BlueBloggin

Yes, another stellar Bush appointee has lived down to his potential. The FBI raided U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch‘s office and home seizing computers and documents to see if Bloch destroyed evidence potentially showing he retaliated against his own staff. .

In 2005, Scott Bloch was put in charge of the Office of Special Counsel which is suppose to protect the three million federal government employee against job discrimination, retaliation for whistle-blowing, political hackery,  secrecy, and partisanship. Unfortunately, Scott Bloch is a gay-hating, secretive, partisan, political hack.

During his tenure, Scott Bloch has blocked the ability of government employees to turn in their bosses for wrongdoing. I’m sure this conduct has pleased Bush; who has spent years replacing the government’s inspectors general for investigating whistleblower complaints against partisan hacks. Bloch’s agenda created more waste, more fraud, and more abuse of taxpayer dollars. It also means less accountability for Bush-administration appointees who pursue their own ideologically driven prejudices.

Bloch, a Bush loyalist, supposedly had big plans for a sweeping probe of the Bush administration and the activities Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales. None have been investigated. What a freaking joke.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko confirmed that agents with the FBI and White House Office of Personnel Management executed “a number of court authorized federal search warrants today” but declined further comment.

Jim Mitchell, communications director with the Office of the Special Counsel, confirmed the search of Bloch’s work area and computers. He said the office was cooperating with the investigation.

The raids mark the latest twist in what critics describe as Bloch’s bizarre tenure at the head of the federal agency responsible for protecting the rights of federal workers and ensuring that government whistle-blowers are not subjected to reprisals.

He has been on the hot seat since he took office in 2004, in part for closing hundreds of whistle-blower cases allegedly without investigating them.

“It’s like finding out that your town fire chief is an arsonist,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Protection, a whistle-blower group.

“It’s just sort of jaw-dropping how bizarre this entire episode has been.”

A group of current and former Office of Special Counsel workers filed a complaint against Bloch in 2005, accusing him of retaliating against those who opposed with his policies through intimidation and involuntary transfers. The employees also accused Bloch of refusing to protect federal workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

A year later, in December 2006, Bloch paid $1,149 in taxpayer money to have an outside tech company, Geeks on Call, scrub his government laptop computer, according to transcripts of an interview he gave to House investigators in March. At that time, Bloch told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff that the data wipe was done to protect government and personal information on the computer, not to destroy it.

• Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, the top Republican on the House panel, asked Democrats to subpoena Bloch for his sworn testimony and personal e-mails that could clarify what was destroyed. He suggested Bloch “misused his government computer for personal business.”

“The e-mails were essential in determining whether Mr. Bloch had used his computer for inappropriate purposes,” Davis wrote in a letter Tuesday to House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Tuesday’s raids were done in connection to a criminal investigation of whether Bloch obstructed justice and, potentially, lied to Congress, according to the law enforcement officials.

Posted by nytexan May 6th, 2008 | Category: Corruption, crimes, GOP, Politics, Scott Bloch | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL