his auditors and investigators were exerting "undue pressure."
Bethel said yesterday that Doan's statement in her annual report "speaks for itself," and he declined to elaborate.
Miller declined to discuss his relationship with Doan.....
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....and over at the CIA, there is this "gem":
Quote:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...bushs_lap_dogs
Bush's Lap Dogs:
What Happened to DC's Watchdogs?
Tim DickinsonPosted Nov 15, 2007 6:00 AM
IN OCTOBER, WITH OSAMA BIN LADEN still at large, the Central Intelligence Agency announced the creation of a new spy unit. Headed by a top deputy and staffed with a select corps of agents, the operation was charged with gathering intelligence on a single man — a foe who was threatening to undermine the president's War on Terror.
The CIA's new target? John Helgerson, the man appointed by President Bush to expose wrongdoing at the CIA. As inspector general of the agency, Helgerson came under attack from his superiors simply for trying to do his job: He was aggressively investigating torture at the CIA's secret prisons.
Like the other twenty-eight inspectors within the executive branch, Helgerson is supposed to be immune from such political meddling. Created in 1978 as a post-Watergate check on Nixonian abuses of power, the inspectors bypass the chain of command within their own agencies and report their findings directly to Congress. By law, the president must appoint these watchdogs "without regard to political affiliation" and "solely on the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability."....
CIA's Probe of Its Watchdog Yields Changes
By Greg Miller
<h3>The Los Angeles Times</h3>
Sunday 23 December 2007
The inspector general agrees to modify procedures so employees can defend themselves more in his reports. His criticism of pre-9/11 failures won't be altered.
Washington - The CIA has completed a controversial in-house probe of its inspector general and plans to make a series of changes in the way the agency conducts internal investigations, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson has consented to more than a dozen procedural changes designed to address complaints that investigations carried out by his office were unfair to agency employees, the officials said.
<h3>But the agency will not force Helgerson</h3> to revise previously issued reports or acknowledge flaws in the reports, including one report that was sharply critical of top CIA officials for intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. .....
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<h3>dc_dux, what do you make of this?</h3> How can Bush administration employees counter the express intent of congress for checks and balances via independent oversight of these appointees management of key government agencies? If Doan at GAO and Hayden at CIA can "force" the IGs at their agencies to do things, or cut the budgets of the IG offices, where is there any chance for independent oversight?
Last edited by host; 05-07-2008 at 10:26 AM..
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