Early yesterday, Bernie Hund noted that the Office of Special Council’s offices were raided by the FBI, serving subpoenas on several employees and the office chief, Scott Bloch.
Today we have learned that in total 17 subpoenas were issued, and that a total of 20 FBI agents removed computers and documents from the offices. In an update from the Washington Post
Bloch, who was nominated to his post by President Bush in 2003, is the principal official responsible for protecting federal employees from reprisals for complaints about waste and fraud. He also polices violations of Hatch Act prohibitions on political activities in federal offices.
Bloch has long been a target of criticism, some of it by his agency’s career officials, but the FBI’s abrupt seizure of computers and records marked a substantial escalation of the executive branch’s probe of his conduct. Retired FBI agents and former prosecutors called the raid an unusual, if not unprecedented, intrusion on the work of a federal agency.
Agents from the Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general’s office, who have been investigating Bloch for more than two years, visited his home on Stockade Drive in Alexandria yesterday. They left carrying boxes of files.
According to a Kansas attorney who once worked in offices near Bloch, recalled that on at least two occasions the Bush administration had asked for Bloch’s resignation. Neither the White House nor Bloch’s attorney have commented.
What happened and when?
The agents from the FBI’s Washington Field Office arrived around 10:30 a.m., just as senior staff members had begun their weekly management meeting. Deputy Special Counsel James Byrne later told employees that they were not the targets of criminal investigators, who were interested in Bloch’s conduct, according to two witnesses.
Byrne instructed workers to notify him if Bloch attempted to contact them for any reason, said the witnesses, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared becoming ensnared in the case.
“The subpoena is very broad, and it covers a lot of territory,” special counsel spokesman James P. Mitchell told reporters outside the agency’s locked offices. “We’re all just standing back and watching the agents do their work.”
That was yesterday. Today we have learned
The files the FBI asked to view yesterday include documents relating to Bloch’s recent investigation of Lurita Alexis Doan, who resigned last week as General Services Administration chief at the White House’s request. Agents also asked for files from a now-closed investigation into the travel of then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice before the 2004 election, according to a person who saw the search warrants and subpoenas.
Many of those under investigation are suspected of Hatch Act violations. According to NPR’s update
One subpoena demanded information about Bloch’s 2004 investigation into whether Rice violated the Hatch Act by using federal money to campaign for President Bush’s re-election. Bloch found no wrongdoing by Rice.
Another subpoena focused on Lurita Doan, who resigned last week as head of the General Services Administration. Bloch’s office had been investigating Doan. The White House asked her to resign amid accusations that she gave contracts to friends and abused her office for political purposes.
Additionally, it is reported that
The man handling the OSC inquiry has an unusual background for a federal prosecutor: NPR has learned that James Mitzelfeld is the man who signed off on the subpoenas.
In 1994, Mitzelfeld won a Pulitzer Prize as a reporter for The Detroit News, where he uncovered spending abuses at Michigan’s House Fiscal agency. Mitzelfeld went on to work in Detroit’s U.S. attorney’s office; he is now at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C.
Mitzelfeld also subpoenaed information about a woman at OSC named Rebecca McGinley. According to sources, the subpoena refers to a problem with compensatory time that McGinley logged during a special assignment a year and a half ago.
Despite the stream of subpoenas, no one has been charged with a crime in the case.
Yet… No one has been charged with a crime yet. And, if the present administration can get a handle on this, there will be no criminal charges. We know how the guilty in Washington circle the wagons and protect their own. Please note that the top names in question are all Bush appointees. With 261 days left of the present administration, they may have time to fend off the attacks… or any charges.
Bloch has been criticized by career staffers almost since day one. I wonder why…
Bloch has been a controversial figure ever since taking over the Office of Special Counsel in 2004. One of his first official actions was to refuse to investigate any claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation.
When the news of his refusal was leaked to the press, career employees in his office say, Bloch blamed them for the leak. He retaliated, the employees said, by creating a new field office in Detroit and forcing them either to accept assignments there or resign.
The Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general has been looking into allegations that Bloch retaliated against career employees and obstructed an investigation.
And, as we mentioned yesterday, calling in the “Geeks on Call” to scrub the hard drives was bound to raise eyebrows.
Investigators are looking into whether the purge was meant to destroy evidence related to the current investigation.
Well, Mr. Bloch is probably wishing he could purge more than physical evidence at this time. And, I’m betting Bush would like to purge Bloch. To repeat yesterday’s post… Another one bites the dust.
