Alphonso Jackson’s Resignation; More Bush Corruption
“There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me.”
To me that translates into I need to focus on getting an attorney. The Bush administration is so marred in scandal and cronyism that family reasons is a joke. And yes, Jackson is another stellar citizen from Texas. Jackson and Bush go back to 1995, when Bush appointed Jackson to the Texas Southern University Board of Regents. In 2001, Bush brought Jackson to D.C. as HUD’s Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer.
Jackson has been under investigation for some time and he has even been asked to resign by Sen. Frank Lautenberg after Jackson made the following statement in a speech at the Real Estate Executive Council:
“He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years,” Jackson said of the prospective contractor. “He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something … he said, ‘I have a problem with your president.’
“I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I don’t like President Bush.’ I thought to myself, ‘Brother, you have a disconnect — the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn’t be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don’t tell the secretary.’
“He didn’t get the contract,” Jackson continued. “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”
Sen. Frank Lautenberg called on President Bush to ask for the immediate resignation of the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson if a report about government contracts being awarded based on the contractor’s opinion of President Bush are accurate.
In addition, Reps. Henry Waxman and Barney Frank called for a full investigation.
- “The Bush Administration has a track record of rewarding its friends and ignoring the rules,” said Rep. Waxman, Ranking Member of the House Government Reform Committee. “The government has no right to blatantly withhold contracts simply because an American citizen dislikes the President. This raises new questions about the integrity and judgment of the Bush Administration.”
- “Politics has no place in the awarding of federal contracts. If the report in the Dallas Business Journal is accurate – and it is a highly respected publication – then President Bush must repudiate these comments, reverse HUD’s course and assure the American people that politics plays no role in the government contracting process,” said Rep. Frank, Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee.
Jackson is no stranger to investigations, for some time Jackson has had the FBI and HUD Inspector General Kenneth Donohue on his tail.
- In September 2006, Donohue rendered his verdict in a lengthy report: Although Jackson had, in fact, urged senior aides to consider the political views of contractors in doling out department business, “no direct evidence” linked political favoritism to such awards. Jackson, it seemed, had dodged a bullet.
- But perhaps not, because federal investigators are once again on Jackson’s trail. And this time, the investigation seems more serious. Donohue’s investigators are now working with the FBI, a federal grand jury in Washington, and prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. The investigation appears to focus, in part, on whether Jackson misled Congress when he testified earlier this year that he had never intervened in awarding HUD contracts. “I don’t touch contracts,” the HUD boss told a Senate panel on May 3.
- Investigators are exploring whether Jackson, despite that testimony, had actually lined up a contract at the HUD-controlled Housing Authority of New Orleans, or HANO, for a golfing buddy and social friend from Hilton Head Island, S.C. The friend, William Hairston, was paid more than $485,000 for working at HANO during an 18-month period, according to figures provided by HUD and a former HANO official. The work was not competitively bid.
- In an interview, Hairston, a stucco contractor, said that Jackson had indeed helped him land the job at HANO. He said that the New Orleans housing agency, which HUD manages under receivership, was struggling to repair and rehab its housing units in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and needed a construction manager. “The secretary asked me if I would go to New Orleans and help them out,” Hairston told National Journal.
Bush administration bullies just keep on coming and they still don’t get the concept of email tracking. In a recent Washington Post article, the Philadelphia Housing Director, Carl Greene says federal housing officials threatened his agency’s funding.
After Philadelphia’s housing director refused a demand by President Bush’s housing secretary to transfer a piece of city property to a business friend, two top political appointees at the department exchanged e-mails discussing the pain they could cause the Philadelphia director.
“Would you like me to make his life less happy? If so, how?” Orlando J. Cabrera, then-assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wrote about Philadelphia housing director Carl R. Greene.
“Take away all of his Federal dollars?” responded Kim Kendrick, an assistant secretary who oversaw accessible housing. She typed symbols for a smiley-face, “:-D,” at the end of her January 2007 note.
Cabrera wrote back a few minutes later: “Let me look into that possibility.”
On the date these e-mails were sent, HUD notified the housing authority that it had been found in violation of rules requiring that 5 percent of housing be accessible to disabled residents. The department later argued that because the authority refused to acknowledge it was in violation and to agree to a specific remedy, it was in violation of a broader agreement that put $50 million in federal funding in jeopardy.
I’m sure Bush corruption, threats and cronyism will continue right up to the end of his sorry administration. In January 2009, when they hit the dusty trail, they’ll bring their trash to Texas. Thank god its a big state.
More articled on Jackson and HUD
HUD Probe Heats Up; By Edward T. Pound, National Journal; Friday, Dec. 14, 2007
A Helping Hand; Edward T. Pound, National Journal; Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007
