May 6th, 2008 P. Jeffrey Black
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By John R. Wilke
May 6, 2008 3:10 p.m.
WASHINGTON — Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided the Office of Special Counsel here, seizing computers and documents belonging to the agency chief Scott Bloch and staff.
More than a dozen FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas shortly after 10 a.m., shutting down the agency’s computer network and searching its offices, as well as Mr. Bloch’s home. Employees said the searches appeared focused on alleged obstruction of justice by Mr. Bloch during the course of an 2006 inquiry into his conduct in office.
The independent agency, created by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal, is charged with protecting federal employees and deciding whether their complaints merit full-scale investigation — a first line of defense against fraud and mismanagement in government. It also enforces a ban on U.S. employees engaging in partisan political activity.
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Mr. Bloch had used “Geeks on Call,” an outside computer-service firm, to erase his computer and those of two former staff members in December 2006. (See related article)
Mr. Bloch’s agency is typically involved in sensitive investigations of alleged government wrongdoing. Before the departure of White House political director Karl Rove, Mr. Bloch’s staff was looking into whether he or other White House officials improperly used federal agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.
At the same time, Mr. Bloch has been under investigation himself since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch abused his investigative authority, improperly retaliated against employees or dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.
The computer erasures became part of that investigation and are one of the reasons behind today’s raid, employees said. Investigators were trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, the Journal article reported.
Bypassing his agency’s computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In the Journal story, Mr. Bloch confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer. He said the erasures didn’t delete any files related to the inquiry.
Mr. Bloch was in the office this morning during the raid but couldn’t be reached for comment. The search was still under way early this afternoon, witnesses said.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121009238217171025.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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May 2nd, 2008 P. Jeffrey Black
By Matthew Blake
The Washington Independent
February 26, 2008
Update: Lurita Doan announced April 29th that she will resign from her position. Here are some reasons why…
What if Alberto Gonzales were still attorney general?
The independent investigations, congressional hearings and growing media outrage seemingly doomed Gonzales. But what if he had refused to resign and President George W. Bush, who had begun working with him long ago back in Texas, had continued his support? Gonzales would now preside over a huge bureaucracy that was collectively holding its breath until Bush left the White House.
The scenario is not too hard to envision — because it’s happening right now at the General Services Administration under Administrator Lurita Doan.
In May, an Office of Special Counsel report found that Doan had violated the Hatch Act, the law that prevents federal employees from engaging in partisan politics. Investigations from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and also Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Ia.) laid out charges that she intimidated employees, awarded a no-bid contract to a friend and inappropriately interfered in approving a contract where the government was overcharged by millions of dollars.
Yet Doan still leads GSA — to the surprise and dismay of a number of congressional investigators and GSA employees. That she hasn’t resigned and the White House’s hasn’t told her to raises a broader question: What does it take before a government official leaves for the good of her agency?
“Working in the negative atmosphere that Doan’s created is hard,” said Ted Stenchey, a 28-year GSA veteran in the office of Inspector General. “Hopefully, the next 11 months will go quickly.”
Stenchey and other employees who spoke to The Washington Independent were as upset about the impact Doan has had on their day-to-day jobs as the scandals that made her a frequent target for Bush administration critics. Indeed, the scandals seem to go hand-in-hand with her unusual meddling into the work of the 12,000-employee bureaucracy.
Multiple Allegations
GSA arranges about $60 billion in contracts each year that provide the government with everything from air conditioning units to automatic sprinklers. It also finds office space for agencies, hence the nickname, “the government’s landlord.” While other agencies go through the White House and Congress for funding, GSA relies on brokerage fees from agencies.
Doan came to GSA in May 2006, after starting New Technology Management, Inc., an information technology company for border surveillance that had government contracts from the Dept. of Homeland Security.
Doan came in promising an accelerated process for awarding contracts. “She’s a private entrepreneur,” said one employee, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “She wanted to increase revenues and decrease costs.”
