IGs form front line of war on waste and fraud, but weak links remain | WashingtonExamin... - 0 views
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The ambassador to Belgium, a big campaign bundler for President Obama, was accused of soliciting sex in a park near the U.S. Embassy in Brussels. Members of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security detail were accused of hiring prostitutes, and a State Department security official in Beirut “engaged in sexual assaults” on foreign nationals, according to the complaints. The Diplomatic Security Service, a law enforcement branch of the State Department, tried to investigate the underlying charges but was blocked by top agency managers including Kennedy and Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to Hillary Clinton, according to whistleblower allegations that surfaced later.
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DSS agents reported the interference to the inspector general’s office, which confirmed the pressure from the top. A draft IG report written in November 2012 described the underlying cases of misconduct and the strong-arm tactics used by top managers to block the DSS investigations. But that draft report was not made public. Instead, it was shown to top State Department officials who wanted it scrubbed of damaging information. “This is going to kill us,” one top agency official reportedly said upon seeing the draft report, according to CBS News. When the final IG report was issued in February 2013, it made no mention of the individual cases or of management pressure to kill the DSS probes. Instead, the IG report blandly stated that DSS “lacks a firewall” to prevent management interference with DSS investigations.
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The more candid draft report was leaked by an investigator inside the IG’s office to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and to CBS News. Rep. Ed Royce, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, demanded copies of the draft report and details about the specific cases of misconduct. The IG’s office refused to provide the information. “There is every indication that critical information was missing from the IG report submitted to Congress,” Royce told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. “And whether it was State’s pressure to remove it or Geisel’s unwillingness to include it, the result is the same. We are not, as required by law, kept fully and currently informed. The bottom line is when federal agencies lack a Senate-confirmed, independent inspector general, the potential for malfeasance really abounds,” he said.
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