For Doan, that meant curtailing the time and money spent by the GSA’s Office of Inspector General, which audits contracts to ensure the government is getting the best deal. Three months into her job, Doan and the GSA Inspector General Brian Miller had their regular monthly meeting.
Doan accused Miller of “terrorizing” GSA regional administrators because he was persistently requesting information about contracts. She said she wanted the Inspector General’s budget cut $5 billion, an unusual intervention by the agency head into her auditing office. She separately told GSA regional administrators in an e-mail that the Inspector General was the “No. 1 obstacle” to an effective agency.
A longtime employee of the Inspector General’s office complained last week that he does “double duty” — doing his job and then justifying his job to the rest of the agency.
Doan had specific problems with the IG’s auditing a $20,000 no-bid contract she tried to arrange with Public Affairs Group. Edie Fraser, the chief executive of that company, is an old friend of Doan’s.
GSA also renewed the government’s contract with Sun Microsystems — despite an IG’s audit had concluded Sun charged millions more to the government than to private consumers. Doan, however, pushed for the deal, replacing contract negotiators who disagreed with her.
Soon after Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) took over as chairman, the House oversight committee began investigating Doan for “overruling and removing contract negotiators” and the latest complaint from a GSA employee — that Doan may have violated the Hatch Act.
A month later, the House oversight committee held a hearing to examine a GSA brown bag lunch that would briefly, but spectacularly, make Doan a Gonzales-like target of Bush cronyism. The committee showed that Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of political affairs, gave a power point presentation to GSA employees.
Jennings had laid out where GOP congressmen were vulnerable in 2008, and which districts they might win back. After the presentation, Doan addressed her employees, saying, “How can we help our candidates?” At the hearing, Doan said she didn’t recall making the statement — or even much of the meeting — because she had been too busy checking her Blackberry.
In June, the Office of Special Counsel released a report where more than 20 lunch attendees said Doan had not been on her Blackberry. The report also concluded Doan had violated the Hatch Act. Additionally, Doan disparaged employees who cooperated with the OSC’s investigation and told them that they wouldn’t get bonuses. OSC concluded that the White House should discipline Doan to the fullest extent.
In the wake of the OSC report, The Washington Post editorial page called Doan “troubled and troubling.” The New York Times editorialized, “Her credibility now stands as tattered as her memory. Her fate will be in President Bush’s hand, who supposedly knows a slam dunk when he sees one. Ms. Doan should be dismissed for violating one of the most hallowed laws of fairness in government service.”
The House oversight committee brought Doan back for a second hearing in June that looked into allegations that she intimated employees, and committed perjury in her first round of testimony. At the end of this hearing, Waxman concluded, “You refuse to take responsibility and you attack others for doing their jobs…[I]t is unusual for me to ever call for the resignation of a federal official, but I do not see any other course of action.”
After the Scandals Hit
And so Doan returned to the private sector. No, wait, she’s still running GSA.
“We remain perplexed as to why the president would continue to allow her to serve as GSA Administrator,” said an oversight committee staff member, “when the Office of Special Counsel concluded she broke the law.”
“I’m still shocked she stayed on after the Hatch Act violation,” said a GSA employee who also requested anonymity. “The Hatch Act is there to protect me- I don’t want to be called to the auditorium for a political speech.”
The White House says that the matter is still under review. “It’s in the hands of the president and we know nothing more than that,” said James Mitchell, spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel.
Doan and her defenders have been defiant of the charges against her. The oversight committee ranking minority member, Tom Davis (R-Va.), said at the June hearing that the committee’s look into Doan is a “farce premised on a sham.” Doan herself said at the hearing she was the victim of a “culture of gotcha.”
Since the hearing Doan has kept a low profile, avoiding the press coveted earlier in her tenure. Her spokeswoman declined to comment for this article.
For GSA employees, that may be the scandal’s silver lining. “She’s been quieter and that helps,” the employee said, “It’s really scary when she says her employees are the No. 1 obstacle in her job.”
Article Original Link HERE
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April 24th, 2008 P. Jeffrey Black
The sentencing of former Pentagon IG Chief Investigator Richard T. Race
Op-Ed
By Douglas K. Kinan
In a well unpublicized case, “Richard T. Race, the Pentagon inspector general’s chief investigator of procurement fraud and official misconduct quit his job and pleaded guilty last month to violating U.S. banking laws.” Mr. Race was also a key member of the Defense Council on Integrity and Efficiency. The sentencing date for Mr. Race is May 2, 2008.
A March 18, 2008, Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG) Information Release, states, “The Office of Inspector General was not involved in the reporting or investigation of the matters underlying the recent judicial action and has no information that would suggest any relationship between those matters and Mr. Race’s official duties with the OIG.”
I disagree. Felony conduct is not about the person – it’s about felony conduct – and its related.
At his arraignment Judge Leonie Brinkema told Mr. Race that he should have “known better.” Mr. Race’s many years of experience in law enforcement and his actions demonstrate that his intent was clear. See the letter Mr. Kinan sent to Judge Brinkema.
As a former Department of Defense employee, after Mr. Race’s appointment I wrote to him requesting that the extensive and pervasive verified record of felony conduct and well planned discrimination by several officials at the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMAE), Boston, Massachusetts be investigated.
Concerning two, of many employees, who were framed and fired for violations that Mr. Race knew they did not commit, the Hotline Director, Mr. Leonard Trahan, Jr., (and eventually Mr. Race’s subordinate) writes, “There were two EEO cases in the District in which Mr. Kinan disagreed with the decisions made by Ms. Appleton and Mr. Krasker, the DCMDE Chief Counsel. Instead of accepting those decisions “as reasonable people can disagree”, they became a ‘cause celebre’ for Mr. Kinan.”
That the Hotline Director who is responsible for DoD fraud, waste and abuse would essentially admit that it is okay to frame innocent individuals, stand by and watch them anguish for many months (Virella was 60 months) and allow them to be stripped of their career and full pension and then justify felony conduct as a “cause celebre” is contrary to what the DoD Hotline does.
In a conflict of interest, Mr. Race’s second subordinate, Mr. James L. Pavlik, covered up for Mr. Trahan by conducting a fraudulent investigation, making false official statements and issuing a fraudulent report to Senator Charles Grassley.
Despite the unequivocal fact that Mr. Pavlik had a “specific and credible” record that innocent employees were framed, Mr. Pavlik wrote, “The analysis that concludes Mr. Kinan’s disclosure did not contain “specific and credible” information or did not meet the “substantial likelihood” test that it would be substantiated and was therefore not in the category of cases referable to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service…”
Mr. Race could have prevented the DCMAE from framing others. Instead, Mr. Race opted to shield his subordinates’ felony conduct. As I wrote to the DoD Inspector General, Claude Kicklighter, “Framing two innocent individuals is not just a simple matter of “two EEO cases” - it’s framing two innocent people.”
The DCMAE wasted more than one million taxpayer dollars to secretly settle these two threatened lawsuits that could expose their felony conduct, promotion fixing and program fraud in the millions of taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Race’s deliberate indifference to the conduct outlined in my thirty-page affidavit caused many innocent individuals permanent and immeasurable damage. Additionally, the ripple effect of fixed promotions essentially denies many DoD employees the opportunity to compete for merit-based promotions.
As evidence of the DCMAE’s continuing violations, Mr. Race also had knowledge of the DCMAE’s recent framing and fraudulent investigation of whistleblower, Mr. Kenneth Pedeleose, as can be verified by the October 24, 2007, United States Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) “Opinion and Order” reversing Pedeleose’s 30 day retaliatory suspension. See MSPB Docket No. AT-0752-06-0350-I-1.
The MSPB’s opinion and order breathes legitimacy into and corroborates the factual record that the DCMAE attorneys continue to insist on framing innocent citizens and conducting fraudulent investigations to sustain false and fabricated charges, using the same modus operandi each time.
Mr. Race’s insensitivity has no limits and knows no bounds – his deeds supersede his words. Anyone willing to frame an innocent person should not be taken seriously. It’s about the lowest act you can do.
At his sentencing hearing Mr. Race or his attorney will be asking the court for leniency and will offer the standard shibboleths routinely issued by defendants. There will be no one there to offset Mr. Race’s malice, lack of mercy, empathy or “remorse.” The court should not overlook Mr. Race’s willingness and propensity to permanently harm innocent individuals, their families and the government.
Mr. Race ignored the fact that many innocent individuals were framed, stripped of their career and full pension for violations he knew they did not commit and he condoned his subordinates’ chronic and systemic malfeasance.
Mr. Race was allowed to “take voluntary retirement” on February 16, 2008. Should Mr. Race, who admitted guilt, be allowed to collect his full pension when he knew that his subordinates consciously decided that innocent employees should not collect theirs?
Mr. Kinan is a former Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC) Specialist with the Defense Contract Management Agency, and he may be contacted as follows:
Douglas K. Kinan
DougKinan@yahoo.com
617-788-8330 - days
617-323-6171 - evenings
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April 10th, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
Please click on the link to view theFinal OSC Watch Petition that is now on its way into the hands of Congress.
Please visit the Government Accountability Project, (GAP) and read what they had to say about OSCWatch Petition to Congress.
Posted in OSC Watch, Office of Special Counsel | No Comments »
March 25th, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
Dear Advocate for Merit-Based Federal Civil Service,
OSC Watch is a group of concerned current or former federal employees who claim that the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has failed to comply with aspects of its non-discretionary duties as an investigatory agency to the 10,000 or more federal employees who sought its protection from prohibited personnel practices (PPP’s), particularly the whistleblower reprisal type PPP, since being created as an independent agency in 1989.
OSC Watch has 3 objectives:
1) expose OSC’s lawbreaking, 2 stop it, and 3) obtain some measure of justice for the direct victims of OSC’s lawbreaking since 1989. To advance those ends, OSC Watch has prepared the attached petition to Congress, which already has an impressive list of names on it. OSC Watch has decided to keep the petition open until COB on March 31, 2008 so more parties - people or organizations can join it. Following that, it will be sent to Congress.Additional parties will be able to join following March 31, 2008 and subsequent revisions of the petition will show the parties who joined after March 31, 2008.
OSC Watch accepts that some of the petition’s claims could be dispelled via Congressional oversight and that some parties might want to qualify their endorsement of the entire petition.It is fine for a party to add qualifying language as “agrees in principle, but not necessarily with every particular claim” in joining the petition.
The petition is just that - a petition - intended to spur the Congressional oversight necessary to substantiate or dispel its claims and, if substantiated (in whole or part), to spur additional appropriate Congressional action.Parties that wish to join the petition can do so via the OSC Watch website or by sending an email to Traci Hallstrom, the Communication Director for OSC Watch traci.hallstrom@gmail.com.
OSC Watch much appreciates GAP’s support of the principles of this petition and its objectives and the interest POGO has shown in it too.
Respectfully,
Traci Hallstrom
Communication Director, OSC Watch.org
Posted in OSC Watch | 1 Comment »
March 23rd, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
Please click on the link to view the OSC Watch Petition to Congress as of April 10th, 2008. The final petition is on it’s way to Congress. We have only included current and former Federal employees.
Due to the large number of public citizens who would like to be added to the petition, we have an open list of signatures. If you would like to be added to that list, please post a comment below with your name, title, and state if you are a Whistleblower Advocate.
Thank you
Posted in OSC Watch | 4 Comments »
March 16th, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
Eliot Spitzer must be so proud to be the top story everywhere! Or not. There were, amazingly, other stories in the news this week: the wayward balls of March Madness, the bouncing banks of the economy, and those Superdelegates, who are able to leap coalition building in a single bound! Uncle Jay explains it all.
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March 12th, 2008 Joe Carson
Dear NYT Editor,
The article below incorrectly identifies the federal Office of Special Counsel (OSC) as the investigating agency. That is incorrect. The FAA whistleblowers filed a “disclosure” with OSC, per 5 U.S.C. § 1213, and OSC reviewed it. Based on its review, it referred the disclosure back to FAA to investigate and report the results of its investigation back to OSC.
I suggest more accurate wording would be “FAA whistleblowers brought their concerns to the federal Office of Special Counsel, which directed FAA to investigate those concerns.”
Respectfully,
Joe Carson, PE
Knoxville, TN
*******************************************************************
NY TIMES March 12, 2008
Southwest Grounds 38 Boeing 737s for Review
By JEFF BAILEY
Southwest Airlines said Wednesday that it had grounded 38 of its Boeing 737s after a review of maintenance records Tuesday night led it to question whether required testing had been done. The airline said the groundings forced it to cancel 4 percent of its flights on Wednesday.
The announcement suggests Southwest, in most regards considered the best-managed company in the domestic airline business, is having difficulty dealing with maintenance and recordkeeping problems that led to sanctions by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Southwest, which has about 530 737s in its fleet, was fined $10.2 million by the agency last week for continuing to fly planes after the carrier had discovered it had failed to perform required inspections. The proposed fine is a F.A.A. record.
Southwest did not say, in a statement issued on Wednesday, whether the 38 grounded planes were part of that prior problem, which involved inspections to detect cracks on the fuselage. A spokeswoman could not immediately be reached.
A total of 44 planes were identified as having “an ambiguity related to required testing,” Southwest said. One had already been retired, five were already in maintenance, and the remaining 38 were immediately grounded.
F.A.A. rules require planes to be inspected for certain problems by definite dates. And when an airline discovers it has flown the plane past that date, the carrier is supposed to stop flying the craft and immediately conduct the required inspection.
Southwest said it expected to have the 38 grounded planes inspected by Wednesday night.
It warned, however, that its review of maintenance work “could potentially create other operational changes if the airline needs to swap or reroute aircraft as the internal investigation and audit unfolds.”
On Tuesday, the company said that it had suspended three employees, hired an outside maintenance expert and was “fully engaged” with F.A.A. officials auditing the carrier.
Both the agency and the airline were embarrassed by a disclosure that two F.A.A. inspectors had complained that an agency supervisor allowed Southwest to operate older Boeing 737s that had gone past a deadline for inspection.
The charges of the inspectors were investigated by the federal Office of Special Counsel and by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The inquiry resulted in last week’s fine.
The agency said Southwest had flown 46 planes from June 18, 2006, to March 14, 2007 on 59,791 flights without complying with an order to inspect them for cracks. The inspection order covered older planes.
Rather than grounding the planes immediately when it discovered its lapse, Southwest kept operating them from March 15 to March 23, 2007, on 1,451 more flights. The size of the fine, a record, was because of what the F.A.A. called these “deliberate violations.”
All the planes have been inspected; cracks were found and fixed on six planes.
Linda B. Rutherford, a Southwest spokeswoman, said Tuesday of the flights from March 15 to 23: “We did believe that the F.A.A. approved of those actions.” The approval came locally, she added.
“By federal law these aircraft should have been grounded until they were in compliance, but they continued to fly, with full knowledge of the F.A.A. supervisor,” James L. Oberstar, Democrat of Minnesota and chairman of the House transportation panel, said last week. He said the delay had occurred “so that Southwest could conveniently schedule them for inspection without disrupting their commercial schedule.”
In its first public reaction to the F.A.A. fine, Southwest said, in part, “The F.A.A. approved our actions and considered the matter closed as of April 2007.” The company called the required inspection “one of many routine and redundant inspections.”
It also produced a statement from Boeing, the manufacturer, vouching for the planes’ safety.
But Tuesday, Gary C. Kelly, Southwest’s chief executive, said the company had conducted its own inquiry. “I am concerned with some of our findings,” he said in a prepared statement.
As a result, he said that three employees had been placed on administrative leave. Southwest would not name the workers or their positions, but said the three were cooperating with the airline’s investigation.
Mr. Kelly also said the carrier had “hired a respected outside consultant with proven experience to help review its maintenance program controls.” He said Southwest had told F.A.A. officials “that it will investigate and address any deficiencies.”
Mr. Oberstar plans a hearing on the whistle-blowers’ complaints on April 3. He has asked the F.A.A. to “clean house, from the top down,” to deal with what he called a “carrier-favorable, cozy relationship” between the agency and the airlines.
Posted in Office of Special Counsel | No Comments »
March 10th, 2008 P. Jeffrey Black
As of March 10th, 2008 Ms. Hallstrom has not received a final decision from the EEOC Administrative Judge nor has she heard a final decision from Federal Division of Occupational Worker’s Compensation. Ms. Hallstrom is on medical leave without pay.
There have been additional EEO complaints filed against the managers in Ms. Hallstrom’s office by other Federal employees recently. You can read more of her story below.
December 9th, 2007,
To: Department of Labor, Federal OWCP Division
From: Tracy Hallstrom, Claim # 132183400
To whom it may concern;
My nameTracy Hallstrom. I have been employed with the Department of Interior-Bureau of Land Management, Redding, California Field office since December 1999. I work in Administration and Public Contact.
On May 9, 2005 as Class Agent representing 100% females in our office, filed an EEO Class complaint against our Field office manager case #LLM-05-030 alleging Gender Discrimination and Hostile Harassment work environment.
On May 31, 2005 myself and another employee filed individual complaints with the basis of reprisal and discrimination, case #BLM-05-0440.
On September 21, 2005 the Class complaint became individual consolidated complaints where as my case# was BLM-05-0390.
On June 2, 2005 myself and others filed individual whistleblower disclosures with the Office of Special Counsel and the Department of Interior-Office of Inspector General in Washington DC disclosing waste, fraud, abuse, Contract fraud, misappropriations of the French fire monies including other allegations as well as prohibited personnel practices.
Since filing protected activity, I have been reprized against and bullied by managers and supervisors in my office on a regular basis. I have had to seek counseling from a therapist to help me deal with the hostile work environment and the undue stress that has been placed upon me since filing. I have had to use all of my annual and sick leave due to declining health from my work environment and have used hundreds of hours of leave without pay.
My EEOC Hearing was April 24, 2007 and the AJ had 180 days to reach a final decision on my case.
It is now December 9, 2007 and still no decision which has increased the hostile work environment and my stress. I have been taken off work numerous of times for work stress related illnesses and even at the advice of my treating doctors and therapist advising me to quit. I was reprised against two weeks ago on November 26th and again on the 27th.
In the early hours of the 28th, I woke up with severe chest pains and found myself in the Emergency room being admitted for having a possible mild heart attack. I was fortunate that I had passed a stress test the next day and there were no signs of damage to my heart.
It was at that point I decided to take the advice of all the doctors, nursing staff and apply for Occupational Stress because I can no longer handle the stress working in a hostile work environment. It has affected my health in the negative.
I am the sole caregiver for my elderly parents as well. They are 80 and 90 years old and my stress from my work environment has affected the care that I give my parents because I have been ill as well because of my work situation.
Had the BLM State Director Mike Pool and his Associate State Director Jim Abbott stepped in when I emailed them on numerous occasions to put a stop to the harassment, retaliation, and made reasonable accommodations for me several months ago, I wouldn’t be ill as I am now.
My hearing transcripts will prove that I have been reprised against and that because the BLM didn’t take my allegations of depression and stress from my work environment seriously it has caused me to become ill and that I can no longer work in the BLM Redding field office.
Posted in Equal Employment Opportunity, Federal Government Whistleblower, Government Accountability Project, Government Corruption, OSC, Office of Personnel Management, PEER, Project on Government Oversight, Scott Bloch | 1 Comment »
March 9th, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
Pick your crisis: real estate, the economy, the Mideast, the Democrats’ supply of Rolaids, or figuring out how the women in “10000 B.C.” managed to score all that Maybelline. Uncle Jay explains it all!
Posted in Uncle Jay Explains the News | No Comments »
